My dad loved evangelizing. He'd end one revival on Sunday morning, pack up and drive to another one that was starting Sunday night. Back to back to back. But my mother, having to handle two very rowdy, disobedient, and otherwise terrible children (I speak of my brother and sister), asked him to pray about pastoring.When to door opened, it was his job for the next 34 years. God would not have been displeased, I don't think, with my dad continuing to evangelize, but neither was he displeased with pastoring--which had the added benefit of greater stability, etc.We often think of the will of God as something like a thread that we must walk, when, as one preacher put it, it was more like a field with a fence around it: You could do a lot of different things inside the fence/will of God.Consider that Lot could have chosen ANY direction--even all of them--and Abraham would STILL have been blessed by God.There are pastors, I am sure, that labor on in unhealthy circumstances (to them, the church, or both) because they are under the impression that they are forever called to that church--at least until they are called to another. Consider that while the CALLING may be forever, the place may be transient, the position may be transient.I wonder if we are CALLED to be pastors, so much as called to be men and women of God...who serve where God places them...for the time that he has for them there.There are no doubt thousands and thousands of churches that remain alive today because someone came along and kept the place alive until the torch could be passed to someone who could take over.Men of God were needed to wait on tables in the Book of Acts. It might be that many of us (I am especially sensitive to Cojak's take on his pastoral experience) were called by God, like Esther, for such a time as this--whatever time that might be. God sees a need, He sends a man or woman of God to handle the matter until someone else comes along to handle it.Sis. Culpepper preached a sermon at the Florida Camp Meeting some years ago in which she said that she felt that her giftedness was in being a gap-filler. No doubt that is another way of saying Helps, but, boy, that hits that bulls-eye, doesn't it? I have women in my church that are wonderful Sunday School teachers (at any level), yet also ensure that our fellowship dinners are stocked with great food and the such. Our Treasurer is the same.The truth is that no matter how long you pastor or do the same job, it's still only temporary. At some point, you're going to be done (or done in). There are likely a lot of folks who have held on when they should have let go and allowed God to place them in the next place of use.Think of how blessed we all would be if we were RECEIVING the best someone had to give, and were giving the BEST we had to give! But so often, we press, drag, crawl onward, losing our inspiration and vitality...perhaps because we think that God meant us to be in THAT role forever.Some may indeed have long-term assignments, but some of us are wired differently.COJAK, every time you have visited our little church, you and your wife have been a wonderful encouragement and blessing--to both my family and the people (especially the children) of the church. And Cojak, I would wager that those churches you pastored have been instrumental THEN and LATER in helping people receive enough encouragement to go one more step. Then one more. It may be, Cojak, that you were right where God wanted you: serving as a pastor. Maybe it wasn't forever, but if God got glory, if God helped someone, if someone received a blessing, etc., then, even if it was for a season, you were of use to the Master.
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