Do Pastors Need To Be Ordained?

Do you think that pastors should be ordained by a church? Is it necessary to be ordained by others or can someone ordain themselves?

The three-fold Call

I have heard this same idea repeated in many pastor’s lives. They had a three-fold calling and that seems to be biblical because by two or three witnesses, something is established as true (2nd Cor 13:1) but what are these three callings that the man will hear? I believe two may be internal but the other one is external. This includes a deeply, passionate desire to be in the ministry. You will have no doubts about this internal calling. You will also be convinced that this is God’s will because you’ll know that “God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose” (1st Cor 12:18), not as we choose, so you’ll recognize this is God’s idea and not ours. God choses whomever He pleases to be placed in the position where it does the Body of Christ the most good (1st Cor 12:28). Finally, we can seek to be in a position of church leadership (1st Tim 3:1). That’s actually a good thing.

God’s Choice

In God’s sovereignty, He calls whom He thinks best, when He thinks best, and places them in the church as He thinks best. A person who is being called into the ministry is the overwhelming feeling that God may be calling them. God might be using other people around them to drive home this point. Family, friends, or even co-workers might believe that this person would make a very good pastor. They may already see these attributes in them. God can also use circumstances to make His calling clear. It might be an open door for them to walk through to be part of a pulpit supply or He might have had them teaching adult Sunday school classes for a few years to prepare them for teaching in the ministry. He may even open a door that was obviously not of human doing that you know you’re supposed to walk through it and even your friends or church members will be urging you to walk through it.

The Church’s Choice

When I originally came over the church that I am pastor at now, I came with the intent of getting some preaching experience during my seminary days but the main reason was to help them create an outreach program. I wanted to help them establish biblical evangelism training, how to start local ministries (such as our nursing home and prison ministry), and how help the local community by giving and serving. The goal was not to fill up the pews but to fill up heaven. Interestingly, and unknown to me at the time, the first week I preached was the very same week that the pastor announced he was retiring and moving back to eastern Kansas. The church board met and asked me to fill the pulpit because they thought I would make a great pastor. They felt very sure that God was calling me. I didn’t! I felt unworthy and told them my sordid background. I kept stiff-arming them all the way but they didn’t blink an eye; they actually loved the transparency. I’ve been there ever since. So the point is that a church will be part of that three-fold calling that God puts on a man’s life. God’s call will be very loud and clear but so will a local church. They will strongly urge the man to become ordained and enter into the ministry.

The Man’s Choice

When a man is called by God, he will be utterly miserable doing anything else. He will feel compelled to preach. It will be where he can’t even help himself because the urge is so strong to enter the ministry that like he will feel like Paul and that the “necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel” (1st Cor 9:16b). That doesn’t mean that our own desires do not count. In fact Paul writes that “If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task” (1st Tim 3:1). An overseer is a shepherd or pastor. There is nothing wrong with this desire if the motivation is for the glory of God. Those who are called typically have a great hunger for the Word. They seek to go deep into biblical studies, maybe even studying a bit of the original languages to see if it deepens the meaning of certain verses. The man’s who’s called will not be satisfied with teaching Sunday school or just getting a high school diploma. He will have a craving for better understanding the Word of God, who the authors were, why they wrote the book, the cultural settings, and so on.

Is Ordination Necessary?

I believe if any of these three are missing, then God is not ordaining whoever it is that seeks to be ordained. The biblical model was always for pastors to be ordained by the church since the church is the visible representation of Jesus Christ Who is the Head of the Church. There is no record of anyone ever ordaining themselves in the Bible and not turning out disastrously. You should have this calling from God and you should have the desire to be a minister, but that’s not enough. You need the authority of a local church to be ordained by, otherwise, anyone could be ordained or anyone could even ordain themselves but the crucial question is, “Does God recognize it?” I see Internet adds all the time which say “Want to be an Ordained Minister?” or “Want to be Pastor?” and then offer a correspondence course so you’ll get certificate but most churches will not recognize this as legitimate and I would caution you about their legitimacy. God ordains men, not certificates or diplomas.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there will be a clarion call from God that cannot be mistaken; there’ll be a physical church which is part of the Body of Christ which will call someone into the ministry; and finally, there’ll be such a desire to enter the ministry that you would feel totally useless if you could not minister to people. A pastor must be ordained by a local church otherwise the pastor is not attached to the Body of Christ, the church, and this means they’re also not attached to the Head which is Jesus Christ.

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.