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Why You Shouldn't Go Into Vocational Minstry

A friend of mine tweeted this last week:
What if - to prepare a pastor for the work of the ministry - you need more suffering than seminary?
Jonathan's question is a good one.  What truly prepares a man to work in ministry vocationally?  That is a complex question - but one thing I know is true.  A degree isn't enough.  In fact, a degree may be a foolish investment of both time and money.

Choosing to invest in a degree that is designed to lead to vocational ministry before you know whether you have the gifts, the calling, or the depth of character is just plain stupid.  Just because you had a life-changing experience on a missions trip doesn't mean you should go get a Youth Ministry Degree.  Just because you love to study the Bible and like to hear yourself preach doesn't mean you should go spend tens of thousands of dollars to get an M-Div.  Just because you love the idea of working in the church doesn't mean you will or should be paid by the church.

This advice comes from many hard conversations across the coffee table from young guys who got the seminary or Bible college degrees, started pursuing vocational ministry, and were realizing they may have made a mistake.  Sometimes the issue is that they simply do not like working in full time ministry - it isn't what they thought it would be.  Sometimes the issue is that they haven't developed the depth of character necessary for the weight of ministry, and they find themselves falling apart privately even as they pretend to have it all together publicly.  Some of them realize that they don't have the competence necessary to lead the group, or the band, or the ministry because of a lack of life experience.

They have the education, but they haven't developed the competency, or, more importantly, the character.  And this is the tricky part of vocational ministry.  It isn't just another career path.  It is a calling.  Just because you have a degree doesn't mean you are called.

The problem for the many guys I have counseled in this position is that they are already stuck.  They've already invested tens of thousands of dollars in a degree that made them qualified to pretty much only do one thing: get their paycheck from the church.  They need money.  Their families are telling them to keep pushing through and work their way up.  They look at the job landscape and don't see many attractive options open to them.

Some of them had the maturity, courage, and resolve to do the right thing.  They found other jobs.  They went back to school.  They were honest about their gifts, their struggles, their maturity - and made the hard choice to give themselves room to grow and, maybe, one day be paid by the church to work in ministry.

Now let's 'be clear: They didn't walk away from being full-time followers of Jesus (every believer in Jesus is in full time non-vocational ministry).  If anything, their decisions to walk away from ministry was itself an act of faith in God.  For some it was an act of repentance from a hidden ministry idolatry, freeing them from needing to serve or have people look up to them to feel worthwhile about themselves.  In fact, walking away from ministry was the very thing that equipped some of them to walk freely in ministry without growing in frustration and bitterness.

Others weren't as wise.  They had cast their die and were unwilling to admit they might have made a mistake.  So, they moved from church to church, hiding their weaknesses and failures.  They compromised their convictions to take jobs at churches they didn't like and didn't fully support. They hid.  They hid their insecurity.  They hid their growing frustration with themselves, the church, and God.  They hid their sin and bitterness.  They felt trapped, having to pretend to be what their job descriptions required them to be.

So here is my soap box:

Love Jesus with all your heart, study his Word, invest in his church, and grow in your gifts.  Work hard and manage your money well.  Just don't assume prematurely that you should be paid to do it.  The bottom line is that if you are not willing (and, in fact, joyful) to do the work of serving the church non-vocationally, you aren't qualified to get paid to work for the church.

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