I am headed off to a Seminary which is intended to prepare men for vocational pastoral ministry. Committing to this program for the next four years has far reaching implications for me and my family, many of which cause me to tremble.

In the book A Severe Mercy, C.S. Lewis warns a man who was considering changing his course study to Theology in hopes of pursuing vocational ministry as a career:

I think there is a great deal to be said for having one’s deepest spiritual interest distinct from one’s ordinary duty as a student or professional man. St. Paul’s job was tent-making. When the two coincide I should have thought there was a danger lest the natural interest in one’s job and the pleasures of gratified ambition might be mistaken for spiritual progress and spiritual consolation; and I think clergymen sometimes fall into this trap. Contrawise, there is the danger that what is boring and repelent in the job may alienate one from the spiritual life. And finally, someone has said ‘None are so unholy as those whose hands are cauterised with holy things’; sacred things may become profane by becoming matters of the job. You now want spiritual truth for her own sake; how will it be when the same truth is also needed for an effective footnote in your thesis? In fact, the change might do good or harm. I’ve always been glad myself that Theology is not the thing I earn my living by. On the whole, I’d advise you to get on with your tent-making. The performance of a duty will probably teach you quite as much about God as academic Theology would do. Mind, I’m not certain: but that is the view I incline to.

In a later letter Lewis clarifies:

Look: the question is not whether we should bring God into our work or not. We certainly should and must: as MacDonald says ‘All that is not God is death.’ The question is whether we should simply (a.) Bring Him in in the dedication of our work to Him, in the integrity, diligence, and humility with which we do it or also (b.) Make His professed and explicit service our job. The A vocation rests on all men whether they know it or not; the B vocation only on those who are specially called to it. Each vocation has its peculiar dangers and peculiar rewards. Naturally, I can’t say which is yours…

God protect me from the dangers involved with pursuing eldership as my life’s vocation. Keep your Word alive and real to me, and make me to love it for the joy that it brings me, before I love it for the joy that it brings others. Help me to pursue you as my reward. Help me only to serve the church in my service to you, and to truly be a servant of Christ and not a people pleaser. Save me from ever thinking of ministry as a job, rather than a calling and a privilege. Keep me from hypocrisy, but make my life worthy of the gospel I preach. Make me to be humble and continually aware of my need for Christ and the redemption he provides through his work on the cross, for me. Help me, please, help me!