Three out of five Americans are now members of some church or synagogue. Such a majority has never before enrolled in religious organizations in the United States. Thus there is a great need for ministers.
You may have been called by God to be one of His spiritual helpers at this critical time. But how can you be sure? Should you become a minister, priest or rabbi?
To begin with, you must throw away many of your old ideas about what it means to be a clergyman. The ministry is no longer solely a calling. It has become also one of the most exacting and exciting of all the professions. Today's clergy—of whatever faith—must be literally all things to all men: preacher, teacher, pastor, counsellor, advisor, administrator, architect and financier. To accomplish all these vocations, the minister must be a sociologist, humanitarian and businessman, as well as theologian and public speaker.
A Challenging Career
The minister is expected, in personal life, to be an example of saintliness and devotion to God a cut above even his most dedicated parishioner. In this age, too, he must have enough courage to stand up and be counted on the great ethical questions of our time, and yet be tactful enough to lead his parishioners to share his own beliefs. He must walk sure-footedly along the cutting edge of life, amid the tragedies, frustrations, monotonies and precious dreams of men and women assailed on every hand by uncertainty and change and fear.
Above all, the minister must believe, and by example and persuasion prove, that God is not somewhere on the sidelines of life, as He is for so many persons today, but is the end and all of being. He must be confident that God has placed in his hands, in the ageless precepts of his religion, a great understanding of the true meaning of life and death, and he must have the power to communicate this confidence to others. The millions of new searchers for a faith, who today are crowding the churches and synagogues without quite knowing why they are there, must have a leader, not a follower of the congregation; a fighter, not an apologist; a teacher who will give them a God who touches them where they live: in the family circle, in shop and union, in office and business, not just in church on a sunny Sabbath day.
What a challenge!
You probably are thinking by now that nobody is equal to such a task. The truth is: few are. About half of all aspirants fail to make the grade. The clergy, of whatever faith, is a select and special group unlike any other fraternity anywhere. It is comprised of those called by God to carry out His will on earth. But the history of the ministry would seem to prove that God has moved even quite ordinary men to be great in His work, and has endowed His ministers with the necessary skills, once they had the faith. So it is well to remember that, although the ministry requires unusual attributes, some great church leaders have been men of less than superior talent or education whose faith and zeal God has used to His advantage.
Demands and Privileges
Another thing: if you feel that you might be making a sacrifice by entering the clergy, dismiss the thought at once. True: you'll never be money-rich. True: if you are qualified to be a successful clergyman, you are equally capable of being a successful corporation president, judge, senator, doctor, or almost anything else you might desire. True: if you are a Roman Catholic, you will never have children or have a home of your own. True: you may seem to be buried for years ministering in a lowly parish far from home. You may work all your life at labors which others consider insignificant, even futile. You probably never will become celebrated with the red hat of a cardinal, or the mitre of an Episcopal bishop, or the presidency of your denomination, or leadership of a great synagogue on Fifth Avenue; such fame probably will elude you. But to God's ministers these are not sacrifices. They are the privileges of service which, permitting a share in need and pain, bring greatest joy. This may be hard for you to understand. But if you do understand, and still want to go on, then you are halfway there.
But how can you be sure that you have been called by God? How can you know that this is not just a timid person's way of escaping from the competition of earthly life, for example? Or just your egotistical whim? Or a delusion that here is an easy way to become an important leader of men? All of these, and many other misplaced zeals, have convinced youngsters that they were called of God.
Qualifications for Success
If you have such reservations, the modern battery of psychological tests will be of great value to you in determining whether you will be a worthy servant of God. Your I.Q. will be 120 or higher. Your aptitude tests will score high in the social sciences, salesmanship, organizational ability and teaching. Your personality inventory will show you to be sensitive to people and their problems, curious about life, possessed of a deep sense of obligation and respect for duty which makes you drive yourself continuously beyond the limits of your strength. You will show a practical stubbornness tempered by sufficient humility that you can concede to others. You will possess emotional maturity. You will be neat, speak persuasively in correct grammar, be courteous and mannerly, cheerful and optimistic, and will have a sense of humor which enables you to laugh at your own mistakes. You will have a strong physique and not a lazy bone in your body. Tests now given widely in theological seminaries prove that if a candidate is seriously lacking in many of the above characteristics, his chances are doubtful.
Do you like to hitch your wagon to a star? Does your idealism overwhelm others? Do you stand up for your convictions against mockers and scorners? Do you love all kinds of people with genuine concern? Are you a strong leader and yet a happy follower? You should be able to answer "yes" to most of these questions.
The Call to Serve
A phenomenon of today's young candidates for the • clergy is that almost half of them do not, at the apprentice stage, have a clear-cut concept of God and, in the Christian ministry, an equally positive acceptance of Jesus Christ as the Son of God. For the other half there is no question: most of them decided on the priestly vocation in their earliest teens and stuck with it. But a growing number of young men and women, many from non-religious homes, are, choosing the ministry while they are in college. They have decided that there must be more to life than fame and money; they want their lives to count for something important. They are drawn to the clergy by an unseen hand; many resist it, and almost certainly their fiancees try to discourage them. In these young people the seminaries today are finding some of their strongest students. So it is quite possible that although well along in plans for another career, you may decide to enter the ministry. Here, surely, is a call from God, even to a young person who has given little previous thought to religion.
Certain additional qualifications are important in the Roman Catholic priesthood and the Jewish rabbinate.
The Catholic priesthood entails complete surrender to the will of God as directed by the church. Candidates for holy orders must be prepared to devote their entire lives to Christ's work, wherever it may call them, to the exclusion of all earthly considerations. For them that is the greatest possible honor. Lads whose bent is toward education would probably join one of the teaching orders, such as the Jesuits or Dominicans, rather than the diocesan clergy. Young men to whom the monastery appeals would enroll with an order such as the Trappists, and devote their lives to contemplation and study. If their religious ardor is evangelistic, they would probably enter a missionary order. The Roman Catholic priesthood, therefore, requires that some character traits and religious convictions be in sharper focus than does the Protestant ministry. It would be well for the Catholic boy who desires to become a priest to consult someone within the church who knows him well, and can steer him into the channel which would make best use of his talents and temperament.
The rabbinate also makes special demands upon its candidates. In America, the role of the rabbi has undergone great changes. Seldom is he called upon, as in Europe, to be the patriarch of his flock. Rather, he tends in the Reform branch to function much in the manner of the Protestant minister, in the Conservative branch to be preacher-teacher, and only among the Orthodox groups is he still largely a scholar-saint. To become a rabbi involves enormous scholarship and prodigious memory, a veneration of Jewish law and tradition, and special ceremonial skills. Humanitarian zeal and the ability to lead social crusades are particularly important, and infinite patience to face the special heartaches of a minority group. But essentially, the same traits which characterize any clergyman would hold good in determining whether you should become a rabbi.
Women's Place in the Clergy
What about a girl? If you are a Protestant, there is a future for you in the ministry. There are now nearly 7,000 women preachers. Sixty-three denominations ordain women. No special requirements, beyond those for male candidates, are necessary.
What About Education?
A college degree is almost essential now, and this is only the beginning. Protestants generally require at least three post-college years of special training in seminary. The Roman Catholics require from 8 to 12 years of post-high school preparation for the priesthood. Jewish studies involve at least as much time. The work is difficult, with little time for play. Exceptional grades must be maintained. More than that, the candidate's personality and habits are under constant scrutiny. One who is to serve God must be a man or woman of godly mien, and grow in grace. The cost of education is not too expensive a burden on the parent. All religious organizations have scholarship funds and work programs to help deserving students. It is safe to say that no worthy candidate for the clergy is ever refused an opportunity for lack of funds.
What about material rewards? They are not great, but the day of the poverty-stricken clergy is almost gone. Catholic priests, having no families, receive their needs and often many comforts, but little else. In the Protestant denominations, salaries and housing are now respectable, with adequate, actuarially-sound retirement funds provided by most churches. The average Protestant minister receives at least $4,000 a year and his residence; many have salaries of $8,000 to $15,000, a few even more. Most rabbis also do well, in the Reform and Conservative branches earning $7,500 a year up, plus generous gifts and fees for ceremonials.
Family Life
What about family life? In the Catholic priesthood, of course, there is none. The priest foregoes this happiness for a different one. In other faiths, clergymen these days no longer find their wives and children set apart; they no longer live in a goldfish bowl on top of an ivory tower. The wife need be no more active in church work than she desires to be. But a minister can be ruined in his calling by a discordant spouse. A young man who contemplates entering the ministry must find a mate who shares his own idealism, who is devoid of jealousy or envy, who is happy because her husband is doing what he must do, and will not try to deflect him or shape him to her own ambitions.
It is often remarked that ministers' families, who are spared the erosions and competitions of business, who don't have to compete with the Joneses, who need not worry, as others often must, about unemployment or security, who enjoy from their closeness to God a serenity and confidence that escapes most of their neighbors, seem to be so much happier than most other people. When, as sometimes happens, the clergyman must face controversy, hostility and personal heartache, the family's trust in God draws it closer together, fortifying it against undue anxiety. If happiness and love are riches, then most ministers' families are very rich indeed.
Need for Clergymen
What about opportunity? It is as wide as the portals of heaven. There are only 355,000 clergy in America to serve 104,000,000 church members. Every denomination needs more than it has. There will be an acute shortage of clergymen for at least another generation. As the churches expand —and all of them are growing—they require more and more specialists: teachers, executives, financiers, youth, social and community workers, music directors, research scholars, college presidents, athletic directors, editors and writers, family counsellors, chaplains for the armed forces, industry and in institutions, missionaries, and a host of others. In many of these specialties, no actual preaching from a pulpit is ever required. Almost any skill useful in private life is needed in the ministry.
Opportunities and Rewards
There are hundreds of types of opportunities for clergymen, enough surely to fit the aptitudes and ambitions of any talented youngster. And all are richly rewarding. The minister fills a special role in society. No place is too high for him; he walks among all kinds of people. He is looked up to and trusted by everyone. To him come for guidance the alcoholics, the psychotics, the victims of broken homes, the pre-delinquent children; he it is who stays with these lost sheep and tends them.
Some of his most precious moments will result from sharing with the great rank and file of his parish their moments of death and family crisis, and also their celebrations of happy milestones along life's way, and of being helped and loved in turn by all his people. There is no monotony in such a life. He is never in a rut, never in a squirrel cage. He constantly receives deep spiritual exhilaration as God, through him, touches and helps the downtrodden, charts the unfortunate to a new life, inspires the hesitant, and heals the sick at heart. Each day, fortified by his faith, the minister can test his strength against the whole world, uncover evil, fight oppression, challenge untruth, uphold the virtues and ethics which make men and nations noble.
He can make his life count. No matter how hard he works, his job is never done, his opportunities never spent, the need for his ministry never abated.
What more could anyone ask of life?
