I was in conversation with someone earlier this week who was telling me about their new pastor. “We got another older pastor. We’ve been saying for years we want someone younger but we are never given one.”
It’s something I hear often as a bishop. I asked my friend, “When was the last time your church sent someone into ordained ministry?”
There was a long pause.
“Um...I really don’t know.”
There’s a crisis of call in many of our churches. Not only are we not helping people hear their call into ordained ministry, we aren’t helping everyone hear their unique calling, given by God, to be lived out each and every day.
Have you claimed your call?
Jeremiah heard God’s call to be a prophet and balked: “I’m just a boy—I wouldn’t know what to do or say.”
God doesn’t take “no” for an answer, and equipped Jeremiah for his vocation: Go where I send you. Speak what I need you to say. And don’t be afraid.
Are you living out your call? Or have you, like Jeremiah, made excuses? Don’t you know God created you for a unique purpose and if you reject that purpose, if you fail to claim your call, the world is left hungry for the love of God you could have made visible.
It’s time to stop making excuses and claim your calling. And it’s time for all our churches to help everyone listen for and respond to their call.
Don’t be afraid! God will give you what you need!
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