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16Profession or Calling: The Ethical Implications
January 2, 2007
The churches of Christ have a contradictory vision of the role of the minister. If a minister in meeting with an eldership to discuss coming to serve the congregation was asked, “Why are you a minister?” and he responded stating that “I feel like the Lord called me to the ministry,” would be rejected. If the minister responded in this way, the eldership would respond by telling the minister, “We are looking in another direction at this time.” After the minister left the elder’s boardroom, the elders would confer with each other about the liberal leanings of the interviewee. One elder would certainly state, “We definitely do not need a minister that is hearing the voice of God in the still of the night.” At the same time, in another congregation where a minister is trying out, one of the elders asks, “Why are you a minister?” The minister answers by stating, “Ministry is a good profession. The hours are flexible, the pay is increasing, and I like the family focus of the work. Personally, I feel like ministry is a field where I can be successful because of my skill set.” One of the elders would surely respond, “We are still looking at this time.” Of course, a call would never be given to this minister again because after the minister walked out of the room, one of the elders would smugly say, “We do not need a minister who thinks that preaching is a career.”
There seems to be confusion in the churches of Christ over the motivation for the minister over the ministry. This confusion could be inherited from the Stone-Campbell tradition of seeking to restore ministry to the whole church. The movement sought to restore authority to the common people. Warford suggests:
Since there was an almost visceral anti-clericalism expressed by Alexander Campbell and his adherents, it has been hard to define the significance of leadership in this tradition. Thus, how the movement at various points has talked about ministry sometimes seems at odds with how it actually functioned (50-51).
This paper seeks to clarify the seemingly opposite roles of a calling or a profession into a unified vision of the minister as one with a professional calling. This paradigm of having a professional calling will affect the ethics of the minister. The paper will attempt to accomplish this goal by explaining the nature of a calling and by explaining the nature of a profession. Then a unified vision of the professionally called minister will be presented. Finally, the ethical implications will be detailed in the paper.
The Nature of Calling
One of the reasons that there is ambiguity in the nature of a calling is because of the religious world. Some religious groups believe in the call from God coming in the form of direct communication from God. This breeds the idea of “whispers in the ear.” Tom Holland states correctly there is a “fundamental error of opinion that God calls men to preach in a direct, miraculous way” (36). In fact, God has only called the prophets and the apostles through a direct communication. Now God calls people into ministry through a medium. This medium is man. But a mediated call is still just as legitimate as a call directly from God; the only difference is in the manner of the call. “But God called the prophets and apostles immediately, through Himself. God called and sent Titus, Timothy, Sosthenes, Silvanus, and others likewise,” (Oden 33) not directly but through preachers like Paul and through the congregations: This is the modern day mode that God uses to call people into the ministry today.
The Meaning of the Call to Ministry
With this assumption in mind, that God does not directly call Christians into ministry through audible means, what is the meaning of the call to ministry in the Bible? First, there is a general call by God through the message of the Gospel (2 Thess. 2.14). This call is given to every person to accept the ministry of Jesus Christ. Second, there is the specific call to people for specific purposes. Ephesians 4.11-12 states “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.” These verses show that God desires certain people to engage in particular roles in order to strengthen the church.
To focus on the specific role as evangelist, there are numerous examples of God calling people to the ministry of preaching. Through the Old and New Testament, God has appointed people to the work of ministry. Jeremiah was called (Jer. 1.4-5), Abraham was called (Gen. 12.1-3), and Moses was called (Exod. 3.10). In the New Testament, John the Baptist was appointed for a specialized mission as well as the Apostle Paul. John the Baptist was to be the forerunner of Christ while Paul was to be the Apostle to the Gentiles. In fact, Paul even felt his sense of calling to preaching in 1 Corinthians 9.16: “For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel.” A special calling to ministry that one can sense through feelings is confirmed through the Biblical text. God has appointed certain people to fulfill the role of preacher in the church.
The Gift of the Call to Ministry
Unfortunately, some perceive the call to ministry as a burden to bear. Many times the eyes of ministry are focused on the cross. The cross is a place of pain and sacrifice, but also the cross is a place of liberation. The ministry encircling the cross is freed from the external trappings of modern society. The minister realizes that the cross symbolizes submission to God. Instead of obsessively striving toward success, numbers, happiness or power, the minister is freed to develop a cruciform life.
Also, the minister is given the gift of generalization. Many professions concentrate on one aspect. The minister to develop connecting sermons must read from biography, literature, history, and the social sciences. His activities vary from day to day as he on one day will counsel, preach, and visit the sick, and then the next day he will attempt a local meeting of business leaders and help with the local baseball team.
When God calls a person into ministry, He is also giving a gift to the church. God has given the church the gift of the vocational call to some people. The role of preacher was never meant to create a hierarchy of privileges in the body of Christ. The minister was given to the church to help the individual Christians to discover his or her own spiritual calling. The minister helps the person in the pew to exercise his particular talent for the glory of God (Lischer 168).
The Confirmation of the Call to Ministry
Since this paper is written with the assumption that God does not literally call people into ministry through His voice, how does God invite people into the role of evangelist? In preparing this paper, the author conducted about five surveys of well-respected ministers within the churches of Christ. All five men said that they felt a sense of calling to the ministry, though all of them said that it was not some “voice in the ear” experience, but all of them felt strongly that God had called them to be preachers of the Gospel. In the process of interviewing, there was an amazing similarity between all of the ministers in relating their sense of calling. All of them described an inward and outward call from God to the ministry.
Trull and Carter, who create an ethical system based on professional standards, do not understand the important nature that a sense of calling is on the minister’s conduct (23). Through the calling of God, the minister is anchored in the ministry. This is why a preacher needs a strong feeling of calling to secure him or her in the ministry.
This grounding in ministry is from understanding first of all the inward call of God. The inward call of God begins with the individual’s heart. After the person has responded to the general call of the Gospel to the entire world, that person must decide if there is a desire to work in ministry as a vocation. Is there an inner willingness to serve the Lord as a preacher? The person has to examine his or her life to see if there is a strong need to go into full-time ministry. This searching of the heart has to deeply reflect the root of the motivation. Is the motive from a commitment to Christ or from selfish needs? Some people go into ministry because of systemic shortcomings. Walking into ministry because of a need for the acceptance of people, isolation from the world, or guilt is a recipe for a disastrous time.
The person wrestling with ministry must come to the work with both a love for God and a love for people (Hansen 36). One must realize, though, that a love of being around people is different from a true love for people. Some extroverts may interpret a sense of calling from God, but really these people simply like the nature of the people dynamics of preaching. The prospective minister must deeply search his heart and offer genuine prayers in seeking the call to ministry from the Lord.
Another aspect of interpreting the inward call from God to minister is assessing one’s talents for the ministry. 1 Peter 4:11 states “Whoever speaks, let him speak, as it were, the utterances of God; whoever serves, let him do so as by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” In this text Peter indicates that God provides the strength or ability to perform ministry. Before a person accepts the call to ministry, he must first take in inventory of his talents. The prospective minister must ask himself, “Am I competent to lead a community of faith? Can I learn to communicate the Christian message with persuasiveness and integrity? Am I cultivating the spiritual disciplines” (Oden 19). These are just a few of the many questions that inward self-examination will answer before a person believes that he or she has received a call from God to minister.
The second facet to interpreting a call from God is the outward call. The inward call can rely on too many subjective feelings, but the outward call confirms the invitation to ministry (Fisher 95). The outward call comes from three sources: conduct, other Christians, and the community of faith.
The first category a person must examine is one’s conduct. If the person, as well as others, realizes that the conduct of the individual is not measuring up to the standards of the people of God, then that individual should be encouraged to consider the possibility that God has not called him or her into His ministry. This does not mean that person will be faultless, but the person will be an able representative of Christ. The qualifications of the deacons, excluding marriage, should be applied to the minister (Anderson 4-19). This is where the second confirmation of the outward call is applicable. People within the church must instruct the person on whether or not he or she is of such a character that he should go into the ministry. If no one seems to believe that the person has the ability, the character, the conduct, and the maturity to enter into the ministry, it is best to refrain from entering into an area where God has not called him.
The final confirmation of the inward call is the outward call of the community of faith. “God calls and the church recognizes, examines, and validates that divine vocation” (Willimon 39). If a person feels called to vocational ministry but no congregation is willing to allow him to minister to them in an official capacity, that person should continue in prayer to validate his calling from the Lord.
The ethics of the minister who has a strong sense of calling from the Lord as well as from the Lord’s people will function differently from those with a weaker sense of purpose. The individual will realize the gift from above of ordination into vocational ministry which will affect conduct, motives, and goals (Grieb 158-59).
The Nature of a Profession
The history of the term “profession can be traced back to the early priests, healers, and chiefs who promoted human values in primitive societies” (Trull and Carter 26). In the term profession there seem to be some religious connotations. There was a sense of “professing” vows in a religious order. These vows were to provide a service to society. But the term professional has changed in modern meaning. People use the term professional in careless ways. Athletes will call themselves professionals in labeling themselves differently from the amateur athletes. Sometimes professional will be used by anyone seeking to gain respect in a certain career.
Trull and Carter, after reviewing the literature on the meaning of professional, conclude that there are four major traits. These are “(1) specialized training, (2) a sense of calling to serve the public, (3) self-regulation, including a code of ethics, and (4) autonomy” (30). These four characteristics seem to apply well to the work of the minister. The minister typically has specialized training, though in the churches of Christ this is not a given. The role of the minister is to follow the example of Christ to serve others. Also, the minister must conduct himself and meet the standards of holiness given to the people of God in the Bible. Finally, the minister typically exercises a huge amount of autonomy in choosing his timetable, duties, and priorities in ministry.
Another way of looking at the professional is through his capabilities. In summary, the author gives five designations of abilities. (1) Professional is an educated man, because he is a master of some body of knowledge. (2) The professional is an expert man because of the particulate skill set. (3) Also, he is an institutional man, which means that he renders a service to a social institution of which he is partly servant and partly master. (4) The professional is a responsible man who is able to act competently in situations which require his services. (5) Finally, he is a dedicated man because he renders something beneficial to society (Bennett 9).
There are many similarities between the work of a minister and a modern day professional. The minister can benefit from some of the professional attributes and characteristics. As long as the minister does not see his profession as meaning a career which derives “from the Latin for race-course, and suggests an image of competitive chasing around in circles in order to win” (Stackhouse 3), the minister can see both a calling and a profession as helpful to his work.
The Nature of the Professional-Called Minister
Ministry is neither a profession nor a calling. Ministry is both. Unlike John Piper, who totally objects to the “professionalizing of the pastoral ministry,” ministry can have elements of professionalism (1). Ben Patterson agrees that ministry is no place for careers or professionalism. He sees professionalism as standing in the way of the calling because ministers may judge their effectiveness by the success in the religious marketplace (31). Though he realizes that there are some aspects that are of a professional nature, such as education and study, he considers these “not the essence of the call” (30). In fact, Patterson concludes “Only the call suffices—everything else is footnote and commentary” (33). On the other side of the calling or professional debate is Trull and Carter. These men envision ministry as a profession in today’s world. The authors state “we are convinced that there are good historical and theological reasons for asserting that the Christian minister is a professional” (40).
Piper and Patterson are correct in reasoning the ministry can be damaged through professionalism. The problem is that there are many elements in ministry that take professional skills. Patterson argues that education and study are not essential to ministry. This seems as if Patterson is creating a dichotomy between the spiritual and secular elements of ministry. Though it may seem mandatory to attend seminary, the ministry must be given to intensive study to God’s word. In fact, the Bible even commands this in Hebrews 5.12-14 “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food is for the mature, which because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.” Feeding members insightful perspectives of the word is core work for the vocational minister.
Trull and Carter argue for ministry as a profession. Both of the authors realize that ministry should not be completely attached to this professional concept, but based on the historical definition of professional, they see the minister as fulfilling this paradigm (40). The problem with this stance is that most people today do not know the history or background of the role of the professional. Most people equate professional with career and career with selfish intentions. Many people see professionalism as secular and not spiritual. Ministers should probably refrain from referring to themselves as professionals because of the images that laypeople have of the role. The concept of professional probably does not incorporate the image or the entire role of the vocational minister.
Instead of landing on one side or the other in the debate over the professionalizing of the ministry, it is best to see calling and professionalism as counter-balances in the vocation of ministry. The two roles provide check and balances for the extremes in ministry. Bennett agrees with the blending of the images of professional and calling. He states “that they are not antithetical to each other” (10). A calling-focused ministry may be inclined toward burnout, relying on pure passion, and avoiding proper training. The aspects of professionalism help reorient the minister to work within his limits, to objectively think through ministry options, and to work on training himself to increase his skill sets. On the other hand, having a professional driven ministry mindset may lead to relying on self over trusting in the Lord, looking for career opportunities and not God’s agenda, and tending to compartmentalize the ministry in one’s life. The focus on the calling can stabilize these tendencies by reminding the minister that God is still in control, obedience to God’s plan is essential, and the vocation of ministry incorporates the entirety of one’s life. The beauty of the called-professional minister is that he is reminded that he is a representative under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who has commissioned him to serve Christ in the world, as well as a professional who focuses on careful preparation, training, and competence. The professional-called minister is not primarily concerned with greater status, but on greater effectiveness to bring glory to God.
The Ethics of the Professional-Called Minister
The value system for the professionally-called minister is different from a minister that sees his vocation as a calling or a profession. One of the major aspects that this paradigm for vocational minister affects is self-care. Unfortunately, burnout for ministry is high because of the demanding expectations of the members. Some ministers with a sense of calling will seek to satisfy all of the member’s wishes. This causes tremendous stress on the minister. Since the minister has a sense of calling, he feels that the Lord will provide the strength to accomplish all of this work. In fact, Inrig envisions servanthood as the “ultimate purpose of ministry” (33). Service is an important aspect of the role of the minister. But service in a selfish society is futile. The minister will always be always running in every direction meeting the needs of members in the name of the Lord. The result of this constant motion is spoiled Christians and exhausted ministers.
The role of professionalism creates balance rather than promote over-emphasis on servanthood. A minister realizes that ministry will never been completed, so he must find opportunities to provide nourishment to himself. The professional-called minister balances out his duties to others and God with duties to his own wellbeing.
The second value that is influenced by the professional-minister concept concerns training. The extreme concept in professionalism among ministers will state that adequacy is found through skill sets and professional development. But these are external tools for an inward passion. The minister must be first motivated into ministry through a deep desire to serve God. The next step is to look for training to function in ministry at a high level.
After the minister receives the confirmation of the call, he or she must begin to develop the skills needed for effective ministry. In the first century, the Apostles had an extra measure of the Holy Spirit which empowered them to preach the word of God, but in today’s world the minister has to train himself for the skills needed to provoke spiritual development in others. Today the vocational minister has to accomplish counseling, conflict resolution, preaching without direct empowerment from the Holy Spirit, and management of a congregational body. These skills do not come simply because a person has been called, but come from years of training and practicing these arts. The professional-called minister will place a high priority on personal development to perform ministry at the highest functionality possible.
The final major value that is expressed in the professional-called minister is personal holiness. The sense of professionalism does not properly address the need for holiness in vocational ministry. The call from God to ministry is a holy call because it separates the minister from the rest of the congregation. The minister has to live beyond reproach. Though this call to holiness should incorporate all Christians (1 Pet. 2.9), many times the minister is expected to live at a higher level of personal sanctification. The minister can accept this role more easily when he knows that God has called him to be an ambassador to the world. On the other hand, the nature of the professional in the ministry can be beneficial because of some of the neurotic expectations of the members. The minister has to conduct himself at a level of holiness that is not prescribed in the Bible. These heightened demands can cause resentment toward the members. If the minister remembers that he is a professional, he can justify his behavior on a utilitarian basis.
Conclusion
The role of the minister in churches of Christ has been left vague throughout the tradition’s history. There seemed to be tension between the concept of the vocational minister being called and being a professional. The scriptures seem to teach that ministers are called into the ministry by various avenues. There is the invitation given by the Gospel which is confirmed by an inward and outward testing. Without a sense of calling, the minister cannot be spiritually effective in the church. The role of the minister also has many similarities with the role of the professional in society. The problem with an over-emphasis on professionalism is the reaction from others. People tend to associate professionalism with careers. This idea of career causes ministry to be devalued into the secular. Therefore the minister should see his work in a professional-called capacity. This mindset on the vocational minister blends the strengths of these two elements into one. It balances the two roles of ministry into a healthier model. With this new model for ministry, the minister’s values concerning self-care, training, and holiness are properly balanced. The ethics and values of a vocational minister are directly affected by his concept of the role of the minister.
Works Cited
Anderson, Robert C. The Effective Pastor: A Practical Guide to the Ministry. Chicago: Moody Press, 1985.
Bennett, G. Willis. “Ministry as Profession and Calling.” Review and Expositor 70 (2001): 5-15.
Fisher, David. The 21st Century Pastor: A Vision Based on the Ministry of Paul. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996.
Grieb, A. Katherine. “The One Who Called You…: Vocation and Leadership in the Pauline Literature.” Interpretation 59 (2005): 154-165.
Hansen, David. The Art of Pastoring: Ministry Without All the Answers. Downers Grove: InterVaristy Press, 1994.
Holland, Thomas H. The Work of the Preacher is Working. Brentwood: Penmann Books, 2001.
Inrig, J. Gary. “Called to Serve: Toward a Philosophy of Ministry.” Vital Ministry Issues: Examining Concerns & Conflicts in Ministry. Ed. Roy B. Zuck. Grand Rapids: Kregel Resources, 1994. 20-33.
Lischer, Richard. “The Called Life: An Essay on the Pastoral Vocation.” Interpretation 59 (2005): 166-178.
Oden, Thomas C. Becoming a Minister. New York: Crossroad, 1987. _____________. Pastoral Theology: Essentials of Ministry. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983.
Patterson, Ben. “A Call or Career?” Mastering the Pastoral Role. Eds. Paul Cedar, Kent Hughes, and Ben Patterson. Portland: Multnomah, 1991. 25-33.
Piper, John. Brothers, We Are NOT Professionals. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2002.
Stackhouse, Max L. “Some Sense of Calling in an Ecumenical Seminary.” Religion and Intellectual Life 4 (2003): 47-58.
Trull, Joe, E and James E. Carter. Ministerial Ethics: Moral Formation for Church Leaders. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004.
Warford, Malcolm L. “The Hope of Our Calling; Thinking About Ministry in the Context of Ephesians 1-4:16.” Lexington Theological Quarterly 37 (2002) : 43-59.
Willimon, William H. Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002.
Matthew Morine Dr. Kippy Myers Values in Human Thought and Action 579 10 November 2006