Call clarification important at Baptist schools

Posted: 9/14/07

Call clarification important at Baptist schools

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

Sometimes a Christian young person may report receiving a crystal-clear call from God. But more often, he or she may feel like there’s some static on the line.

That’s the conclusion of guidance directors who work with ministry students at some Baptist schools.

“A majority don’t know exactly what to make of this—whether it’s a call to vocational ministry or simply to be a good servant of the Lord in whatever they do,” said Omer Hancock, director of in-service guidance at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon School of Theology.

As soon as a student at a Texas Baptist school expresses a calling to ministry, the in-service guidance office typically begins an ongoing dialogue with the student.

“At the very least, we want them to know our office exists and that we’re not just for religion majors. We’re here for any student who has an interest in ministry as a vocation,” said Jeter Basden, director of ministry guidance at Baylor University.

Each step along the way—from applying for scholarship assistance to helping students gain hands-on field experience—is designed to help students clarify their calling.

For instance, Basden noted, Texas Baptist ministerial students can apply for a scholarship offered by the Baptist General Convention of Texas. As a part of the application process, students must secure certification from their home church and a letter of recommendation from their pastor.

“This, in itself, is an affirmation of the call for the student,” he said.

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Required courses that provide an overview of the functions of ministry help clarify calling.

“A lot of students come here as Christian young people who want to serve the Lord but maybe not in vocational ministry,” Hancock said. “We try to be positive with the student. We let them know, ‘If it’s what God wants you to do, it’s OK.’”

Some students’ call to ministry is confirmed when they are undergraduates, but “they do not have becoming the pastor of a church in their sights,” said David Garland, dean of Baylor’s Truett Theological Seminary. “I think that the seminary, however, is now the setting where this calling is being heard and affirmed.”

When he was a student, Garland recalls professors who would tap promising students on the shoulder, pull them aside and ask if they had considered graduate school.

“I would never do that today, given the over-population of Ph.D.s and the shortage of jobs,” he said.

Instead, he and the faculty who work with him encourage students who are not already considering the pastorate to recognize that God might be calling them to that place of service.

Truett also seeks to bring students into contact with ministers who find fulfillment and joy in serving as pastor of a local church, Garland added.

“In George Truett’s day, the church singled him out and said, ‘You are going to be a pastor whether you think you are or not.’ Today, that does not happen. I do not think that it happens in undergraduate programs. It now tends to happen in the seminary,” he said. 

Some students who did not plan to become pastors when they entered seminary—and even some who expressed their intention to follow God’s call anywhere except into the pastorate—change their minds while at seminary, Garland noted.

“But that is the way it is with God’s call,” he said. “You usually don’t see what’s coming.”