by Keith Bassham
It just dawned on me a few days ago that I have been “officially” in the ministry 40 years. I spent the summer between my first and second year at BBC with Faith Baptist Church near Kaufman, TX, and before I left to return to school the church licensed me to preach the gospel. Ordination would come later, of course, but it was the first such commission I received from a church.
I’m not sure how it happened, but inductively I came to appreciate the importance of this church-preacher connection. Even today, when someone asks me how to recognize the call of God upon his or her life, I like to point them to the church. A functioning church will recognize the call, sometimes before the individual.
A good example comes from the life of George Truett, noted pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, TX, for 47 years from 1897 to 1944. George gave his life to Christ in his late teens, and he was from that point a faithful laymen. He had, however, given himself to study law as a profession. He was a good Sunday school superintendent, and in that capacity he even preached occasionally — always preferring to stand next to the pulpit rather than behind it, for he never thought himself worthy to be a minister.
Once, in a Saturday evening meeting at his church in Whitewright, TX, not far from Sherman, a deacon moved that the church ordain George Truett to “the full work of the gospel ministry.” George protested, but the voice of the church became, to him, the voice of God, and he relented.
He wrote later, “There I was, against a whole church, against a church profoundly moved. There was not a dry eye in the house … one of the supremely solemn hours in a church’s life. I was thrown into the stream, and just had to swim.”
The next day he was examined and ordained, and the next time he preached was from behind the pulpit of First Baptist Church in Sherman, TX. The rest of the history is well known.
I have thought for a long while that churches should take a greater role in identifying and affirming potential ministers in their midst. Is this not what we read in Acts 13: “As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.”
Perhaps the reason we see so few “surrendering” to the ministry these days is because the church is not doing its best to help them recognize the call. No doubt churches can be as mistaken as individuals can, but the Bible says there is wisdom in counseling with others. And if the church is to function as the body of Christ, it ought to be doing all it can to help channel the call of God to its youth.