Are You Called?
By Kenny Latimore
Could God be calling you into pastoral ministry? At the moment of my birth, the doctor didn’t proclaim, “We’ve got a pastor here. His hands are folded in prayer!” Like many people, my call to the pastorate wasn’t always clear. There were many twists and turns along the way. So if you find yourself wrestling with such a call, I’m hoping my story might help you discern if pastoral ministry is God’s plan for you.
My call did not rise from a single startling event likes Moses and the burning bush. Rather, my calling more closely resembled God’s calling of Nehemiah to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Of putting a puzzle together with pieces, each piece building on the others. Like Nehemiah gradually and carefully rebuilding the crumbled walls of Jerusalem, God patiently laid the bricks of passion, faith steps, patience, prayer and confirmation in my heart.
Pay attention to what moves your heart. It could be the beginnings of a call from God.
Often a sense of calling occurs when people begin to pay attention to what moves their hearts. They see a problem that stirs them: maybe to tears of compassion, maybe righteous anger, or perhaps passion. However our hearts are stirred, it’s oftentimes the beginning of a call from God when he pinpoints how and when he will use us.
I see this passion in the story of Nehemiah, a Jew in exile. Nearly 150 years before, Israel had been conquered and the people deported… including Nehemiah’s family. Life in Persia was kind to Nehemiah based upon his job in the Persian palace as the king’s cupbearer — testing the king’s food to make certain it had not been poisoned. He had a good and seemingly happy life.
His happy world changed when one day Nehemiah innocently asked his visiting brother, “How are things in Jerusalem?”
“Nehemiah, you don’t want to know! The walls are a pile of rubble and the people in great peril and feeling disgraced.”
“When I heard these things,” Nehemiah mused, “I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.”
Nehemiah wasn’t ready to devote his life to the problem of a broken wall a thousand miles away. He hadn’t embraced his calling yet. But as God moved his heart, the passion to rebuild grew as he wept and mourned, fasted and prayed.
For much of my early life, the passion that burned in me was for basketball. I thought God could be leading me to some sort of career in the sport so I wanted to see where that would lead. I attended Berkshire Christian College as an education major with a minor in theology. Pastoral ministry training wasn’t on the radar as I became a trained teacher.
After graduating BCC, I immediately started teaching public school and coaching high school sports. At the same time, my home church (Oak Hill Bible in Oxford, Mass.) asked my wife and me to serve as part-time paid youth leaders. Over a three-year period, God did a fascinating thing. I began to discover I didn’t possess a love for teaching itself. I loved relating with teens; bringing Jesus into those relationships stoked the passion within me.
Watch out, responding to your calling will take a leap of faith.
Pursuing God’s calling always includes faith steps! Nehemiah’s first step was boldly approaching King Artaxerxes to ask for permission and resources to go rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Not knowing how the king would respond but driven by his passion, Nehemiah faithfully followed God’s calling.
I sensed God’s call to pastoral ministry as a high school senior but was scared stiff of it for a variety of reasons. The number one reason: I feared preaching! I couldn’t imagine doing it every week. In retrospect, I think it would have been beneficial to have vocalized this potential pastoral call to my pastor at the time. He would have answered my questions and mentored me in what pastoral ministry truly represents.
God provided a watershed moment in my life through a basketball camp. To supplement my income, I worked basketball camps for eight weeks each summer. At one camp, I was asked to give two lectures to 200 high school basketball players, one on shooting and the other on motivation. It was my first public speaking engagement. On the day I gave my motivation lecture, I shared how Jesus gave me a second chance in life by saving me from drowning and paralysis at the age of 16. I went on to talk about Jesus’ being the one motivation of my life. Through this, God used teaching and coaching to stir my heart to the problem of lost junior and senior high students. I sensed a God-given passion for student ministry.
Don't get in a hurry, pursuing God's call will include some waiting.
Four months passed from the time Nehemiah heard the news of Jerusalem until he acted, but it proved to be the most important four months of Nehemiah’s life. Alan Redpath writes, “Recognition of need must be followed by earnest, persistent waiting upon God until the overwhelming need becomes a specific burden in my soul for one particular piece of work that God would have me to do.”
In the four months of this man’s waiting on God, the Lord of heaven cemented his calling to address the problem he would devote his life to. The burden Nehemiah felt for his people became deeply embedded in his soul. God clarified a vision and a strategy for him to implement his specific call. God also gave him a reality check on what it would cost to fulfill that calling, the courage he would need, the tenacity it would require and the perseverance demanded to finish.
The next key faith step in my life also required patience. I quit my job as a teacher to pursue God’s call. This meant working as a landscaper and a painter in an auto body shop to put food on the table during a time in which my wife was very pregnant. But it proved to be the best possible job because I worked alone 99 percent of the time, allowing me to truly seek God and for him to cement my calling.
Pray. It's the only way to navigate your calling.
I’m grateful the author of the book that bears Nehemiah’s name recorded his calling prayer, “O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of love with those who love and obey his commands.”
Unlike the way many of us tend to begin our prayers, the king’s cupbearer did not begin his prayer by stating the need or magnifying the problem. Sometimes we worry out loud when we pray, but Nehemiah began with who God is — “great and awesome and keeper of the covenant of love.”
Nehemiah’s prayer solidified his calling. For a year, I waited on God like Nehemiah — praising God, confessing sin, standing on his promises and trusting God to use me. It proved to be the greatest year of my life, because he used it to solidify my calling so that 36 years later it continues.
Look out for confirmation. If it's of God, it'll be there.
When God calls, he confirms! You can’t read Nehemiah without believing God proved over and over that he was the man for the job. God confirmed my call over and over again through a variety of means.
During my talk at the basketball camp, I became emotional as I shared how Jesus was the difference in my life. I got a huge lump in my throat and was unable to speak for a time. When I finished and walked off the court, I thought I just blew it by crying in front of 200 high school players. However, as I walked off the court I received a standing ovation that lasted three minutes! I went out in the hallway of that gym and said two important things to the Lord. “Lord, if you can use basketball for your glory like that, I will dedicate basketball for your glory only. I also believe you have gifted me to speak and will use that for your glory as well.”
God used all of these things to confirm my call to pastoral ministry. He shut the doors to teaching but opened other doors to pursue my calling. To make a long story short, my home church presented me with a job offer to become their associate pastor with a primary emphasis upon youth. My son was born in March 1986, and I began full-time ministry in May 1986. As soon as I began full-time, the youth ministry multiplied dramatically to the point where we were ministering to approximately 100 students. Many of them making commitments to Christ as Lord and Savior. My senior pastor, Art Stone, provided the pastoral mentoring I yearned for.
If you're wrestling with a call to ministry, follow the Lord in the direction he's already leading you.
At 23, I began to sense my calling was teaching only to discover quickly that it wasn’t. Instead, God used teaching to stir my heart to the problem of lost junior and senior high students. But that’s not all God used to solidify my sense of call. I took a step of faith, prayed, was patient and looked for confirmation.
What about you? What has God given you a passion for? Are you willing to patiently seek him through prayer? What steps of faith do you need to make in order to clarify if God is calling you? Are there signs of confirmation you see in your life?
If you’re wrestling with a call to pastoral ministry, remember that God’s call is often extended and clarified over many years and many events. Pursue your passions, step out in faith, be patient, be prayerful and look for confirmation of the Lord’s work in your life. And then follow the Lord where he leads.
Kenny Latimore is the pastor of the Garner Advent Christian Church in Garner N.C. For 35 years he has served in full-time ministry in the roles of youth and college pastor, associate pastor, senior pastor. He is a 1982 graduate of Berkshire Christian College, where he also met his wife Kim. Kenny and Kim have two adult sons, and two grandchildren.
Rev. Kenny Latimore, “Are You Called?,” The Advent Christian Witness, Fall 2021