Call - personal or public?

Should you "feel" a call or wait until someone tells you that you are called?

Discerning whether or not God has called you into ordained ministry is an interesting process as there are two traditionally recognised types of call. First there is that inner call. That is the call you feel in you. That call is not measurable, no-one can tell you whether that call is authentic or not because each person feels that call differently and of course no-one else can truly know what’s going on inside you and your relationship with God. This call is the one most likely to cause you to enter into the process of ordained ministry but it is also the one most likely to give you the most frustrations because of its personal nature and it is totally between you and God. The other call is the outward call. This is where others in your congregation see gifts and skills in you that they feel are consistent to you being most likely someone God would use in ordained ministry. This can also bring you confusion because sometimes people can approach you before you’ve heard and inner call from God or people see gifts and skills in you that perhaps you haven’t seen or acknowledged before. However the outward call is perhaps more tangible and others can agree or disagree that they see that call on your life.

What I have explained is perhaps in simplistic terms but to put it another way, the Uniting Church in Australia is known as “Catholic, Reformed and Evangelical”. Catholic means the Church universal. Andrew Dutney explains this as
“When the Uniting Church describes itself as ‘catholic’ it is saying that its faith is not intended to be new or original but the faith that is shared by the universal or whole Christian church from the earliest times – translated afresh into the language, concepts and actions that will speak to its particular time and place.” (p9 Introducing the Uniting Church in Australia.)

The reformed traditions of our church, which in the Uniting Church are seen through the Congregational and Presbyterian heritage, would acknowledge the outward call process as the tradition had a lot of emphasis on the academic qualifications of their Ministers. Andrew Dutney wrote in his book A Genuinely Educated Ministry of the reformed tradition
“For the reformers, the marks of the true church were, first the preaching of the Word of God; that is, the true word of God revealed in the Scriptures, appropriated by means of the tools of humanistic scholarship and illuminated and confirmed by the Holy Spirit. The second mark of the true church was the right administration of the sacraments; that is, administration as instituted by Christ in the form recorded in the Biblical text and stripped of all the accretions of time and superstition.”(p 51)
Dutney continues on pg 52 by saying “The pastor could only fulfil this ministry if he could read the scriptures in the original languages, interpret them in the context of the theological legacy of the Latin and Greek fathers, relate them to the categories of truth and meaning of his own generation (originally, the categories associated with the Renaissance and humanism), and communicate the self revelation of God so appropriated in clear, persuasive language.” So you can understand why they would have an emphasis on the outward call. On the other hand our traditions of the Evangelical church, which is seen through the Methodist heritage of the Uniting Church, have more of an emphasis on the inward call. Dutney writes of the evangelical tradition p54
“Accordingly, the primary function of the ministry in Wesleyan Methodism (and in Evangelicalism as a whole) was to preach a message that went beyond mere instruction to awaken people to feel the consequences of sin and to convert them to faith in Christ, in whom alone salvation could be found.”
Although Ministers in the Evangelical tradition were also encouraged to be educated there wasn’t so much of an emphasis on education but more importantly Ministers should have a living faith that they could share with others.



Don’t run! Don’t let me scare you off with academic talk just yet! That may go over your head now but if you decide to candidate for an ordained ministry you’ll get to understand the finer details that make up the Uniting Church :-) You can also breathe easy that you will not be required to read and interpret the scriptures from Latin! These days the call process is both and inward discernment and an outward discern with an emphasis on a person committing to a life long service to minstry and leadership, advocating the Gospel and Christian faith, guarding the unity of the church and equipping others to participate fully in mission and ministry. (Grab a copy of Andrew Dutney’s book Introducing the Uniting Church in Australia and look at p23)

As an introduction into study and as part of your own discernment process, I would recommend that as you register for the P.O.D. course, you read a copy of the Basis of Union which gives a great explanation on how the Uniting Church in Australia (Australia’s first home grown denomination) came into being as well as helping you to understand the culture and DNA of the church as a body.