(By Dave Witthoff) – It’s come to my attention that the current way that we in the Army think about calling may not be entirely helpful. It may in fact, be rather misleading. The idea of calling touches on the presuppositions that all people have about how active God is in the world. Is He actively changing and doing things, directing people’s actions, choices, and influencing them one way or another, or is He laid back after giving us His Word, expecting us to look there for answers. On this scripture gives no cut and dry answer, and so our understanding should not be either/or, but both. God expects us to look to scripture for our direction in life as He orchestrates the events and happenings of the world. But where there are two extremes that need balance, we usually find people that fall to one side or the other. That is what brought about my concern.
In the Salvation Army, at most of our conferences, there’s some point in the meeting, usually after a sermon that went too long, that another officer who was appointed this awkward and traditionally motivated task, will get up and ask for those who feel “called” to come stand up on stage so everyone can look at them. This standing on stage I think is partly to make it meaningful to those who go up, but I think it also gives some accountability. In any case, it’s always the same kids who go up every year, more than half of whom never seem to go to training anyways. So what about their “calling”? Did it just not pan out? Were they never “called” to begin with? More to the point, why does it seem that this language of “calling” evokes a groan from so many? Why is Calling so confused?
The term calling has become mismanaged so that it doesn’t mean what it used to mean, or what we want it to mean anymore. In the past, the term was understood to refer to the desire and guidance of God that directed an individual to pursue a life of service as an officer. Somewhere along the way, the term came to stand for that amorphous, foggy, impulsive, unknown feeling that compelled one to go in for service. The first understanding of calling is Biblical, the second is not. Let’s view Biblical calling first.
When we read the scripture, it is vitally important that we don’t misread what applies to specific people and take it for our own. In that sense, if we want to see how people were enlisted for Christian work, it would be unwise to look to Moses, David, John the Baptist, or Paul for example, to develop a methodology of how people are called to ministry. Their works and lives were specific to their environment and to salvation history. Direct revelation was given to them concerning their life’s work. This is what is unique.
This uniqueness of the Biblical characters makes it difficult to discern how we should understand calling then. If all the Biblical characters have special callings that were received unlike our own, then how do we know what a calling is? But the Bible does not leave us without direction. If we turn to scripture to understand how people ended up in ministry, we find that they were either called by special revelation, or they followed another set of guidelines. In 1 Timothy 3 Paul says that “if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do” (NASB). He then goes on to list character qualifications for such an overseer (an overseer is a pastor/elder/officer essentially). In Titus 1:5 Paul explains that he left Timothy in
From scripture then, we can understand that pastoral ministry is for those who desire to serve in ministry and who are qualified for the office. It takes no gut instinct or subjective feeling, just good character and a desire to do the work. Usually this is understood as an Inward Calling, which is the desire to serve in ministry, and an Outward Calling, the recognition of a person’s character by the local church. This is a Biblical understanding of calling in which eager servants are confirmed by the church to lead and teach the body of Christ.
Now let’s take a look at what calling often means in the Army. How do people in the Army come into full time service as elders (officers)? It seems to me that the main standard that leads a person into officership is a certain feeling. If a person has a feeling, or a compulsion that they should go or must go into training, then that means they should go. It’s even in the language of how we talk about calling. We don’t hear or say all that often “I want the call of officership” or “I fit the requirements of a call to officership.” What we hear said is more disturbing I think. We hear, “I feel called to officership.” Feeling is altogether not a terrible word, if one is referencing passion and desire for ministry (like in Timothy 3), but to often this feeling is not passion and desire for ministry but an unexplainable, inexplicable emotion.
Scripture even speaks against the idea of entering ministry because of a compulsion. Look at 1 Peter 5:1-3:
“Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock.”
Here scripture explicitly states that a person should not shepherd the flock of God under compulsion. Frankly that word seems to be at the center of the flawed idea of calling that has so permeated the Army. Young people with strong emotion feel compelled at Youth Councils or Commissioning to go stand up in the front and commit to serving as pastors in God’s church. But the scripture is set against those who come under compulsion. It should be by desire and character.
This revised understanding of calling can go a long way to revitalizing us and our view of training. Too many people, especially young people, that are more emotional, get caught up at conferences and events and end up testifying that they are called to the ministry, only to devalue the meaning of calling when they never enter the ministry. On the other side, people who don’t ever have strong emotions but love working in the church might miss out on so much more, assuming that if they were really called they would experience some great emotional event.
I believe that if we re-evaluated ourselves in light of a Biblical call to ministry we might find that ministry is something we desire, and if a person desires the work and meets the character requirements, then that my friends, is a calling.