Wednesday, September 17, 2014

The Call of a Pastor!

Just read one of the most profound and heartfelt assuring remarks from the reflections of a pastor. It is reads like this that just lifts up your spirit and convicts your heart and just brings you back into remembrance of the very day that God has called us to just partner with Him in this great adventure of Faith! :)
"God has called us. It all rests upon the summons. It is not our job to make the world turn our right or to see the church triumphant or even to make this congregation into an unmistakable outpost of the kingdom of God. Only God can do that. It is not my task to work in such a skilful, informed and competent way that my ministry will ultimately count of something. Only God can do that. And while God is doing that, it is good for me to keep in mind that this God wins victories through suffering, through love that, from a cross, moves the sun and moon and stars. The suffering that faithful ministry sometimes entails i not a sign of failure, but of fidelity...

The calling is worth doing because the Caller is so interesting. To have one’s life commandeered by a God name Trinity is great adventure for the called… It is God’s labour, not our own that sustain us…
If this is heaven, then evangelism is recruitment for a choir, and our ministry means enabling the whole world to sing the song now, on earth, so that one day we might sing it for eternity.
In our ministry, it is this song that gives significance to the singer. The gospel is truth and light and life and those who serve it and the congregations summed forth by it are those who are blessed, despite themselves, with the One who is the way, the truth, and the life. The song we are called to sing is God’s… we will not be working at ministry or trying to remain constant in our calling. We shall, in the words of Wesley’s hymn, gloriously be “lost in wonder, love, and praise.” We will be doing it all for nothing more than love.
By God’s grace, the singer becomes the song, and the song we sing is the service of God, the salvation of the world. Thus a whole new world is sung into being.”

- William Willimon, (Pastor, The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry, Pp. 335-336)