The short answer is that God gives a pastor to a congregation. I remember when young men, eager to become pastors, were asked in a presbytery exam, “Are you God’s gift to the church?” Piously and humbly, these students replied no. The examiner looked at them sternly and repeated, “Ephesians 4:8 and 11; are you God’s gift to the church?” Slowly, the truth dawned. Ultimately, a pastor does not choose his church, and churches do not choose their pastor. God gives pastors to churches.

God does not beam pastors into churches where they simply materialize as on the starship Enterprise, nor does He transport them around by means of mystical spiritual power, like Philip in Acts 8:39–40. Normally, God gives pastors to churches through an ordinary and rather mundane process. This process has two steps: licensure and candidating. The first step, licensure, establishes that this man is, in fact, qualified to receive a call. The second step, candidating, establishes that this particular church wants this particular man, and vice versa. We label the whole process “calling” because we believe that God is working out His sovereign summons in these seemingly pedantic procedures.

The process in which a man is called to be a pastor of a particular congregation begins with an internal call and ends with an external call. If a man feels spiritually impelled to pursue pastoral ministry, he takes up the necessary education (usually seminary), the prerequisite training (internships), and undergoes the arduous testing (presbytery exams). All this slowly and carefully confirms that he is qualified to follow his internal sense of God’s summons to pastoral ministry, strengthening his conviction that he is called.

When a man has successfully completed this licensure process, presbytery will declare that he is licensed to receive a call. Around this time, congregations in need of a pastor might learn of him from his seminary or his presbytery. They ask him to visit. He preaches. He prays. He meets and greets. Through this little relational dance, known as candidating, the pastor-to-be and the congregation attempt to determine their level of interest and compatibility. If all seems well, or good enough, the saints meet together and vote to extend a call, a congregational summons, to come and pastor in that place. The presbytery reviews the call to make sure all is in order and then forwards it to the pastor-elect. The man and his family then wrestle with whether or not to accept the call.

This process of licensing, candidating, and calling a man to a congregation is slow and systematic but often messy. It also resembles the ordinary practice of getting educated, interviewed, and hired by any old company for any old job. So, why all the special language of calling? We have two reasons for applying the label “a call” to the process of making and summoning a pastor. First, it reminds us that God is directing the otherwise ordinary and messy process. Second, it reminds us that we all have callings from God.

The idea that pastors have a calling is a verbal signal that neither pastors nor churches are in charge. Jesus, as King and Head of the Church, gives pastors to churches as His royal gift. “But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose” (1 Cor. 12:18). This should humble pastors, reminding them they are not in charge of the congregation to do whatever they think is best. This should humble the congregation, reminding them they are not in charge of the pastor. Both voluntarily agreed to this union as an expression of their conviction that this partner-ship was Jesus’s will for their lives.

The idea that pastors have a calling is not unique to pastors. In fact, we believe that everyone has at least one calling. If God, through ordinary providence, has brought a person into a marriage, into parenting, into employment, or into a neighborhood, each of those situations constitutes a calling from God. He has sovereignly summoned us to serve Him in all the relationships of life, as we vow in the Covenant of Communicant Membership, #6. We are given by Him to those institutions where we work, worship, and play. By using the language of calling for the pastor, the whole congregation ought to remember that all believers have a God-ordained place in the world in which to serve King Jesus.

Since we believe that the ordinary process by which pastors become eligible to receive a call and by which congregations give that call is really God working out His purpose for His church, let us follow the procedure patiently and prayerfully. When Jesus ascended on high, He gave gifts. He gave pastors.