Seminary students and future seminary students frequently ask how to discover whether one is called to pastoral ministry. It’s a challenging discussion because there are two aspects to the call to ministry, internal and external, and both take time to discover and time is something that few seem to have. The whole business of determining whether one is called is also made more difficult by the expectations that prospective pastors sometimes harbor. They sometimes have been given to think that one must have a direct revelation from God: “Go be a pastor” or a “still, small voice (1Kings 19:11–13). That way of attempting to discover God’s will is fraught with difficulties, not the least of which is that God did not give us 1Kings 19 in order to set a pattern for discovering God’s will.
Westminster Seminary California wants to help you explore whether you are called to pastoral ministry. To do that, they have created a page with videos by Dennis Johnson and Mike Horton. They are also giving away 100 copies of Ed Clowney’s very helpful book, Called to the Ministry. The first 100 people to fill out (or in, if you’re in the UK—do Canadians fill out or fill in forms?) this form will receive a free copy of the book.
We avoid them altogether, forms from religious institutions are considered hate speech.