I remember when I first began to feel a calling to ministry. I was in the eighth grade and attending a Christian school. In the chapel service they suggested that God would not have us in that school unless He wanted us to be involved in some kind of ministry. They challenged all the young men to be willing to surrender to the ministry if God should call them. I remember thinking that I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be a pastor. I wasn’t sure that God was calling to ministry. But I didn’t want to be disobedient to God either. Over the next few days I thought about it a lot and one night before I went to bed I prayed about it. I told the Lord that if He ever wanted me to be in ministry I do it. But I was also happy to just be a lay person in the church if that was what God wanted me to do.
Fast forward serval years and I found myself a counselor at a Christian camp. I was 16 years old. One evening in my personal devotions was reading a passage from the book of Ezekiel about becoming a watchman to the house of Israel. As I read that verse I sensed something happen in my spirit. It was as if it God had written that verse specifically to me. Somehow, deep in my inner being and I knew God was telling me that I was to be a watchman warning others to turn from their sin and to the Lord.
From that point forward I altered all of my plans and goals in life to focus on training for ministry. During the years since, I have served a children’s pastor in a mega-church, a youth pastor in a medium sized church, as the pastor of a small church and as a church planter. I have also invested much of my time in ministry as an administrator in the denomination I am part of. My ministry to an entire geographical region gives me the opportunity to spread the Gospel much farther than I could if I was only serving a single church. Who would have thought that an 8th grader from a small Christian school in the Midwest would be called by God to impact New England, one of the most influential regions of our nation? But when a person is called to a certain ministry, that person cannot imagine doing anything else, and that definitely describes my life.
From that point forward I altered all of my plans and goals in life to focus on training for ministry. During the years since, I have served a children’s pastor in a mega-church, a youth pastor in a medium sized church, as the pastor of a small church and as a church planter. I have also invested much of my time in ministry as an administrator in the denomination I am part of. My ministry to an entire geographical region gives me the opportunity to spread the Gospel much farther than I could if I was only serving a single church. Who would have thought that an 8th grader from a small Christian school in the Midwest would be called by God to impact New England, one of the most influential regions of our nation? But when a person is called to a certain ministry, that person cannot imagine doing anything else, and that definitely describes my life.
If you are thinking about ministry, you do not have to figure it all out at once. Like my experience, you may find yourself in a variety of ministry experiences that will work together to prepare you for the special ministry to which God has called you. And once you find it, you will be the most fulfilled you have ever been as you serve as one of God’s watchman turning others to the Lord and away from their sin.
Lord, please call many people into Your service, in a variety of different types of ministry, so that our nation might be turned from their sinful ways and follow You again. Amen.
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Dr. Terry W. Dorsett serves at the Executive Director of the Baptist Convention of New England. He has been a pastor, church planter, denominational leader and author in New England for more than 20 years. He is a happy husband, a proud father and adoring grandfather. He is a cancer survivor and believes that God works powerfully through times of suffering. He writes extensively and you can find all of his books at:
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