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Call or Mandate
There's a difference between a mandate and a call. A call is personal; it comes to the individual. A mandate is collective, corporate. The mandate is the organization's reason for being; the call is the individual's reason for service.
A leader needs to have a sense of call, of dedication, to serve effectively. Prison evangelist Bill Glass emphasizes this in training his prison counselors. He says, "You have volunteered to be a counselor, but you have dedicated your life to personify Christ in this prison." He goes through a litany of experiences that a volunteer might not be able to
take (e.g., getting cussed out, having urine thrown on him). But the dedicated counselor will hang in.
A call may change. A person might sense a call to a different organization or a different form of service. Sometimes I think the call may lead someone out of the ministry.
Recently I talked with a pastor in Iowa whose primary ministry was teaching the Bible. I asked him how he was doing, and he admitted he was unhappy. So were the people. I asked him, "What is your real love?"
"My real love is winning people to Christ," he said.
"In your saint-saturated organization," I said, "there is nobody to win. And whenever you get up to teach, you don't see a single soul who needs salvation, and yet you are by nature an evangelist. Have you considered leaving the ministry and going back into automobile sales, where you're constantly in contact with lost people?"
"That's when I was happiest," he said.
But he had let his ego get involved, and he became a pastor. Now he has moved back into sales and is extremely happy and effective. His call—to win people—did not match the organization he was serving. I know several people who would be much happier if they would recognize they haven't been called to what they're doing.
