Great Soul-Winning Churches - Elmer Towns

that men are lost—yet the call to full-time Christian service includes more than the knowledge of
men’s need, even though it includes that.
3. The high calling of God to full-time Christian service.—Every preacher who serves
Jesus Christ as a pastor knows in his heart that he has been called to the pastorate. Sometimes
this call comes later in life, sometimes early. With Lonnie Graves, pastor, Fellowship Baptist
Church, Durham, North Carolina, the call into the ministry came after he was married and had a
family.
After this converted gypsy was saved at approximately 26 years of age, he began to get
invitations to speak to churches, telling of his gypsy life and his salvation experience. Shortly
thereafter, he told his pastor, “I believe God is calling me to preach.” Graves had been to school
three days in his life and could barely read. He was distressed to be told that he must go to
college if he expected to be a preacher; he knew it would be impossible. The next pastor in that
church advised the gypsy to “go through any door that God opens.” Graves began by holding
cottage prayer meetings. Step by step God led into starting a church. The call of God into fulltime
service came slowly but surely.
All the pastors included in this book testify that the call into full-time Christian service is
an inner invitation from God. The call of God to full-time Christian service is made up of three
aspects: (1) an inner assurance that God has set a man aside for the ministry, (2) a burden to
preach the gospel and (3) a desire to pastor a church. These three qualities cannot be put in a test
tube and measured; they are internal. A man can testify of the call to preach but cannot explain it.
Like the inner feeling of love, the call of God defies a mathematical formula or a logical
explanation. If you have ever been in love, you know it but have difficulty putting it in words.
Before the burning bush, Moses received the call of God to go to Egypt. He saw the bush
burning with fire, he felt the radiant heat on his forehead, and he heard the voice of God
speaking. The call of God was a literal call to service. Pastors today have a call, just as real,
although they don’t hear voices or see visions. God’s call is real and pastors respond.
Deeply convicted during a Sunday evening church service, Tom Berry went home
unsaved. Alone with his Bible at home later, on his knees he prayed, “Lord, if You will save me,
You can have all of me.” He knew if he was to be saved, Christ would have to do the saving.
Later in Canton, Texas, while milking a cow, he felt in his heart that God was calling him to
preach. He went in the house and announced his decision to his mother, who was shocked; young
Tom had been a jokester in school. But God sometimes uses other men to help confirm a call to
the ministry. Tom Berry spent a Saturday night at the Texas State Fair in Dallas carousing
around. When he got home he was burdened and he felt God telling him, “I’ve called you to
preach and here you are messing around with sin.” About 2:30 a.m. he made a complete
surrender. As he reached the parking lot of the church, his pastor said, “Tom, what are you going
to do with your life?” Three weeks later he was in college preparing for the ministry.
Saved as a teenager, John Powell, pastor of Reimer Road Baptist Church, Wadsworth,
Ohio, was out of the will of God for a number of years. After his rededication as a young
husband and father, he began to teach in the Sunday School. A year later, he felt God was calling
him into the ministry. One Sunday when a missionary speaker did not show up, his pastor spoke