We remember Dr. John W.P. Oliver, former Professor of Homiletics and Practical Theology Emeritus, as he reflects on the importance of nurturing our calling to ministry through a faithful devotional life. He encourages those serving the church to guard their personal walk with the Lord, allowing him to shape their hearts as they prepare to minister his Word to others.
The following is a transcript of the video above.
How do we stay faithful to our calling?
A student preached really a wonderful sermon in a homiletics clinic, or lab, as we call them. And it was so moving to me that when the lab was over, I gathered things up and ran him down in the parking lot. I said, “Did you mean what you preached?” And I remember that look on his face, sort of, what kind of a question is that? How do I answer that? And he stumbled a bit and grinned and said, “Well, I think I did.” And we laughed and I then pursued why I asked that question. And I found out later when I was preaching his ordination sermon in Greenville, South Carolina, that that was the turning point in his mind about pursuing the ministry. He wasn’t sure that he had a call to preach. But unbeknownst to me at the time, asking that sort of crazy question and getting a bum puzzled answer, so to speak, he sensed a true call in.
In my mind, one of the main pitfalls is to neglect the personal devotional walk with the Lord side of things and become sort of a professional in performance. I used to say to the students, guard your devotional life walk with him so that even in your preparations to preach, he speaks to your heart before you preach his word to the people’s hearts. That we’re called and we nurture that call. It’s not just we are called and now we’re doing all of this work in the church or on campus or on the mission field, but that we are nurturing and fulfilling our call as we walk with him and he lives his life and purposes out in us and through us. So I think it comes back to the devotional life of the servant of the Lord.