A child is always the pride of a family, and in most Zambian families a son is a source of hope, hope of a bright economical and social future. Hence families will spend and be spent in educating their children with the view that the child will take care of parents and siblings as they grow. Consequently parents demand that their children pursue lucrative careers. It is therefore a shock for most parents when a son decides to go into full time ministry. As a matter of fact, even your own church members discourage you from serving the Lord as a minister of the gospel. And the reasons are; you are young (therefore you cannot be a pastor), you will be poor (the ministry does not pay well); you have a whole lot of years ahead of you, who will take care of your siblings? Etc. and add to the list the fact that most ladies turn you down once they know you are going into the ministry!!! Answering the call to ministry is a difficult decision to make as a young man, but the added pressure makes it impossible. In some cases families denounce you or label you vision less. How then can a young man be helped to answer the call?
I strongly believe churches need to develop a ministry mindedness. By this I mean every member should be a minister, the pastors need to teach their members the beauty and joy of serving the Lord. If every member’s goal and purpose is to serve God, a young man who comes forward and surrenders his life to the ministry will not be looked down upon like an alien from mars!!! But they will instead encourage him and praise the Lord for raising a minister among them.
And if the church is ministry minded and is daily serving the Lord, they will realize that people in the ministry have physical needs and have to be taken care of. The church will rise to the occasion and will want to make sure the young man has all the necessarily basic needs for his family. However a church that is not ministry minded will care less where you sleep or what you eat. They will expect you to work and burn in the work yet they will not honor your labors. May God deliver us!!!
I have also noticed that were as most pastors are crying out and longing for more laborers in the ministry, most of them are not willing to disciple and invest in the lives of young men. And when the young men rise up most pastors become insecure and hence all they do is criticize them out of the ministry. Oh how we need for the pastors in Zambia to emulate the apostle Paul and raise Timothy’s in their lives and ministries. Oh how we desperately need the men ahead of us to spend time and energies in pouring their lives and experiences in ours. So they can say, “the things I have committed to you, commit also to faithful men” Young men are in dare need of role models who can pass on the mantle faithfully. And praise God for the few veteran pastors who have risen to the occasion. To the rest I say, “Rise up oh men of God”
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