To Be or Not to Be an Astrophysicist, a Plumber, Gospel Worker, or Church Planter? (3)

Questions To Think About If You Are Considering Training For Gospel Ministry

The central question of this four-part series of articles has been how to think about whether or not to be an astrophysicist, a plumber, a gospel worker, or a church planter. In Part 1, we considered the questions of gifts, character, and resilience. In Part 2, we looked at mistakes that are sometimes made in terms of thinking about ‘ordinary’ work and gospel work. In this article (Part 3), we reflect upon the sort of questions we should think about if we are considering training for gospel ministry. Key among them are…

Character

Do you have the character that is required? Read Titus 1:6–9, and notice the kind of character that is required, and the strong focus on character, responsibility, integrity of life, and tried experience.

Gifts

Do you have the gifts that are required? Do you have the gifts of teaching, explaining, training people, helping people learn, helping people grow, theological clarity, and the ability to encourage believers by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it? (See Titus 1:9, and read all of 1 and 2 Timothy!) If you cannot explain things in ways that others can understand, then you are not yet fitted for a ministry of the word.

Love for People

Have you learnt to love people? It is not enough to love ministry, or love truth, or love teaching or preaching. We have to learn to love people, for without love, we are nothing and achieve nothing, however wonderful our gifts (1 Corinthians 13:2,3)!

Secret Sin

Have you a secret sin which you have not dealt with? If you have, it will disable your ministry, and destroy your ability to do effective ministry. Get some help, make yourself accountable to one or two responsible people, and ask for their support and prayers.

Readiness to Die and Live

Have you learnt to die to sin and to live to righteousness, to put to death things that are wrong, and to put into practice what is right? Doing ministry brings even more opportunities for sin, so you need to be well trained in living to God’s glory.

Resilience

Do you have the resilience required for ministry? It is not a good idea to do trained gospel ministry if:

You are not able to cope with criticism, rejection, or lack of affirmation, or cannot deal with conflict.
You need to be needed. For this will mean that you do ministry to meet you own needs, not in order to help others or honour God.
You are not able to work wisely: if you are a perfectionist, if you take on too many tasks, if you cannot so say ‘no’ to requests for help, if you cannot organise yourself, if you are lazy, if you can be very busy but are not able to prioritise your life and get important things done, if you put off difficult tasks, etc.
You do not have the “people-smarts”, that is, the understanding of how to relate to people, how they function, how they change, how they respond, how to encourage, challenge, and grow them.
You are not able to cope with hard work, and with the personal pressures of ministry along with your other responsibilities.
You do not have the flexibility or the imagination to be “all things to all people, that you might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:23). You must be able to serve people who are not like you, people with a different background, different character, different life experience, different race or culture.
You do not have a good track record of Christian ministry in your present life.
You have not learned to be financially responsible, including handling your own money, and being able to handle money given for ministry, including responsibility and accountability, working within budgets, and being good stewards of what people donate.
If you are married, and your spouse does not support you in this idea, or your marriage would not flourish if you went ahead.
When you talk to friends and people you know about the possibility, they do not encourage you to follow it up.
Your sense of call from God is not supported by fellow-believers and Christian leaders who know you well.