"The Call"

Okay, the red head is back by popular demand!

This past week has been met with a lot of thinking about all kinds of fronts. I won't bore everyone with all the thoughts, but I'll throw one out which will hopefully make for good comments/discussion.

I often get asked what I feel my "call" is in ministry. Sometimes the response to that question flows out a lot easier than other times. A while back, someone asked me if I felt called to Student ministry (Jr. High and High School). My first reaction was "no", but when I started really thinking about it, I'm not sure if that's the right answer.

Christ gives us the call when He says, "As you go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you (Matthew 18:19). Based on that, I would say "the call" is for glory...His glory....

So back to the original question that I was asked, "Do you feel called to student ministry". I think I have to answer that with a question of my own, "Does God call us to student ministry" or does He call us to the Body of Christ? As I look through the Scriptures, I don't see anywhere where it describes a teacher of any kind teaching, or being called, to a specific age group. I think "student ministry" and other age division type ministries are more of a modern way of doing ministry (and by modern a mean in the past few hundred years).

Here's a different way of thinking about it. Have you ever heard about a worship leader being asked if he's called to acoustic guitar? It sounds silly, but I would say it's the same concept.

Now, I'm sure someone is reading this and saying "My giftings/experiences fit a certain age group better" or "I have a passion for a certain age group". I can agree with that, as mine would be college students, young singles, and parents of high school students. However, that's an audience that I have learned to love and developed a passion for over time. I wouldn't say that I'm "called" to that audience. Had I not had some kind of experience, or work with them in the past, I don't know if that passion would exist for that age group.

I really think that we are focused more on making a right decision as to what our calling is with only data, and not accounting for what we can be taught through experience, that we limit what areas God wants to stretch us in. And maybe, just maybe, in that stretching we learn to love a new age group that we never felt called to before (mission trips and Vacation Bible School are a great example of this).

For the record, I'm not saying that it is beyond God to call us to go certain places at certain times, it's certainly not. But as I read Matthew 18:19 and Philippians 4:18 (The key word in this passage is "whatever", which brings freedom!) I think we have a hard time seeing the freedom that we have in ministry. I'm not talking about roles that require a spiritual gift such as the pastoral role, I'm talking about the people that have a gifting in a certain area, but don't use it because they're not sure if they are "called to a certain age group". They don’t enter a certain role out of fear or lack of experience and use the term “I don’t feel called to that”. However, maybe you do give it a shot and find that you don’t like a certain age or don’t feel comfortable with that age, or you aren’t connecting with a certain age. I think that’s a different post…

So, is this a post about semantics or is it a post of our terminology matching up with theology? I don't know, but I think it makes for interesting conversation. So as I've heard someone say before "Talk amongst yourselves".........