{"id":2091,"date":"2010-03-01T02:23:02","date_gmt":"2010-03-01T07:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"\/news_blogs\/john\/?p=2091"},"modified":"2024-12-05T17:09:25","modified_gmt":"2024-12-05T22:09:25","slug":"discerning-your-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/john\/2010\/03\/01\/discerning-your-call\/","title":{"rendered":"Discerning Your Call"},"content":{"rendered":"
This entry is part 2 of 4 in the series Hearing God Speak<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n
\"Photo<\/a>
Pastor John Richardson and
myself on July 15, 2012. He
was born July 12, 1912!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My hero-in-the-faith, John Richardson, was called to ministry<\/strong> in 1959 at the age of 47. This wasn’t quite a mid-life career change since today he is a very healthy 97 year-old, but it was close to mid-life. (Pastor John passed away October 21, 2012 at 100 years of age.)<\/em> CCCC members will remember John as the banquet speaker at the 2007 conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John was a senior manager at a textile company and could see that the industry had nowhere to go but to decline. While quietly looking for another management job, he was asked by the pastor of London Gospel Temple to come and help him at the church. John had no plans at all to enter ministry. He had no Bible college education or any other experience that would qualify him to be a pastor other than he was a man on fire for God. A call to ministry was really out of the blue for him. But when he considered his options, John discerned that God was indeed calling him to leave secular employment and enter full-time pastoral ministry. He prepared his family for a change in lifestyle, resigned from the textile company, and moved to London, Ontario.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pastor John served in several churches over the next twenty years, but never sought a church in his career; all his pastorates were offered to him. I met John in 1981 when I joined the last church that asked him to come and help. He retired while at that church and he still attends every week to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This gifted pastor discerned his call to ministry based on love for God, personal circumstances and opportunity. This will be a long post. It has taken a lot of time to write it and I don’t want to break it up into two posts because it is one big thought. So please be patient as I think you’ll find it helpful. There are learning points below, but the story of my call precedes them in order to demonstrate that your call doesn’t have to be just like someone else’s and so that I can refer to my story in the learning points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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