Ezekiel 2:1-7

The biblical calling to a ministry is so different than the “call” Western Christianity calls people to. Ezekiel is called to the prophetic ministry. That has a certain connotation in certain Charismatic/Pentecostal circles, and I would venture to guess that the picture we have in our minds is different than Ezekiel’s call.

God’s call is severe. It doesn’t match up to what we may experience, or project, in Western Christianity, especially conservative evangelicalism. For evangelicals, it’s about the numbers. They say it’s not about the numbers… it’s about the numbers.

I grew up in youth camps, youth conventions, and then attended a Pentecostal Bible college. All of it… if you were called (and that was a HIGH calling… the highest) you were called to be a world changer. In ordination services over the years, I would hear the leaders proclaim, “What a great bunch of world changers.”

God’s call to Ezekiel: “You are going to Israel. They’re stubborn and obstinate and won’t pay attention. Try not to be afraid.”

Period.

Who responds to THAT kind of call today?

So here is my confession to being a big fat failure.

The last church I pastored was a place where I wanted to be for the rest of my ministry. It would be a place, in my vision, of hundreds of faithful worshipers. We would plant churches, raise up missionaries… change the world!

I confess: I wanted “souls.” I wanted “influence.” YES! I wanted notoriety.

God wanted obedience. He wanted his Kingdom proclaimed and lived out faithfully and I was NOT to pay attention to the “numbers.” Turns out, I was not going to be applauded.

I was called to be faithful. Over my years there I settled into faithfulness, battling bitterness in my heart constantly. Everything around me was about “leadership” and “budget size” and “souls saved.” In the end, I really did want to try and stay faithful. My life was to live out faithful witness to the community around me. People that would never attend my church, I wanted to bear witness to Christ’s Kingdom because if I was in their lives, they were following Jesus. It was just at a different distance.

I failed at faithfulness at times, to be sure. But the calling got difficult toward the end of my ministry there… because… well… it was 2016. I hit wall after wall of obstinance in places I never thought I would have that kind of resistance. I would like to say I just kept bearing witness, but that is not part of this confession. I failed to keep projecting the astonishing goodness of the Kingdom of God.

But the “numbers”? I was not a success… and largely ignored. In American Christianity, our mantra is, “How can he be wrong? Look how many attend his church? (Or, listen to his podcast, or follow him on social media.) With those numbers and that budget, how can he be wrong?”

Ezekiel started at zero. He preached faithfully the Word of the Lord and ended at zero.

And he was found faithful. Hopefully, he wasn’t afraid, either.

Here is my confession. Lord, have mercy.