A Promise
Your current ministry is preparation for later ministry opportunities. Although the minister should not focus on future opportunities for contentment, today’s ministry is a training ground for everything that lies ahead. Spurgeon urges young ministers,
“To make the very poorest listen with pleasure and profit is in itself an achievement, and beyond this it is the best possible promise and preparation for an influential ministry. Let our younger brethren go in for cottage preaching, and plenty of it.”
This promise was confirmed by Spurgeon’s life. As a young man, his first pastorate was a small, rural congregation at Waterbeach. He faithfully served this congregation until his call to New Park Street Chapel in London. Upon his call, he wrote these words to his new congregation on April 28, 1854,
“I sought not to come to you, for I was the minister of an obscure but affectionate people; I never solicited advancement. The first note of invitation from your deacons came quite unlooked-for, and I trembled at the idea of preaching in London. I could not understand how it had come about, and even now I am in the hands of our covenant God, whose wisdom directs all things He shall choose for me; and so far as I can judge, this is His choice.”
A Warning
A desire for future opportunities may render you ineffective in your current ministry. Discontentment leads to a lack of focus on the current ministry. Once again reflecting on Teversham, Spurgeon remarks,
“Many of our young folks want to do great things, and therefore do nothing at all; let none of our readers become the victims of such an unreasonable ambition. He who is willing to teach infants, or to give away tracts, and so to begin at the beginning, is far more likely to be useful than the youth who is full of affectations and sleeps in a white necktie, who is studying for the ministry, and is touching up certain superior manuscripts which he hopes ere long to read from the pastor’s pulpit.”
Each of us will battle with discontentment, regardless of the size of our ministry or the phase of our career. Charles Spurgeon knew this fact, as he undoubtedly felt this temptation himself. I prayerfully hope that these reminders from Spurgeon’s ministry will help you as you carry on in the work of the Gospel.
This article originally appeared here.
