The Person You Called Is Busy
The phone number I dial is busy and a recording says:
The number you dialed is busy. If you would like to have Sprint atempt to deliver a message for you, press 6. A useage fee will apply.
Another context, another call, and the recording might say:
The person God is calling to ministry is busy. If you would like to have the Church attempt to deliver the message ....
At the beginning of 1999, the Office of Ministry established a goal of calling 500 men and women to the ministry in the Church of the Brethren by the end of 2003. That is an ambitious goal but those of us who work with pastoral placement know there is a geat need for trained ministry leadership in the church today. Actually that translates to 1/2 of our congregations calling 1 person to ministry every 5 years or each congregation calling 1 person to ministry every 10 years. Surely, we should be able to meet such a goal.
In a small brochure entitled Considering Leadership: Calling and Educating Leaders in the Church of the Brethren, we are reminded that time and again, ministers say that they likely would not have persued a ministerial call if a trusted pastor or lay person had not mentioned that possibility to them.
Alan Kauffman, writing in the Mennonite (January 23, 2001 issue) suggests:
Far too many of us for far too long have equated pastoral development and the stream from which pastors come with seminaries and Bible colleges, oblivious to where they were before that, growing up in congregations like ours.
If we hope to have adequate pastoral leadership for the decades to come, we must begain refocusing our initial gaze from the seminaries and Bible colleges to those sitting in the pews beside us. The pastors of tomorrow are growing up and living among us today. And it is our responsibility as congregations to be identifying, encouraging and nurturing them to answer God's call in their lives.
When was the last time you looked around the pews in your church for one with gifts for ministry? Tomorrow's pastor may be sitting beside you in the pew today just waiting to be identified, encouraged, called and trained for pastoral ministry.
And if your first attempt results in a "busy signal," keep trying until the message gets through!
Herman
Herman Kauffman serves as District Pastor for the Northern Indiana District of the Church of the Brethren. Prior to assuming this position in November 1994, he served 20+ years as a pastor in Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. He has been married for over 20 years and is the father of two teenage children.