Training men for ministry

Dear Editor,

John Brand’s ‘open letter’ in the June issue of en raises significant issues about the need for healthy training of committed men for the preaching and pastoral ministry.

He suggests that some young men enter ministry without a realistic view of what he calls the real world of ministry, particularly preaching twice a Sunday plus midweek. We need men who share Jeremiah’s sense of a burning fire in his bones that he couldn’t keep in (Jer.20:9) and Paul’s sense of compulsion to preach the gospel (1 Cor.9:16). This is a far cry from any go-easy-on-myself attitude, and if men are too busy to commit to such regular preaching, then perhaps they are too busy with other things.