Considering Vocational Ministry

I came across this in one of the letters from C.S. Lewis in A Severe Mercy. He's talking to Sheldon Vanauken (the autobiographer), who is considering both Christianity and switching his field of study from history to theology. I think these thoughts are particularly applicable to us as we are all right now determining our life's work.

Lewis to Vanauken:

"We must ask three questions about the probable effect of changing your research subject to something more Theological.

(1.) Wd. it be better for your immediate enjoyment? Answer, probably but not certainly, Yes.

(2.) Wd. it be better for your academic career? Answer, probably No. You wd. have to make up in haste a lot of knowledge which wd. not be v. easily digested in the time.

(3.) Wd. it be better for your soul? I don't know. I think there is a great deal to be said for having one's deepest spiritual interest distinct from one's ordinary duty as a student or professional man. St. Paul's job was tent-making. When the two coincide I shd. have thought there was a danger lest the natural interest in one's job and the pleasures of gratified ambition might be mistaken for spiritual progress and spiritual consolation; and I think clergymen sometimes fall into this trap. Contrariwise, there is a danger that what is boring and repellent in the job may alienate one from the spiritual life. And finally, someone has said 'None are so unholy as those whose hands are cauterised with holy things; sacred things may become profane by becoming matters of the job. You now want spiritual truth for her own sake; how will it be when the same truth is also needed for an effective footnote in your thesis? In fact, the change might do good or harm. I've always been glad myself that Theology is not the thing I earn my living by. On the whole, I'd advise you to get on with your tent-making. The performance of a duty will probably teach you quite as much about God as academic Theology wd. do. Mind, I'm not certain: but that is the view I incline to.

[Second Letter] Look: the question is not whether we should bring God into our work or not. We certainly should and must: as MacDonald says 'All that is not God is death.' The question is whether we should simply (a.) Bring Him in in the dedication of our work to Him, in the integrity, diligence, and humility with which we do it or also (b.) Make His professed and explicit service our job. The A vocation rests on all men whether they know it or not; the B vocation only on those who are specially called to it. Each vocation has its peculiar dangers and peculiar rewards. Naturally, I can't say which is yours. When I spoke of danger to your academic career in a change of subject I was thinking chiefly of time. If you can get an extra year, it would be another matter."

This directly addresses at least my position. I have for a long time been planning to go into the ministry of some sort. Funny, I've never pictured myself as a pastor, at least not that I remember. I just pictured "gospel ministry" in some vague way, as if I would make my living reading the Bible and having conversations on the street. The more I've seen, the more the term "ministry" has included. Even a "secular" job. If you can be called a "missionary" for going to Turkey and running a sign-making shop and sharing the gospel when possible, can you not be called a "minister" for running a lawn care business in Dover and sharing the gospel when possible? The NT doesn't talk about being a pastor as a vocation does it? Apostles, traveling founders of the church receiving pay ("the ox is worthy…" etc.) yes. But pastors? I imagine that the elders appointed in churches were supported very little by the lay people. So the hard distinction of "minister" and "layperson" that refers to the positions vocationally must have come with the advent of (sufficiently) paid ministerial positions.

Not that this is bad: having vocational ministers is a luxury and great benefit to the churches. It must be an advantage to have pastors who can spend all their time working on improving and strengthening the church rather than thirty or forty percent. So it can't be a question of whether we should have vocational ministers or not; if we can have them we should have them. The question for us (or maybe just me) is then, should we be them? I think we should consider two things from Lewis's letters: 1) Can we handle the difficulties he mentions in question #3? Would it be better for our souls not to be vocational ministers? 2) Are we called?

Has someone written something on a theology of calling? It would be good to read on call in the NT.