The following article was taken from http://www.joethorn.net/2007/05/08/so-youre-thinking-of-being-a-pastor
1. Don’t.
If you can do anything outside of the pastorate and find satisfaction in it - do that. Full time, vocational ministry - and the pastorate in particular - is difficult and places unique pressures on your life, marriage and family. Even those who are called by God to serve in this way must be very careful to manage one’s life and house well.
2. Go to a liberal arts college.
If you are young and thinking
3. Get the best theological and ministry training possible.
And that may not be the seminary. I am still a supporter of our seminaries - especially places like RTS, Trinity and Southern. But there are other options as well. More churches are now offering training to prepare people for pastoral ministry and depending on where and who you are, alternative models may work better for you. Whatever your choice, get the best education and preparation for ministry possible.
4. Check with your wife.
If you are married, and God calls you to pastoral ministry, he will call your wife as well. This does not mean that she will immediately share the vision or even like the idea. But it does mean that your family comes first, and if God wants you to lead the church he will lead your wife to support you in this calling.
5. Check with your church.
Talk to your pastor about your desire. Can he affirm your sense of calling? Does the church agree that you should pursue this? They are the ones who should be best equipped to assess your qualifications and character. If your church cannot see you functioning in that role it should give you considerable pause.
6. Determine your calling.
Is the pastorate something you think you can do, or is it something you believe God says you must do? I am one of those guys who believes God calls us to specific vocations. Our spiritual gifts, abilities and God’s design for each person is unique and extends to what we do “for a living.” How can you know if God wants you to go into the ministry? Though this is a bit simplistic there are three things to begin with: 1) Do you have an unquenchable, passionate desire to do the work? This of course assumes you know what the work actually is. It is not simply preaching sermons on Sunday. 2) Do you bear fruit when you engage in the work related to this calling (teaching, leading, serving, etc.)? 3) Does your local church affirm your calling? If you can answer yes to these questions be encouraged.
7. Pray.
Honestly, far too many assume that they should go to seminary or into pastoral ministry without really talking to God about it. Labor in prayer over this. It is no small idea or decision.
8. Talk to pastors you respect.
Get the insider’s perspective. Find out from them first-hand what makes ministry so hard. Ask these men to give you reasons not to be a pastor and take those answers to heart. Seek counsel as you move forward following God’s will. As you prepare for pastoral ministry it is critical that you remain connected to the church and her leadership. It is easy to blow your 3 years in seminary, disconnected from the local church, while wrapped up in the classroom and library.
9. Read. A lot.
As you consider this calling - read. While in college - read. It is especially important that you read while in seminary, but read well beyond what is required of you. Read where the seminary leaves off. Determine what is missing and fill in the gaps. Again, seek the counsel of your pastor(s) and men you respect for advice here.
10. Get Real.
When most guys are thinking about pastoring a church they envision themselves pastoring churches like Mars Hill, Tenth Pres’, etc. We tend to dream big (as we should), but the reality is that most of the guys who go into the ministry will pastor relatively small churches. I am not suggesting that anyone think small and avoid anticipating God’s powerful work. I am suggesting that you have expectations that are birthed by God and his word that are aimed at your particular context and not another’s. Do not hijack someone else’s vision, but have an eye for what God can do in the city or town he sends you to.
Recommended reading for those considering and pursuing the office of pastor:
Note: I do not necessarily agree with everything in each of these books. In fact I take issue with a number of things in many of these volumes, but in each is something so important that it merits reading thoughtfully.
The Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter
Spiritual Leadership by J. Oswald Sanders
An Earnest Ministry by John Angell James or Lectures to My Students by Charles Spurgeon
The Christian Ministry by Charles Bridges
Two good sermons on this topic are:
Albert Barnes Commentary on the verse 1 Corinthians 9:16
ReplyDelete1 Corinthians 9:16 For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!
For necessity is laid upon me. My preaching is in a manner inevitable, and cannot therefore be regarded as that in which I peculiarly glory. I was called into the ministry in a miraculous manner; I was addressed personally by the Lord Jesus; I was arrested when I was a persecutor; I was commanded to go and preach; I had a direct commission from heaven. There was no room for hesitancy or debate on the subject, (Ga 1:16,) and I gave myself at once and entirely to the work, Ac 9:6. I have been urged to this by a direct call from heaven; and to yield obedience to this call cannot be regarded as evincing such an inclination to give myself to this work as if the call had been in the usual mode, and with less decided manifestations. We are not to suppose that Paul was compelled to preach, or that he was not voluntary in his work, or that he did not prefer it to any other employment: but he speaks in a popular sense, as saying that he "could not help it;" or that the evidence of his call was irresistible, and left no room for hesitation. He was free; but there was not the slightest room for debate on the subject. The evidence of his call was so strong that he could not but yield. Probably none now have evidences of their call to the ministry as strong as this. But there are many, very many, who feel that a kind of necessity is laid on them to preach. Their consciences urge them to it. They would be miserable in any other employment. The course of Providence has shut them up to it. Like Saul of Tarsus, they may have been persecutors, or revilers, or "injurious," or blasphemers, (1Ti 1:13;) or they may, like him, have commenced a career of ambition; or they may have been engaged in some scheme of money-making or of pleasure; and in an hour when they little expected it, they have been arrested by the truth of God, and their attention directed to the gospel ministry. Many a minister has, before entering the ministry, formed many other purposes of life; but the providence of God barred his way, hemmed in his goings, and constrained him to become an ambassador of the cross.
Yea, woe is unto me, etc. I should be miserable and wretched if I did not preach. My preaching, therefore, in itself considered, cannot be a subject of glorying. I am shut up to it. I am urged to it in every way. I should be wretched were I not to do it, and were I to seek any other calling. My conscience would reproach me. My judgment would condemn me. My heart would pain me. I should have no comfort in any other calling; and God would frown upon me. Learn hence,
(1.) That Paul had been converted. Once he had no love for the ministry, but persecuted the Saviour. With the feelings which he then had, he would have been wretched in the ministry; with those which he now had, he would have been wretched out of it. His heart, therefore, had been wholly changed.
(2.) All ministers who are duly called to the work can say the same thing. They would be wretched in any other calling. Their conscience would reproach them. They would have no interest in the plans of the world; in the schemes of wealth, and pleasure, and fame. Their heart is in this work, and in this alone. In this, though amidst circumstances of poverty, persecution, nakedness, cold, peril, sickness, they have comfort. In any other calling, though surrounded by affluence, friends, wealth, honours, pleasures, gaiety, fashion, they would be miserable.
(3.) A man whose heart is not in the ministry, and who would be as happy in any other calling, is not fit to be an ambassador of Jesus Christ. Unless his heart is there, and he prefers that to any other calling, he should never think of preaching the gospel.
(4.) Men who leave the ministry, and voluntarily devote themselves to some other calling when they might preach, never had the proper spirit of an ambassador of Jesus. If for the sake of ease or gain; if to avoid the cares and anxieties of the life of a pastor; if to make money, or secure money when made; if to cultivate a farm, to teach a school, to write a book, to live upon an estate, or to enjoy life, they lay aside the ministry, it is proof that they never had a call to the work. So did not Paul; and so did not Paul's Master and ours. They loved the work, and they left it not till death. Neither for ease, honour, nor wealth; neither to avoid care, toil, pain, or poverty, did they cease in their work, until the one could say, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith," (2Ti 4:7;) and the other, "I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do," Joh 17:4.
(5.) We see the reason why men are sometimes miserable in other callings. They should have entered the ministry. God called them to it; and they became hopefully pious. But they chose the law, or the practice of medicine, or chose to be farmers, merchants, teachers, professors, or statesmen. And God withers their piety, blights their happiness, follows them with the reproaches of conscience, makes them sad, melancholy, wretched. They do no good; and they have no comfort in life. Every man should do the will of God, and then every man would be happy.
{a} "necessity" Jer 1:17; 20:9