Preparing Future Ministers
As I grow older, it is interesting how the future becomes a higher priority, not a lower one. This comes about for two reasons. First, you see the needs of the future more clearly with experience. Second, you desire to bless the next generation with the knowledge you have gained.
The church will need ministers. This truth should be self-evident, but we must recognize the new challenges facing future ministers. The Ministry is different from what it was in the late 20th century. The church faces significant challenges and opportunities both from within and without. I am finding that many young men are hesitant to consider a call to ministry. Other professions offer more respect, financial opportunity, and comfort than the ministry. How can we encourage young men to explore and answer a call to ministry? How can we ensure that they are prepared to pastor our denominations in the years and decades to come? Here are a few suggestions.
First, make sure that we are raising a godly generation. This starts in the home with the faith lived by parents before their children. It continues in churches where children are taught the faith and see it lived out in worship and ministry. It is from a godly generation that men will be raised up who are rooted in the scriptures and who know what active faith looks like in real life.
Second, make sure that you are praying for the next generation of ministers. These prayers can be a generic, but it is even better if you can be specific. Look at the young men in your church and pray that they consider the ministry. If some seem to have gifts for ministry, pray that the Lord will prepare them and call them into the Gospel Ministry. Pray for your seminaries as they prepare men for ministry. Pray for seminary students.
Third, support your denominational seminaries. There are good independent seminaries. However, if a denomination is going to control its future and direction, then it must have a faithful seminary. This was a key reason Erskine College and Seminary was created in 1837: to ensure that the ARP Synod of the South would have a place to train ministers. We must maintain and support our seminaries. These seminaries should be places where our distinctives are upheld and taught with vigor. This is especially true with the RPCNA and the ARPC. Our two denominations each have a distinctive ethos that we do not want lost to a generic Presbyterianism. It is good to have some cross-pollination from men attending other seminaries. However, it should be our desire to have excellent denominational seminaries that the majority of our students want to attend. To this end, pray for your denominational seminaries, support them in your personal and church budgets, and work to ensure that your seminary is worthy of your denomination and up to the challenge of training the next generation of its ministers.
Finally, challenge young men to consider the ministry. Pastors, encourage your young men to become pastors and to seek the Lord’s calling for their lives. Share your ministry with young men, not just the difficulties of being a pastor, but also the joys of the ministry. Elders, identify young men and encourage them. Set aside funds to help pay for seminary. All of us need to encourage young men and support them in their training to become ministers in Christ’s church.
It is easy to become a little disheartened as we think about all the changes and what the future may hold for the church. But the Lord is faithful, and He has not changed. Many of us see great opportunities for the church in the decades to come. For the church to take advantage of these opportunities, it will need ministers. Men who are well supported, prepared, and trained. This process of training young men starts today with the young boys and men of our churches. It begins on our knees, praying for God to raise and prepare the next generation. It means opening our wallets and giving to support ministerial training in our denominational seminaries. It means actively encouraging men to consider a call to pastoral ministry and all the joy that comes with being a minister in Christ’s church.
