A chocolate milkshake with my pastor, Al Kroeker, when I was in high school sparked 40 years of ministry. He suggested I’d make a good pastor. No thanks, I told him, I want to be a doctor. Upon reflection, this was an early lesson in ministry: Being a pastor isn’t about wanting to be a pastor; it’s about accepting God’s call. Over time, I did.
Nothing but God’s call could ever sustain a pastor in ministry. I know. My calling to ministry, particularly as a local church pastor, was initiated and sustained by the encouragement and prayers of God’s people and the guidance and protection of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. My wife, Laurie, and I tested our sense of calling through the USMB Christian Service program, which served as a vital on-ramp to ministry in those days.
Little did I know I was testing my sense of God’s call when I left the pastorate after 22 years to serve as a development officer at MB Biblical Seminary and vice president at Fresno Pacific University. Twelve years later, on a short trip to India, God dramatically rebooted my pastoral call to the local church. As Jonah once learned, so I knew, I had just one choice. Again, I said yes.
My calling to ministry, particularly as a local church pastor, was initiated and sustained by the encouragement and prayers of God’s people and the guidance and protection of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit.
Much has changed in local church ministry over 40 years, with challenges growing more daunting by the day, notably with technology and tribalism.
I went from a mimeograph machine in my first church to the advent of the internet, which revolutionized my sermon preparation. The web has made me accountable to the world for what I say, far beyond the ears of those listening in my church. People’s expectations for fresh online content and access keep growing. I think all of this is mostly good. A younger generation will have to decide that about AI, artificial intelligence.
Tribalism, particularly the political kind, has not been good for the church, nor will it ever be. As a poor substitute for the kingdom of God, politics has duped and drawn God’s people into recurring eddies of ineffectiveness, fighting for one cause or candidate over another. While angels wait to rejoice in the courts of heaven over new children of God born to eternal life, Christians fight in human courts and elections to gain ground in temporal culture wars. Some want pastors to choose sides in these wars. In any case, pastors must wisely choose their battles to keep their churches focused on loving neighbors to new life in Jesus.
Seeing people come to new life in Jesus and leading the church in living the gospel well in the community have been my greatest rewards. It’s also been a privilege to be present with people in their highest and lowest moments and to feed my soul and others’ from God’s Word.
Would I do it all over again? Would I encourage a high school or college student to consider God’s call to pastoral ministry? Yes, and yes. I would because I’ve discovered that however hard, pastoral ministry is a worthy calling to join God in his work of reconciling all things to himself in Christ Jesus.
Mark Isaac retired June 30 as lead pastor of New Life Community, Dinuba, Calif.
Mark Isaac is lead pastor of New Life Community, formerly Dinuba MB Church, in central California. He is a graduate of Tabor College and MB Biblical Seminary, now Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary, and has pastored churches in California, Oklahoma and Kansas. Mark and his wife, Laurie, have four grown children and three grandchildren.
