Ministerially Speaking

By Mark Bernhardt

Burning the Plow

Some come to the ministry as the result of a lifelong fulfillment of calling and academic preparation. I came to the pastorate by a more circuitous route, having had other plans for my life that involved driving a Mercedes and living in a home with a name like Stonegate or Eagle Crest.

I’ve always weighed my value as a pastor carefully, being somewhat of the Groucho Marx school of leadership, which asks, “Would I join a church that would let someone like me be its pastor?” It’s a good question when one considers the many aspects of a person’s life a pastor might be asked to wander through.

I’ve pondered those same questions during many of the significant moments of my life. When my bride said, “I do,” I wanted to ask her, “Really? Why?” When the district assembly agreed, and the general superintendent placed his hands on me ordaining me into the ranks of the clergy, I was compelled to ask, “You do?” When my first child was born, I wandered around in a daze wondering aloud, “How could God let someone like me be a parent?”

As a relatively new husband and brand-new pastor, my first attempt at trying to determine God’s will for our lives came after a dozen or so years of preparation. My wife and I agreed to accept our first post sight unseen in a courageous attempt to “follow the Lord.” We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.

Since I didn’t hear God screaming from heaven, “Don’t go! Don’t go!” I didn’t know what else to do, so I went. I guess I figured that God would speak clearly like the robot from the old Lost in Space television show, “Warning, Warning, Will Robinson, you are about to be eaten alive!” Something like that would have been helpful at the moment, but it never came. At that point I began to learn one of life’s important lessons. I had to walk by faith.

Ours is a walk of faith. It’s remembering to hold on to God’s invisible hand through all of the good times and even the bad. After we begin this walk of faith, whole new worlds open up for us. We get to be there for so many wonderful ministry moments.

I’ve discovered that the only way for me to find joy in the journey is to have nothing else to fall back on, no other place to find comfort, meaning, purpose, or income. It’s why I’ve fallen in love with Elisha’s story in 1 Kings 19:21: “So Elisha left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his attendant.”

When all of my safety nets were gone, when the false securities I had set up for myself were finally dismantled, in short, when I had “burned the plow,” then I could follow, then I could walk by faith.

When I said, “Yes,” to God’s call to pastor, I effectively said, “No,” to all other offers. When I “burned the plow,” it became one of my most significant moments. Until then it was a circuitous route, a route without any real direction or commitment.

Mark Bernhardt is senior pastor of Living Hope Church of the Nazarene in Monterey, California.