Growing in Christ
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A Life Towards Pastoral Ministry, Part 2
31 month ago
This is Part 2 in a series of three posts I’m doing consisting of a paper I was recently assigned to write on the prompt: “Write a letter giving counsel to young men on how to prepare for pastoral ministry and steward their sense of call.” I used Psalm 23 as a motif of how to think through a life aimed at pursuing a call to pastoral ministry. You can read Part 1 here, and Part 3 here. The full paper will be available for download as a PDF on Friday.
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Now let’s look at verse 4:
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
The Christian life is at its core a brutal thing. There is a mean streak in authentic Christianity[1] that looks sin square in the face, and wishes death upon it. But the source of that death is not the knife, or execution block, but the cross of Christ. It is the death of Christ that puts the sting of evil to death. I have found this reality to occur in two ways in my life:
First, In the sanctifying work of the Spirit. Though David is likely speaking about physical and spiritual peril in general, there is a legitimate application of this metaphor to the experience of sin in the soul, certainly a manifestation of death’s shadow. I have increasingly grown to know my own heart’s corruptions, and the inky shadow of sin therein most intensely around the question of calling. I used to think that fear of man was something that other people struggled with. How foolish! The more I think about the nature of pastoral ministry and think through the question of pastoral calling, increasingly I see how my heart uses it as a pretext to comparisons, presumptions, judgmental indictments, panderings for approval and acceptance. This is where my heart goes: I do not long for the Lord to bring about his perfect timing and plan for pastoral ministry, I must take charge, and when I take charge that which rules my heart rules my understanding. I long for the approval and respect due to a pastor. So I use words and deeds to manipulate people into giving me what my idols demand. In effect, I’ve stopped treating them like the Lord is their shepherd. Rather, my sinful heart proclaims: Jacob is their shepherd, and they shall serve me in perpetual want to see me satisfied! Thereby, in my sin I treat them not like people, but idolatry pawns. Oh the fiery sanctifying work of seeing this dark reality in my soul.
You will face this too. Your sin patterns may not be the same as mine, but you will see those deep-seated, dark areas that the Lord Jesus died to cleanse. So here remember this great reality: Fear not, for the power of sin is defeated in Christ, and even though he leads you to see the shadow of death in your heart, do not fear it, for the love of Christ conquers it by the power of the Spirit[2]. Slay those sinful roots by repenting at the foot of the cross of your Savior. Behold him and adore him. A mere repentance by staring sin in the face won’t do anything. Behold the face of your Savior dying for your sin, and meditate upon his glories. Think on his love for you to take you place under the wrath of the father. Think upon his generous, gregarious grace that welcomes you with constant mercy and love. In meditating upon him, the Spirit gives grace for more strength and obedience[3].
Second, In the sweet and bitter providence of suffering. It is not for nothing that Christians have throughout the ages attested to the lessons they learn in suffering that no book can fully teach. If you live long enough, you will suffer. And the Lord will still be good. It is in these moments that you will need the grace of Christ to turn to God and pray, Your rod and your staff comfort me – For you are with me. However, consider that not only is your life as a Christian a call to suffering, but so too is the call to pastoral ministry[4]. You are called to suffer[5], like our Savior, the pain of sin and death so that the life, grace, and love of Christ might be manifested in the lives of his people. Are you willing to be the man who marches into the valley of the shadow of death, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to minister to Christ’s people? Sin and suffering are messy. Ask yourself if you’re willing to be used by God in the mess. If you are, to prepare for the messiness of ministry, learn to listen and be with those in suffering. Do not be quick to tell people what to do with their suffering[6]. In your youth, listen. Pay attention to where God is working in their souls through those times, have eyes looking for Christ’s footprints, and seek to speak to them the comforts of a suffering king who walks with them through pain and sorrow[7]. As you see the grace of God in your life learn to lean on Jesus Christ. Lean heavily on the God of all comforts[8] so that you will know how to comfort others. If you learn these lessons, you will learn how to pastorally apply Paul’s simple command: Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep[9].
[1] Ed Welch, Additions: A Banquet in the Grave: “There is a mean streak to authentic self-control… Self-control is not for the timid. When we want to grow in it, not only do we nurture an exuberance for Jesus Christ, we also demand of ourselves a hatred for sin.. The only possible attitude toward out-of-control desire is a declaration of all-out war… There is something about war that sharpens the senses… You hear a twig snap or the rustling of leaves and you are in attack mode. Someone coughs and you are ready to pull the trigger. Even after days of little of no sleep, war keeps us vigilant.” (p. 225) – quoted in How to Kill Sin, Part 2 by John Piper, preached February 17, 2002.
[2] If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. (Romans 8:13)
[3] And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)
[4] But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. (2 Corinthians 4:7-12 ESV)
[5] Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 2:3)
[6] Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; (James 1:19)
[7] He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. (Isaiah 53:3)
[8] Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)
A Life Towards Pastoral Ministry, Part 1
62 months ago
When I was in high school, I had a sense that maybe the Lord was drawing me into pastoral ministry. That was 10 years ago, and the Lord has done a lot in my life since then. Along the way I’ve had major and minor theological shifts, and my understanding of what pastoral ministry is has matured. Even through all of these changes, I still think I think I might be called to pastoral ministry.
But that’s not really the most important thing here. In a man’s life there is the category of being a Christian, and the category of being a pastor (which not all men are called to), but the area in between is a bit nebulous. What does it look like to pursue pastoral ministry? A man is supposed to be humble, but how does he remain humble and pursue something so… forward and public? This is a category that seems under-served in my estimation in the available literature.
What follows is a paper I was recently assigned to write with the prompt: “Write a letter giving counsel to young men on how to prepare for pastoral ministry and steward their sense of call.” In thinking through the major lessons I’ve learned over the years in wrestling with the question “Am I called?” I settled on Psalm 23 as my motif. One of the pastors at our church, Jim Donohue, has had a massive impact on my life in caring for me and helping me think through this question. Years of investing and discipleship. I mention him because he’s not footnoted, but he’s on virtually every page. I putting this paper up with the hope that it serves other men thinking through the questions of pastoral ministry. Over the years I’ve found the question “Am I called?” to be a richer question than I’d expected, and not nearly demanding the sort of frantic answering and panicked solutions that so often plague my mind. If you’re called, you’re called – trust the Lord. If you’re not called to pastoral ministry, trust the Lord. This is his Church after all. Along these lines, books that have been helpful to me in thinking through this question are resourced bellow.
The original paper I wrote will be in three parts, with a final post available at the end of the week with the full paper downloadable by .pdf for those interested.
Without further ado:
The Lord is my Shepherd
A life towards pastoral calling
By Jacob Young
To my brothers,
I pray for you regularly and hope that you are doing well. As our time together changes into a new season, I wanted to take a few moments to share some thoughts with you about the pursuit of pastoral calling – something I know is a desire of both of your hearts. What I want to do here is simply walk you through the 23rd Psalm and apply it to a life thinking about pastoral ministry. I have, of course, not arrived, nor seen if in fact the Lord is calling me into pastoral ministry. But this I have known: The Lord is the ruler of my heart, and the Shepherd of my desires to serve him. The joys I have learned through my own process have been less about clarity of calling, and more about seeing and savoring Jesus Christ more passionately. I hope that some flavor of this is communicated through these meditations.
With that in mind, let’s begin with verses 1-3:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
David begins with this great governing reality over the Christian life: The Lord is my shepherd. This Lord is the one who promised his unfading, longsuffering, all sufficient grace and love to his people as their assurance of his promises. Is this not a staggering thought? The God of the universe stoops down and promises to shepherd, to protect, guide, and provide for a rag-tag group of people in the back-wood hills of the Middle East? He might as well have picked some unknown village in Montana! The foundation of claiming the Lord as shepherd is his own self-initiated grace[1]. The assurance we have that God will pull through with his grace to be my shepherd is that God built his promises upon himself – God is faithful to God, therefore he will be faithful to be my shepherd because he promises it.
This foundation of God’s faithfulness to God taps into a massive, powerful spring of life for the young man thinking about pastoral ministry. On the one hand, he sees that the call to pastoral ministry is a noble calling[2], that it shouldn’t be trifled with, and that those who are pastors are scrutinized more closely by God[3]. He might rightly tremble and whisper, “Who is sufficient for these things?[4]” But we must continually return to God’s promises being grounded in God as strength for the effectiveness of Christ’s ministry through us.
Over the years of the Lord’s leading in my life in thinking through the difficult questions of pastoral calling, I have known many dark moments and doubts. Am I wasting my time thinking about pastoral ministry? Will I ever have clarity about pastoral calling? Why would anybody want to follow me for their pastor? So-and-so is much more effective/useful/gifted/charismatic/etc. than I will ever be. These are all questions I’ve wrestled with, and the Lord himself has shepherded me through them to find the joy of simple faith in Jesus, to be satisfied with my Great Shepherd, to not occupy my mind with those plans of God for my life that are too hidden up in the mind of God for me to know[5]. It is in this reality of knowing that the Lord leads us and uses these desires for pastoral ministry, ambitions for the kingdom work of Christ, and mighty dreams to storm the fortresses of the World to guide us and quiet our souls in Christ. If anxiety rules your heart about the question of pastoral ministry, it is because you are not fully satisfied with your master – He leads you beside still waters. Questioning if you’re called or not should not rock your world, and if it does, it’s a good sign that there is an idol you’re serving (like Gollum’s precious). Jesus restores your soul – idols will always leave you wanting. The more you simply want Jesus and to make him look great, the simpler your desires are and the more content you are with wherever he places you to serve.
Knowing the Lord as your Shepherd means that you are a sheep. Sheep have no rights, they are absolutely governed by the will of their shepherd. Here I would underline this to help you think through realities of calling, office, and service. If there is a call to pastoral ministry on your life, you are called to an office that is fundamentally about serving; and service location and type is directed by Christ. Dream a dream of where to serve the Lord, but more fundamentally hold out the reality that you are called to serve wherever the need is, and that those needs are under the governance and providence of Christ. Lift up and work through your desires to serve Christ’s people; hold loosely your plans for how to do it. The Shepherd leads. Learn to be a good sheep and follow wherever he goes. Remember this, the Shepherd knows his sheep, and he knows the gifts he’s given you[6]. He won’t waste your gifting. Learn to be joyfully content with where the Lord is applying your gifting in faithful service. When you feel discontentment, you can be assured that you’re doing something wrong – rest your soul and dreams in Christ, and keep in step with the Spirit’s work in your life. In faithful service and use of gifting, you’re glorifying God to your maximum potential with your season of life exactly where he has you serving him in his church right now.
The path of thinking through pastoral ministry is fundamentally concerned with learning the man God has made you to be, the gifts God has given you, and how the Lord intends to lead you in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. The only reason to become a pastor is because the Great Pastor has instated you for that function in his flock[7]. Pastoral ministry will primarily be given to helping other people.
[1] It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 7:7-8)
[2] The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. (1 Timothy 3:1)
[3] Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. (James 3:1)
[4] 2 Corinthians 2:16
[5] O LORD, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me. (Psalm 131:1)
[6] “I am the good shepherd. I know my own” (John 10:14)
[7] Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 23:3-4)
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Suggested Resources
Light Christianity
03 years ago
But, verily, I see Christianity is conceived to be more easy and lighter than it is; so that I sometimes think I never knew anything but the letters of that name; for our nature contenteth itself with little in godliness. Our “Lord Lord” seemeth to us ten “Lord-Lords.” Little holiness in our balance is much, because it is our own holiness; and we love to lay small burdens upon our soft natures, and to make a fair court-way to heaven. And I know it were necessary to take more pains than we do, and not to make heaven a city more easily taken than God hath made it. I persuade myself that many runners shall come short, and get a disappointment. Oh! how easy is it to deceive ourselves, and to sleep, and wish that heaven may fall down in our laps! Yet for all my Lord’s glooms, I find Him sweet, gracious, loving, kind; and I want both pen and words to set forth the fairness, beauty, and sweetness of Christ’s love, and the honour of this cross of Christ, which is glorious to me, though the world thinketh shame thereof. I verily think that the cross of Christ would blush and think shame of these thin-skinned worldings, who are so married to their credit that they are ashamed of the sufferings of Christ. O the honour to be scourged and stoned with Christ, and to go through a furious faced death to life eternal! But men would have [security] against Christ’s cross.
Samuel Rutherford, Letters (Carlisle, Banner of Truth Trust), p. 145. (Italics mine.)
A Sweet and Perfumed Cross
03 years ago
As a mild introduction about the context of this wonderful quote, Samuel Rutherford had just been removed from his pastorate in Anworth, Scotland and banished to Aberdeen, Scotland for being a nonconformist. After his hearing, he wrote a letter to a friend from which this quote comes. Here he describes this new cross, the heaviness of leaving his flock behind, and the hope of a restored church in Scotland because of a victorious Savior.
Howbeit Christ’s green cross, newly laid upon me, be somewhat heavy, while I call to mind the many fair days sweet and comfortable to my soul and to the souls of many others and how young ones in Christ are plucked from the breast, and the inheritance of God laid waste; yet that sweet smelled and perfumed cross of Christ is accompanied with sweet refreshments, with the kisses of a King, with the joy of the Holy Ghost, with faith that the Lord hears the sighing of a prisoner, with undoubted hope (as sure as my Lord liveth) after this night to see daylight, and Christ’s sky to clear up again upon me, and his poor [church]; and that in a strange land, among strange faces, He will give favour in the eyes of men to His poor oppressed servant, who dow (thrives) not but love that lovely One, that princely One, Jesus, the Comforter of his soul…[W]elcome, welcome, sweet, sweet and glorious cross of Christ; welcome, sweet Jesus with Thy light cross. Thou hast now gained and gotten all my love from me; keep what Thou has gotten!
Samuel Rutherford, Letters #61, 136-137
John Bradford on our Adoption and Assurance
04 years ago
Last night I was reading some letters by the English Reformer, John Bradford. He was eventually martyred for the faith on July 1, 1555, around 4 a.m. He was a powerful man of the Gospel in an age of great unrest in England. He is not an Owen, or an Edwards, but he was a profound man of God, who knew his Father, loved the Gospel, and gave everything he had for the sake of Christ. I got his collected writings back in November, and since January, have from up his letters from time to time. I initially started reading them because I liked him in general, and so I just started reading through them – they were easy to read, little commitment needed, and refreshing; sort of like lemonade, except, without the lemons, and no water, or sugar. Anyhow, as I started to read through them I was captured by his faith. Here was a man who wrestled with being a Chrisitan. I don’t mean doubts of faith, but wresting with what it means to exist as a Christian. It’s something Kierkegaard wrestled with, and a wrestling I’ve come to grapple with over time. What does it mean, existentially, to be a Christian? How do you live? What is your faith like? How do you approach the world differently?
Anyhow, so I was reading his letters last night, and was deeply struck by number 37 in volume 2 (volume 2, by the way, is almost entirely devoted to his letters). His writing is just dripping with wisdom, and hot with the passion that only a knowledge of God can produce. He knew God, and wrestled with teaching himself the Gospel, which is apparent in his own pastoring of others. So here is the main section of what he wrote in his letter that struck me so deeply (by the way, for those who are like myself and don’t know, “dubitation” simply means “doubt” – it’s the Middle-English version of the word):
This opinion, yea rather certain persuasion, of God your Father through Christ, see that you cherish; and by all means, as well by diligent consideration of his benefits, as of his losing corrections, whether they are inward or outward, see that you nourish it. Know for certain, that as the devil goes about nothing so much as to bring you into doubt whether you are God’s child or no, so whatever shall move you to admit that dubitation, be assured the same comes from the devil. If you feel in yourself not only the want of good things, but also plenty of evil, do not therefore doubt whether you are God’s child in Christ, or no. For if you should believe or doubt, for your goodness’ or illness’ sake, which you feel or feel not, then should you make Christ Jesus, for whose sake only God is your Father either nothing, or else but half Christ. But rather take occasion from your want of good, and your plenty in evil, to go to God as to your Father; and to pray to him, that inasmuch as he commands you to believe that he is your God and Father, so he would give you his good Spirit, that you might feel the same, and live as his child, to his glory. And cease not, upon such prayers, to look for comfort in God’s good time, still hoping the best, and rejecting all dubitation, and all evil works, words, and cogitations, as the Lord shall enable you by his good Spirit and grace, which I beseech him to give unto you, my good sister, for ever.
I was struck by the thought: My doubt of true faith or salvation on the basis of my own feelings, unholiness, and doubt (that self-perpetuating spiral) is, in effect, to call into question the sufficiency, excellency, and potency of Jesus Christ for the salvation of sinners (i.e. me). Christ is so potent as a savior so as to cancel all self-considering doubts of salvation. Should I look at my own sin – of which there are store houses and store houses – and say, “Good grief! I am not a Christian” I am saying that with those words, “Good grief! Christ is half a savior!” And I’m effectively saying that because I am implicitly saying in my own disbelief that Christ did not know all of my sin, cancel its debt to God and hold over me, when he died for me on the cross, and called me to faith. And then Bradford’s move to recognizing sin for what it is as a means of feasting on the Gospel is so powerful to me. It is something I’ve heard, and practiced, but I continually need it. I’m a block head, so I continually need rounding out by Gospel ministry.
So, anyhow, for those 3 people (on a good day) out there who read this meager blog, I’d encourage you to read Bradford’s words, and think over them.
Grace,
~Jacob
