Are you called?

Joe Thorn has been posting about being Called to Ministry.

Charles Spurgeon also believed that only those men who have sense of divine calling should enter the ministry, and that without it we find our way into danger...In the same chapter, “The Call to The Ministry,” Spurgeon goes on to explain how a man can determine if he is called by God to the ministry. He explains that such a man will have an “intense, all-absorbing desire for the work,” the ability to do the work, bear fruit in the work, and receive the affirmation of the local church.

This is what is defined as Internal and External call. Let me add another thought to internal and external call that Joe talks about. I had a seminary prof/mentor add to the list “actual call” - let me explain from my experience. I moved my family from Baltimore to Orlando to finish my last year of seminary at RTS, Orlando. As I was finishing up seminary, I was looking for a call as a pastor. I felt a sense a strong internal call, and I received a lot of feedback from the body of Christ and the church that affirmed an external call, but no local church was actually calling me. The reasons at the time appeared to be that the churches I was approaching didn’t understand clearly how 17 years of Campus para-church ministry were going to translate into ministry into the local church (in hindsight I have a better understanding that God was making me wait until this current opportunity opened up which was the best thing for me, I know that God will excuse all the whining that I did at the time!). But when I was going through a hard time seeing door after door slam in my face, my seminary prof/mentor said to me (as I was complaining that I was called by God to be a pastor, but that nothing was happening) that although the internal and external call are important, the third ingredient in affirming the call is actually receiving one. God has to provide a call. A church must "call" you in order to be "called". That piece of advice help me process the whole issue of calling, especially as I was going through a time of questioning my calling.

Spurgeon's words are wise, entering into the ministry one shouldn't be unclear or vacillate about one's calling. It should be testing by an internal work of the Spirit, affirmed by the church and confirmed by an actual call by a local body.