What is the Call to Ministry?

We have two members of our family who are in a serious decision time in their lives. They are in that exciting liminal or threshold point of determining God’s will for their lives. More specifically, these men are praying about what the call of God looks like at the next chapter in their journey of ministry. One is sixteen and a half years-old and ready to wrap up his high school years, and the other is in his late forties and quite familiar with the unfolding of God’s plan for his life. He has a college education and some serious Bible study behind him along with plenty of work and life experiences that have shaped him.

Credit: Jesus Loves Austin
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I have been at a similar juncture several times throughout the last sixty years since I first stood before my home church and surrendered my life for special service. That’s how intentionally broad the commitment to ministry looked like for me as a fifteen-year-old teenager. I had a lot to discover about the dynamic and ever-unfolding will of God that has characterized the calling God has had upon my life!

I have spent years of praying to understand what Frederick Buechner described as “Listening to Your Life.” The head winds of life experiences would season and develop me over the next years. I would learn how God’s design of my ministry gifts, personality, and passion to serve would intersect with many opportunities of service in the local church and community. Even in these years of retirement, I am still learning how to listen to and heed the guidance of that still small voice of God as He fulfills His calling in my life.

What is the call to ministry? Buechner has beautifully described it in lofty, poetic terms as “The place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” (Listening, pp.185-186). There is sufficient latitude in this characterization of ministry to enable movement and application to the unique divine design of each of God’s servants in their specially called settings. I have often identified with this definition as I think of the inexpressible joy of God’s calling upon my life. I could not have dreamed, as a teenager, how and where God would take me on this incredible journey. He has blessed me and I pray, used my life to channel His blessing to others.

I would not be completely honest if I didn’t mention that the call to ministry also has its seasons of discouragement and trials. I understand how the demands of service do test our faith and endurance. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the “Prince of Preachers,” is known for having said of the call to ministry, “If you can do anything else, do it!” I don’t know if Spurgeon spoke this with his “tongue firmly in his cheek” or not. I do know the demands of this calling are real!

Pastor and theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was persecuted and died for his calling during the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich of Nazis Germany. Bonhoeffer identified with the prophet Jeremiah who would speak to God about his calling in this way, “It was you who started this with me. It was you who pursued me and would not let me go… God, you enticed me [taking up Jeremiah 20:7, literally, as his own prayer!] … I cannot get away from you anymore; you have carried me off as your booty.” (James Howell, Reading the Bible with Bonhoeffer, p.46).

I can certainly identify with some of these load-bearing words of Bonhoeffer’s testimony regarding his calling at that challenging time of history. The call to serve is compelling, in so many ways. It has pursuing qualities that we cannot take lightly or try to evade. I did not ever think that God regarded me as “war booty!” or that I surrendered to something I didn’t want to do.  I came to understand more fully that this call to ministry was outside of myself and my heart’s desires. It was God lovingly and persistently pulling me into service for Christ. This was more like motivation for me than anything that caused me distress and dread!

The Apostle Paul described his ministry this way “I was called by God, set apart for the gospel, an Apostle by the will of God.” (Romans 1:1; 1 Corinthians 1:1). A call to ministry comes from God and His will sets one apart. In the general sense, every Christian has a calling to serve Christ and His church, but this call to ministry also has a certain unique specificity to it for those called into vocational Christian ministry.

Reflecting on those teenage years long ago, I am so thankful that my pastor faithfully included a call to special service along with his regular worship invitation each Lord’s Day. My life was changed the day I heard God speak to my heart and I answered the call to follow His plan into fulltime service!

Is God speaking to you these days about a special calling to serve?

Mike Keppler, retired pastor,
active churchman and
doting grandparent.
Contact: drmjkeppler@gmail.com
©2018-2026 All rights reserved.
Serve by Design. mjkministries.com

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