HANDLE THAT NEW CALL WITH CARE
Accepting or declining a call to a new congregation
By David Campbell
Day One. 100 pages. £5.00
ISBN 978-1-84625-153-5
This is a very helpful book for pastors, elders and members of local churches to buy and reflect upon. Is there a more painful experience in church life than for a church to be told that their pastor has been approached by another church indicating that they are contemplating issuing a call to him to undertake the ministry of that fellowship? Is this always wrong? Should such an approach always be declined?
At the very first church meeting I attended as a Christian, we were told that the minister was leaving. Shock, confusion and insecurity are not uncommon emotions. Some churches I know will never approach a serving pastor in seeking to call a minister, as they regard it as unethical and unbiblical. It is such issues that David Campbell addresses. He is more than able to do so, having had the experience of being called from Darlington, UK, to Pennsylvania in the USA.
The approach he adopts is most helpful. The biblical basis of the opening chapters gives way to a survey of ministers throughout church history to see how they handled such tricky issues. Alas, too often a move to another fellowship has been an excuse to ‘escape’ looming problems on the one hand or tinged by a smack of professionalism in seeking ‘a wider ministry’ on the other. What is needed is a loving submission to the Lord of the Church and a wise and godly application of Scripture to this issue. David helps us here. The old Puritan Richard Baxter answers the question: ‘Is a pastor obliged to his flock for life? Or is it lawful so to oblige himself? And may he remove without their consent? And so also of a church member, the same questions are put.’ Part of his answer reads thus: 1) a) A minister is obliged to Christ and the Universal Church for life, with this exception, if God disables him not. b) But as a pastor he is not obliged to this or that flock for life. There is no such command or example in God’s Word. 2) To the second a) it is lawful to oblige ourselves to a people for life in some cases, conditionally; that is, if God does not apparently call us away. b) But it is never lawful to do it absolutely. (i) because we shall engage ourselves against God; against his power over us, and interest in us, and his wisdom that must guide us. God may call us whither he please: And though now he speak not by supernatural revelation, yet he may do it by providential alterations…’ (Richard Baxter, A Christian Directory — Christian Ecclesiastics, p.693, 1677).
