My Unusual Journal
My Unusual Journal 13 - Sunday, July 31, 2011, 5:10 PM
Here are a few thoughts on the writing/preaching ministries:
First off, if God calls you or gives you the unmistakable urge to write for Him, don't mistake it for the call to the preaching or speaking ministry. I consider the preaching ministry to be in a class above that of the writing ministry, and for a candidate for the latter (writing) ministry to confuse his God-given talent with that of the preaching ministry can be a disastrous error. God who knows all things and certainly knows His own will, sees that the aspiring preacher does not have the skill sets for the office and this God who is all-wise will not impart to him the grace required to be a preacher. If that person still insists on bulling his way into the coveted office, he will then be on his own.
Although both ministries are based on the verbal communication of ideas, each requires different skill sets. A "skill set" in this context would be such things as temperament and at least a modest ability to convey mental concepts or ideas by words. Simply put, a skill set is all the requirements for any particular office or calling. Looking at both offices carefully, it seems that more is required for the preacher to succeed than for the writer who is called just to that one of the two callings.
The preacher’s mantle does not automatically drape itself on the eager shoulders of one who is a preacher’s son, and the preaching father who does not realize the fact is doing his son a disservice, not to mention making himself vulnerable to keen disappointment. I am one of five brothers and we are (or were: two are now deceased) the sons of what I in my prejudice call a great man of the cloth. None of us, not our father and definitely not we sons, are “great” men except in the eyes of God and then only as we yield ourselves more and more to His perfect will. Neither holiness, “without which no man shall see the Lord,” nor any particular office in Kingdom work is inherited; both are given to those whom God calls. Obviously everyone is called to holiness, but the specific offices in God’s great economy are filled by the persons whom God arbitrarily selects. It is true that God often calls people to an office for which they seem to be temperamentally suited, but that is not a hard and fast rule.
The preacher can sometimes be a good (even prolific) writer, but the person who is called solely to the writing ministry (as I have been) can never be a preacher unless God in an exceptional moment needs to use the writer to deliver a mini-sermon – to another person or to a group of people. But the person whom God uses in that fashion should always wait on God's move, within himself or in his outer circumstances, before venturing on that hallowed ground.
In fact any writer that aspires to be a preacher should put the preaching office out of his mind. The chances that he will "graduate" to the preaching ministry are slim. He should do as we all should do: try diligently to fulfill all his present calling; and he will have his hands full. Use wisdom and don't try to attain to anything that is beyond God's will for you. Of course you ought to earnestly reach beyond your own limited abilities, but never attempt to go beyond the will of God for you. That will only merit you an “F” (Failure). You cannot be what God does not want you to be in His Kingdom.
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