This is a great post. I have often thought the "If you can do anything else instead of ministry, do that" is not great advice. The truth it is trying to convey (that ministry life is hard and can be crushing) can be communicated in other ways. Great post!
Thank you for your posts on Pastoral ministry. I've recently graduated from Bible College as a mature aged student, called by the Spirit to study part time at the peak of my career as I read Bob Buford's Halftime. I saw first-hand in lectures the young guys you speak of whose wife was working full time so they could study. Felt out of order, and I would struggle to trust many of them with a Church in light of 1 Timothy 3.
I think if meant in the way you employed it, this is a spot on critique of that statement. Far too many treat ministry as some professional vocational career path rather than, well, ministry. The hyper-specialization of seminary career path certainly hasn’t helped that. If meant as a thread for the discontent in some other work field to grab hold of and catapult into ministry, begone. I do think there’s another way to employ that phrase that’s far more accurate and helpful. It would have to be detailed something like this:
If you can rest completely unbothered not being involved in ministry to the local church (not in discontent but in disinterest - and not in the business of preaching only but in soul-care), pastoral ministry probably isn’t for you.
Sorry to hijack the comment with such a long note!
Great post! I have been arguing against Spurgeon's quote for years. “If you can do anything else, do it. If you can stay out of the ministry, stay out of it.” Hogwash!
Grateful for this! I've heard this quote so many times, and I'm never quite sure in what sense they mean it. But it has always grated on me, and I've never heard anyone push back on it, so I figured the problem was me.
I appreciate the points you bring up here, and I’d add this: for younger men who “can’t do anything else” there can be a sort of “I can’t be content doing anything else, and therefore I’m owed the opportunity” attitude toward ministry which is exceedingly unhelpful, unbiblical, and unwise.
I felt called toward vocational ministry at 19. I immediately had opportunities, one of which included fundraising for the position. And at one point I was lamenting to an older pastor that I hadn’t raised how much I needed to be full-time in that role, and he asked me, “why do you think God hasn’t let you raise enough support?”
In retrospect, I think part of the answer to that question is that God didn’t let me because I didn’t have the know how or the work ethic to make it happen. It was simply a matter of him being sovereign over my failure. But at another level, that lack of funds kept me in the workplace, with a company I would spend another decade plus at, learning all sorts of skills I now use both in pastoral ministry and in my small business.
It hadn’t occurred to me at 19 or 20 years old that God might give a desire for ministry and still want me engaged in other work. But those years are a well I still draw from, and prepared me for church planting in a town where “full-time ministry” may never be feasible, and might be a strategic mistake, even if it were.
Anyway, I’ve been kicking around ideas to write on this for a while now, and am glad you did!!
"It hadn’t occurred to me at 19 or 20 years old that God might give a desire for ministry and still want me engaged in other work."
This seems commonplace, a young person has a partial concept of whatever they're called to do, but far from the whole picture. But it can be hard to convince them that the timeline might be longer than a few years.
Sounds like ministry has a certain attraction to the lazy. By no means am I calling even a majority of pastors and preachers lazy, and serious study is work in itself. But I’ve seen it firsthand. It can be a default option for men who are trying to avoid that results-based metric, let alone are unable to understand it.
It seems like you're talking about two different things. You're mixing general faithfulness with calling. For most pastors, it's not that they can't do anything else and they won't do anything else and that they can't find meaning in it, it's that the work doesn't compare to that of the pastoral work. A pastor ought to be able to exercise his skills in all forms of work. Most Bible college to seminary students who long to pastor ought to spend some time in the real world. But that's a practical consideration, not a calling consideration.
For example, I could have a lot fun being a lawyer. Genuinely. But the idea of spending my life doing that over helping to disciple, shepherd, and train up souls for the kingdom, empties the allure of the law job for me. It's a good job. I could do it. Pays well. I'd be faithful in it. I'd find ways to honor and glorify God in it. It just would not be enough. I need to do more. I want to actively be involved in the building up of the saints with my life. Anything less of that feels like a waste of my life. It's not that I can't honor God in other jobs. It's not that I can't be content and faithful in them. It's that, when weighed against the scales of the coming kingdom, it's not where I'm called.
That's why pastors have historically said, "If you can do anything else, do it." This life is a calling, and it takes knowing you've been called to endure the work.
I share your interpretation of the "if you can do anything else" phrase. It reflects, in my judgment, a passion or calling toward pastoral or some similar ministry that will not let go of you. At age 76, I've been involved in myriad things over my life -- broadcasting, print, and online journalism (Christian and secular), Christian education, and pastoral ministry. At age 50, after retooling myself with graduate school in my 40s, I became a university business professor at a state school and came to think my past activities had culminated in what I was born to do. The 19 years as a professor were so great that they only felt like five. I retired eight years ago, still active in different businesses and ministries. A year ago, a stirring came in me to again be involved in pastoral ministry. That soon resulted in my becoming an interim pastor of a small country church in an area of upcoming urban growth. There are indications the position will soon become "permanent." I love what I'm now doing, am shedding some other projects from my life and, if truth be told, at this moment I can't imagine myself doing anything else.
This is a great post. I have often thought the "If you can do anything else instead of ministry, do that" is not great advice. The truth it is trying to convey (that ministry life is hard and can be crushing) can be communicated in other ways. Great post!
Thank you for your posts on Pastoral ministry. I've recently graduated from Bible College as a mature aged student, called by the Spirit to study part time at the peak of my career as I read Bob Buford's Halftime. I saw first-hand in lectures the young guys you speak of whose wife was working full time so they could study. Felt out of order, and I would struggle to trust many of them with a Church in light of 1 Timothy 3.
I think if meant in the way you employed it, this is a spot on critique of that statement. Far too many treat ministry as some professional vocational career path rather than, well, ministry. The hyper-specialization of seminary career path certainly hasn’t helped that. If meant as a thread for the discontent in some other work field to grab hold of and catapult into ministry, begone. I do think there’s another way to employ that phrase that’s far more accurate and helpful. It would have to be detailed something like this:
If you can rest completely unbothered not being involved in ministry to the local church (not in discontent but in disinterest - and not in the business of preaching only but in soul-care), pastoral ministry probably isn’t for you.
Sorry to hijack the comment with such a long note!
Great post! I have been arguing against Spurgeon's quote for years. “If you can do anything else, do it. If you can stay out of the ministry, stay out of it.” Hogwash!
As someone who was in “full-time ministry” and is now tri vocational, so much truth in what you say here.
Grateful for this! I've heard this quote so many times, and I'm never quite sure in what sense they mean it. But it has always grated on me, and I've never heard anyone push back on it, so I figured the problem was me.
I appreciate the points you bring up here, and I’d add this: for younger men who “can’t do anything else” there can be a sort of “I can’t be content doing anything else, and therefore I’m owed the opportunity” attitude toward ministry which is exceedingly unhelpful, unbiblical, and unwise.
I felt called toward vocational ministry at 19. I immediately had opportunities, one of which included fundraising for the position. And at one point I was lamenting to an older pastor that I hadn’t raised how much I needed to be full-time in that role, and he asked me, “why do you think God hasn’t let you raise enough support?”
In retrospect, I think part of the answer to that question is that God didn’t let me because I didn’t have the know how or the work ethic to make it happen. It was simply a matter of him being sovereign over my failure. But at another level, that lack of funds kept me in the workplace, with a company I would spend another decade plus at, learning all sorts of skills I now use both in pastoral ministry and in my small business.
It hadn’t occurred to me at 19 or 20 years old that God might give a desire for ministry and still want me engaged in other work. But those years are a well I still draw from, and prepared me for church planting in a town where “full-time ministry” may never be feasible, and might be a strategic mistake, even if it were.
Anyway, I’ve been kicking around ideas to write on this for a while now, and am glad you did!!
"It hadn’t occurred to me at 19 or 20 years old that God might give a desire for ministry and still want me engaged in other work."
This seems commonplace, a young person has a partial concept of whatever they're called to do, but far from the whole picture. But it can be hard to convince them that the timeline might be longer than a few years.
Sounds like ministry has a certain attraction to the lazy. By no means am I calling even a majority of pastors and preachers lazy, and serious study is work in itself. But I’ve seen it firsthand. It can be a default option for men who are trying to avoid that results-based metric, let alone are unable to understand it.
It seems like you're talking about two different things. You're mixing general faithfulness with calling. For most pastors, it's not that they can't do anything else and they won't do anything else and that they can't find meaning in it, it's that the work doesn't compare to that of the pastoral work. A pastor ought to be able to exercise his skills in all forms of work. Most Bible college to seminary students who long to pastor ought to spend some time in the real world. But that's a practical consideration, not a calling consideration.
For example, I could have a lot fun being a lawyer. Genuinely. But the idea of spending my life doing that over helping to disciple, shepherd, and train up souls for the kingdom, empties the allure of the law job for me. It's a good job. I could do it. Pays well. I'd be faithful in it. I'd find ways to honor and glorify God in it. It just would not be enough. I need to do more. I want to actively be involved in the building up of the saints with my life. Anything less of that feels like a waste of my life. It's not that I can't honor God in other jobs. It's not that I can't be content and faithful in them. It's that, when weighed against the scales of the coming kingdom, it's not where I'm called.
That's why pastors have historically said, "If you can do anything else, do it." This life is a calling, and it takes knowing you've been called to endure the work.
I share your interpretation of the "if you can do anything else" phrase. It reflects, in my judgment, a passion or calling toward pastoral or some similar ministry that will not let go of you. At age 76, I've been involved in myriad things over my life -- broadcasting, print, and online journalism (Christian and secular), Christian education, and pastoral ministry. At age 50, after retooling myself with graduate school in my 40s, I became a university business professor at a state school and came to think my past activities had culminated in what I was born to do. The 19 years as a professor were so great that they only felt like five. I retired eight years ago, still active in different businesses and ministries. A year ago, a stirring came in me to again be involved in pastoral ministry. That soon resulted in my becoming an interim pastor of a small country church in an area of upcoming urban growth. There are indications the position will soon become "permanent." I love what I'm now doing, am shedding some other projects from my life and, if truth be told, at this moment I can't imagine myself doing anything else.