Called of God

I just finished reading and article from Mission Dignity about Harold and Frances Medlock entitled Safe In The Arms of God.  Basically it was a death notice about Frances Medlock who had been getting assistance from Mission Dignity since her husband had died in 2000. Prior to his death Harold and Frances lived off their social security and the pittance of retirement they had managed to accumulate over 50 years of marriage and 45 years of ministry.  However, like so many widows experience when their spouse dies, Frances found her income cut in half and she was no longer able to make ends meet.  Well, Frances has joined her husband in God's heaven.

Frances Medlock

She once said, "I know that God's arms are around me and He's going to be with me." Well, they were and are. While she walked in this life He wrapped her in His everlasting arms of mercy through thousands of people who make Mission Dignity a reality and now he has drawn her ever closer to Himself.

Harold and Frances Medlock's story is not unusual or unique. This is especially true of the men and women God called prior to our modern times. Many of us began our ministries in a time when the old joke "Lord you keep him humble and we'll keep him poor" was more of a reality than a joke.  My own first time church paid me a total salary, benefit  and professional expense package of $9800 a year. That was to cover all my expenses both private and ministry related. Oh yea, we were also expected to give back to the church a tithe of at least $980 a year.  Others made far less and even had to have part-time jobs to make ends meet just as in Harold and Frances Medlock's story.

But times were different then. The focus was on being God called and trusting Him to supply all your needs. Preaching and ministering took priority over "making a living."  We did what we did because as Jeremiah said, "His word was like a fire in our bones."  We did not preach for pay. We preached so that others could hear the Gospel story and find forgiveness and eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. I know I was adamant from the first pulpit committee I was ever approached by to the last that they, the church, did not pay me to preach. I preached because that is what God called me to do. I would preach even if I were not paid and there were many times when I wasn't.

Reverend Joseph Ruggles Wilson

We literally trusted the Lord that His people would be faithful to take care of our needs. I recall hearing the story of Woodrow Wilson's father who was a Presbyterian minister at the turn of the century (1900). Seems that as the Rev. Wilson was tying his horse to the hitching post outside the general store the owner of the store, an elder in the Presbyterian Church, said something to the effect, "Rev. Wilson, your horse fairs better than you." To which the Rev. Wilson replied, "Indeed he does for I take care of my horse and you take care of me."

There was not a distinction between small church preachers and large church preachers that indicated one ministry was more successful than the other. At least not in Baptist life. The highest honor and the greatest thing you could say about a man was that he was a "God Called Preacher." But one God called preacher was not held in higher esteem than another.  Each one was called of God to preach the gospel and than made them all equals under the Lord. Each was a servant of the Most High God.

We were God's servants to be placed and used as He chose and not as we desired. No doubt we would have all liked to have been selected to pastor and preach at a BIG and RICH church that could and would meet our material needs both during active ministry and old age.  But that is not how it was done in those days. We walked through the doors that God opened and not the ones that we decided to open. We served where God placed us not where we got our friends to recommend us. We, naturally asked the brethren to pray that God would open doors but never once did we suggest which door that should be nor did we stipulate it had to represent financial advancement.  I think sometimes our wives might have though.

I have said all that to say that as God called preacher/pastors we serve in the places God places us without consideration of whether or not it is a good move financially. God has lots of places where his people need a preacher and most of them are not big. I am humbled and honored enough just knowing that God called me to preach. It would be ever so much more humbling had he put me in a large place. Do I believe I could have handled a church running into the 1000's? You bet I do!


But ability has nothing to do with where God places His preachers. He puts them where He needs them. Some He sends to foreign fields to labor in strange cultures; some He sends to small out-of-the-way crossroad communities; Some he places in Large places with grand surroundings and great wealth and others He sends to the poor and down-trodden.  The point is none of us deserve the place God's grace gives us to serve. The joy is in the calling and the amazement that He chose us to preach the unsearchable riches of God in Christ Jesus to this world that He loves so dearly. The goal of every God called preacher is to serve where God places him.

Hershel Hobbs

"The personal anointing that comes with God calling a preacher into the ministry is both to be cherished and to be coveted. It is the 'badge of courage' that the God called preacher will wear as long as he breathes. It is as much a part of his living as is the calm assurance that he has been born again into the family of God. May the God called preacher preach with the dignity of being a royal ambassador who represents the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords!"  -  Dr. W. Max Alderman

It was Abraham Lincoln who once said,  "I don't like to hear cut and dried sermons. No—when I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees."  In short, he was looking for a man so invested in the message to be delivered that he became physically animated.

That is not to say that people did not make distinctions between preachers. Some were good preachers, some were fair preachers, some were terrible preachers and a few were great preachers. But this had to do with their oratory ability not their calling or standing as a minister. Others were viewed as great pastors and still others were considered great church planters. Some, like Herschel Hobbs,  were viewed as great theologian while other were like, R.G. Lee, great masters of the story. But as I said, this has only to do with gifts and talents that God has distributed as he has chosen to His servants.

By the way, God places his servant where He does with purpose. It may not be to test the faithfulness of the preacher but rather to test the faithfulness of His people in that place.  It might just be to reveal to the congregation where they as a body need to grow and mature.

R.G. Lee

Now back to Howard and Frances Medlock. Some would say Howard should have paid more attention to His future and retirement. Some would even say if he had been any good he would have been given bigger responsibilities. I can hear all the "Christian" financial guys now saying he should have been putting money in his 403C account or in a Guidestone account.  Even the people at Guidestone know the fallacy of such advise. It smacks of the secular. He could have been an investment banker and made a killing at the expense of his neighbors retirement too but he didn't. He did exactly what every other God called preacher is supposed to do and that is preach the Gospel and minister to the people trusting God to supply your needs.

I would say to you that Howard and Frances were right where God wanted them to be doing exactly what God wanted them to be doing and asking them to do it while trusting Him to supply their needs. How about you? Can you say the same? 

How does God supply the needs of His 'Called" preachers/pastors? Through you, the sheep of His pasture. In response to the spiritual and in some case literal food these men of God have delivered to your life God expects you to reach into the gifts He has showered upon you in super abundance and meet the needs not only of the needy among the  "called" ones but also of the widow and the orphan in general.  So dig deep and give generously so God's faithful servants can life out their lives with a modicum of dignity that God has asked you to make possible.  Come on and lend a hand.

An Aside:

I know that in this day and age many have made merchandise of the Gospel. They are selling the gift God has given them to whomever will shell out the price of a book or cost of a CDROM or DVD or minimum offering guarantee. We have become experts in marketing and sales. The problem is we are trafficking in the gifts and callings of God. They are not ours to sell. They belong to God and are freely given for the edification of the church.

But I suppose that's a discussion for another time. But we can turn the Lord's House of Prayer into a Den of Thieves in more than one way.  Selling a gift that God has given for the edification of His body so we can live in comfort and have the praise of men is one of those other ways. We are either preachers and ministers of the Gospel or we are entertainers. We must decide how we use the gifts God has freely bestowed upon us.

We have turned our houses of worship into malls of merchandise and we have turned our church campuses into a theme parks. I read of one church that even built a fishing lake. We have become so much like the world that when placed side by side we look like twins with only a few subtle distinctions between us.