To Be or Not to Be...a Minister

This week I was part of a long intense process where candidates for ministry come before a Board of Ministry to be "reviewed and evaluated" as to whether they are ready "to be" a minister. After seminary there is a preliminary "testing" and if you pass that you are checked out for a 3 year "provisional" period. Next you write a whole bunch of papers in response to a series of questions, video tape a sermon and a bible study, and come before 3 separate committees to respond to what you have prepared.

I would not want to have to do this "again." I did it 38 years ago and wonder if I would make it through now. My understanding of some of the doctrines and theology that are evaluated...well are different than what a committee might want to hear. Wear and tear do that. Doctrines that come out of books take on a different "look" when exposed to the light and the dark of real life.

Then there's the preaching committee. I listen as candidates have to "defend" their sermons. The sermons get picked apart by well meaning ministers who make up the committees and whose task it is to pick them apart for the good of the cause. I know my sermons get evaluated most every week but I often do not have to see the "report card." And fortunately my folks are not sitting out in the congregation holding up numbers on cards like they are scoring an ice skating performance or diving competition.

The picking apart probably happens at the same time families are picking apart chicken on a plate just after service. But at least I don't' have to listen. The candidates I sat with last week do.

Each would be minister's call is "questioned." You may think that to be strange and even a bit cruel but that is the way it is supposed to be in this church we called Methodist. God's call is real but it is meant to be examined by the church one is "called" to serve. Then we ministers have to equip ourselves for ministry. It's important stuff so that equipping is examined as to its quality and effectiveness.

Around 40% of the candidates do not make it through the first time and are deferred for another year when they must come back and do it again having learned something and often needing to do some more work in a certain area. It is hard telling this "called of God" people that they are not "ready."

In conversation we hear expressions like, "It's not rocket science"..or "It's not brain surgery" when someone is referring to a certain skill level. Well what we ministers do is neither of the above but we do work with people's lives and we do handle "the scared word and the holy elements." Yes, one can actually get some kind of license to be a "minster" from a magazine but you can't do that in our system. We've decided that this "work for God" stuff is too important. You have to be tested. Some may feel they have been "drawn and quartered" but it is all done by those of us who had to do it ourselves. We know it is important and it is needed.

So now I'll stop this and go back to preparing this week's sermon knowing that I will not have to take it before a committee but before a "real life" group of people who are not as much interested in taking it apart as hoping it will feed their spirits and help them experience the divine while discovering meaning in a world where challenges are at every turn.

Personally I think the sermon this week is a 7.8....but I never know until I dive off the platform...

God bless those dear people I faced this week who are willing to go through this time of testing. It's worth it...it really is.

jody