the calling

Looking for a church with a powerful preacher? Are you a church looking for a new pastor?

While character, competency, and chemistry with existing leadership and staff are all important, the most important factor of all is calling. Simply put, if the man in the pulpit—or the one you’re considering putting in the pulpit—is not called by God, then I advise you to look elsewhere.

If a man isn’t called to pastor a church, then I don’t care how godly he is, how competent he is, and how much chemistry he might have with people. Calling trumps everything.

Frankly, if a man isn’t called by God to shepherd a group of people he has no business doing it. He might be effective—maybe even very effective—but if he doesn’t have the call of God to do what he’s doing, then, well, he ought to be doing something else.

Why? Because God has gifted and called him to do something else, something that betters fits his spiritual gifts and passions.1 If he or the church leaders have misread his calling the man’s not playing to his strengths, and the inevitable result is ministry that’s not as effective as it could be.

Ministry is not a job, it’s a calling. I say again, if a man isn’t called by God to pastor a church and all the things that it requires, then he should move on. Or, if you’re under his leadership, you should strongly consider finding another church.

Blunt? Oh yeah. Harsh? Maybe just a tad. Unbiblical? Not at all.

Jeremiah was an Old Testament prophet called by God to preach to his fellow Jews. Unfortunately, his message wasn’t well-received and the overwhelming majority of people rejected both him and his message.

After complaining to the Lord a little, Jeremiah says this:

“But if I say, ‘I will not mention (God) or speak any more in his name,’ his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.”2

Now this is a man who’s called by God to preach. He can try all he wants to hold it inside and not say anything, but he can’t. It’s “like a fire” inside of him and, at the end of the day, he can’t stop speaking on behalf of God.

I say again, this is the kind of man you want in the pulpit, someone who has a divine compulsion to preach and teach. And if no one will hire him, then he’ll do it on a street corner and anywhere else he can find.

If a man would be satisfied being in the business world, teaching youth or doing anything else then he shouldn’t be in the pulpit. The man in the pulpit should be called by the Creator of the universe to do exactly what he’s being asked to do.

So are you looking for a church with a powerful preacher? Then look for someone with a divine compulsion, a man who has no choice but to preach and teach God’s Word.

Are you looking for a new pastor? Then look for someone like Jeremiah, who’s divinely called to preach and teach Scripture.

Settling for anything less is, well, less. And why in the world would we do that?

“But if I say, ‘I will not mention (God) or speak any more in his name,’ his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.

1  See Romans 12:4-8 & 1 Corinthians 12

2  Jeremiah 20:9