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THEMATIC INTRODUCTION
The Truth about Vocational Ministry Preparation and Practice |
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By Dave DeVoll Editor-in-Chief |
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This issue of Truth Matters addresses the theme of the preparation and practice of vocational ministry, a theme that historically has been treated with some ambivalence in the Church of God Movement. I think this may be so because of the necessary stress on the charismatic nature of ministry that our leaders from the pioneer days to the present day have honored.
The New Testament does not give specific directions on how to make sure Christian ministers are adequately prepared to do the work of ministry. It does, however, tell us that only qualified ministers be ordained. 1 Timothy 3, for example gives the requirements for “bishops and deacons” (that is, pastors and helpers), but it does not tell us who is to examine candidates for those offices, nor how long a person must prove himself, only that one must not be a “novice.” When is one no longer a novice? 1 Timothy 5:22 contains the injunction, “Do not lay hands on anyone hastily” (NKJV). What constitutes haste? I think it is safe to say that the Holy Spirit is able to direct the leaders of the New Testament church as to what is needed in any particular culture and time for a qualified ministry. I believe He has done so for us in the past, and that He is doing so for us today.
In our movement’s current Credentials Manual is a brief “Historical Overview,” where we read that the Movement “began in 1880 by reacting dramatically to an excessive institutionalization of church life, often characterized as the heavy laying of human hands on God’s holy body of believers. However, after about thirty years of existence, this ‘reformation movement’ (as it often has been known) had begun to feel the pain of insisting on virtually no human organization being allowed in its own life. It had begun to permit small appearances of organization, but only as need appeared to make necessary. The Spirit of God was to remain in control of constituting, energizing, and directing the life of the church.”
We often sing, in our “National Anthem,”
Divinely built, divinely ruled, To God she doth submit; His will her law, His truth her guide. Her path is glory lit.
God sets her members each in place According to His will— Apostles, prophets, teachers all His purpose to fulfill.
It’s all very well and good to sing that God sets the various “vocational” ministers (“apostles, prophets, teachers”) in the body as it pleases Him. And it is Biblical to sing and preach that, as 1 Cor. 12 teaches. But how does the New Testament church practice that? Can anyone who announces a call to preach or be a missionary just do so, and must the church accept all who make such announcements? I don’t believe we ever have practiced that—although I have heard of instances where some have come disastrously close to it!
We have always had some sort of “credentialing” process, in spite of what we might think when we read the famous Carson City, MI, “Resolution”: Daniel Warner and A.J. Kilpatrick laid hands on each other and ordained each other in 1879 when Warner formally renounced his denominational ordination. Apparently, Warner was not content with such a “private” ordination ceremony. Brown writes, “. . . it seems that Warner later felt the desire for a more public ordination, and it is stated in the account of the Williamston [Michigan] Assembly, in 1884, that he and others were ordained by the laying on of hands of those assembled at that time.”
In our early years, the Gospel Trumpet Company printed from time to time pamphlets under the general title of Our Ministerial Letter. In the May 1913 issue, D.O. Teasley spent considerable space addressing the necessity of ministers “proving” their calling and gifts. Then he proceeds, “Having proved his faithfulness and his ability, a man may be trusted by the Lord and by the church to be an under-governor of God’s kingdom on earth. This brings us to the subject of ordination. . . . It is merely the outward recognition, the ceremonial setting apart, of what already exists.” Teasley, however, frustrates us by not telling specifically how one is to “prove” oneself. Some of them, we know, gained experience in the various “Missionary Homes” our Movement operated in some of our larger cities. Here classes were held in English, public speaking, Bible studies, and other areas of interest for prospective or newly-ordained ministers. The following year (August 1914) G.Q. Coplin’s “Letter” concerned “The New Testament Ministry.” In it he stressed the need for ability and knowledge, placing the responsibility for training new ministers on older ministers. The local pastor, of course, was the first teacher an aspiring minister had. Then he wrote, “But I believe that the best and safest course for a young worker to pursue is, if possible, to get in company with some older and well-established minister. This will be found the most practical, for there are frequently questions coming up and circumstances which call for the advice and counsel of experienced brethren” (pp. 196-197). Indeed, this seems to have been the most common method of preparing for ministry. Since so many of our earliest preachers were “flying messengers” (itinerant evangelists), it is only natural that to “be in company with” one of them meant traveling with her or him (since women ministers were present from the very beginning). How this is any less a “man-made” approach than Bible College or Seminary training is not obvious to me.
Warner, however, was partly the product of formal schooling, having studied at both Oberlin and Vermillion. Indeed, immediately before his death he was making plans for a more formal method of training ministers. Noah Byrum, whom Brown cites on p. 170, wrote that on October 13, 1895, Warner preached on “Wisdom.” He said, “During the course of his talk he spoke about the need of training young workers for the ministry and said that he felt God directing him to start a Bible school on the campground that ministers and workers might be better fitted to go forth for God. The night of December 5 of that year was the appointed time for the opening of the Bible school. Myself and a number of other workers from the Trumpet Office assembled at the [Grand Junction, MI] campground schoolhouse. Someone brought word that Brother Warner was not feeling well and could not be there.” Warner died a week later, and the school did not materialize.
Today our credentialing process honors the divine, charismatic gifting; “on-the-job training”; and the necessary human preparation for effective, godly ministry.
Callen, Barry L., ed. Credentials Manual of the Church of God (Anderson, IN: Church of God Ministries, 2017) 4 Naylor, Charles Wesley, “O Church of God!” in The Reformation Glory (Anderson, IN: Gospel Trumpet C., 1923) 91 Brown, Charles E. When the Trumpet Sounded (Anderson, IN: The Warner Press, 1951) 105 Our Ministerial Letter, Vol. 1 (Prestonsburg, KY: Reformation Publishers, 2008 reprint) 151
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