How Can Pastors Encourage Young Men to Sacrifice for Ministry?

Pastors may find that young men in their church are more reluctant to make sacrifices to pursue ministry.

Tony Walsh, who has served in Sovereign Grace for about three decades, talks about how pastors can encourage young men to pursue ministry and take Godly risks.

[Transcript lightly edited for clarity.]

Host: Welcome to the Pastor's Voicemail where we aim to take common questions from pastors and drop in a voicemail of helpful advice. This week we're answering a question submitted by another pastor in Sovereign Grace. Here it goes.

Young men today often seem less willing to take risks than previous generations, less willing to consider full-time ministry, less willing to leave their existing jobs, and perhaps less willing to rearrange work and personal life to make room for ministry as a bi-vocational elder, especially if that means passing up other job opportunities.

How can we as pastors help encourage these young men to take godly risks and go all in on pursuing their call to ministry?

Well, our answer today comes from Tony Walsh, who is the senior pastor at Grace Community Church in Westminster, Colorado. He's been a pastor in Sovereign Grace for about three decades and he served in multiple churches and in different areas of the country, often making sacrificial moves each time. Now here's Tony.

Tony Walsh: You know, I think I would actually start further back, actually, going all the way back to “What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus?” You don't start off just being maybe a Christian, not willing to risk everything for Jesus and give your all 100% whatever he, however he would lead, and then suddenly I feel a call for ministry. Now I will sacrifice, now I will give my all.

You get there because you're already doing that on one hand. So I think about what Jesus did when he called his disciples. He comes up to Peter and Andrew says, follow me. And we're told in Matthew 4, they immediately left their nets and followed him. And just a little bit later in the same chapter, I believe James and John, same thing, come follow me.

And it says they left their boat and their father and followed him. I mean, this is just radical stuff. Right off the very beginning of the Gospel. Then Jesus tells his disciples in Matthew 16 that if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life would lose it.

Whoever would lose his life for my sake will find it. So sometimes we're trying to find life in the things of this world that cannot even satisfy ultimately. And we're trading that off for the eternal glory of serving Christ and laying our life down. And what Jesus is saying, what you think it is, it's the opposite of that. You're not going to be more happy, more fulfilled by giving yourself over here in career and all these other things and not serving me with all you've got.

So I think that Those are the starting points. I also think of the story of the rich young man or rich young ruler that came up to Jesus. How do I find eternal life? And this guy was following the commands of the Old Testament to the letter. He's tithing, he's doing this stuff.

And so Jesus draws out and the guy says, so what else do I have to do? So knowing his heart, you know, Jesus says, if you would be perfect, go sell what you possess and give it to the poor, then you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me. And sadly, you know, the text says he went away sorrowful because he had many possessions. So I think for a man, especially someone who's been called in ministry, that issue has to be settled in your heart before you address this sense of calling. You know, is Jesus enough?

Is he my. All in all, if he calls me to Zimbabwe, if he calls me to serve just poor widows in my local church, if he. Is there anything that he would call you to do that you wouldn't just drop everything and follow him? And so I remember in my own story, you know, I was. When we first got involved with Sovereign Grace is right around the time when God was dealing deeply with me on these issues in my own heart.

We had heard of CJ preaching and things like fishnet conferences and Jesus festivals, and I was always drawn to the teachings that he was bringing on the church and the idea of giving your life away to something that lasts forever. And so what's the purpose of God on the earth? It's his people, the church that Jesus is coming back for. And so I was drawn to that. And so when we got involved with Sovereign Grace, nearly at the very beginning, I think we were at the first celebration conference in 1983, and we were asking these guys help us plant a church in Florida.

So, I mean, God's already doing this work. I want to be part of planting a church, giving my life away. But at the same time, at that point, I'm successful in my business, financial services, and it's on an upward swing, making really good money for the day, for the time. The problem is, at the same time, my income is increasing, my standard living is increasing. You know, we got into a better house, we had two cars and some car payments.

I'm managing all that, but nothing much left. I'm not even at this point able to really, as much as I was making, give much to the church because I had maxed out and committed myself at so many different levels, expanding my business. And we go to this celebration Conference I think in 85, maybe or 80, right around the year we planted the church. And this is, this, this is really hitting me. Mary and I are in this one worship service without talking, we're both just weeping like babies because the Lord is revealing to us how the love of money has crept in, the desire for success.

And so I wanted, I wanted to serve the church. I'm saying, yes, let's, let's plan a church. I'm giving myself to it, but I'm not wanting to let go of anything. And it's. There starting to be a log jam happening here.

And so God, he just reveals at the root of all this is a love for things of this world and for money. And so the call that's coming forward in that conference is, you know, giving your life away for the mission, to build and be built into the local church and, and be on mission together. And I'm realizing in that moment, and the Lord's doing the same thing with Mary, as we talked about it later, that you can't, even if I called you right now to move, to relocate, to be a part of this, you can't do any of that. You've built your life on something else and for something else. And it just broke us.

And this wasn't about pastoral ministry. This was about just serving God's people and what am I giving my life to? And when I realized I'm actually giving my life to these things, I'm trying to fit the church, fit God's plan and purpose for my life into what I'm doing. And wow. I mean, we were ruined for the rest of the conference by the time I went home.

I went to work putting together a plan I presented to the other guys. I was part of the leadership team leading worship in our, this church plant, serving wherever I need to. And so I brought to the guys that guys, I think God is calling us to radically give ourselves to this. And I feel like the Lord said, I got, we got to sell our house, sell our cars, scale down. I mean, I wanted, at that point, first time in my life, I wanted to not just tithe.

I want to be ready to not only tithe, but give more. I want to be ready to do whatever I have to. So I redid, worked my entire business plan to get more flexibility so I could serve. We scaled down our standard of living so I could afford to do that. It took us about three years to get it all down.

So we moved, sold our house. We had, you know, had a decent house, needed work, but had Swimming pool was on the near the beach. Sold that we went into a two bedroom duplex for two years with three kids. That's what it took to get our income down well enough below my expenses and I could start reordering everything during those three years. It was hard.

There's also God was doing things in our marriage, how we looked at parenting. It was just a total kind of reworking of everything. But it was the best years of our life. We were given our life to the people of God serving the church. And it was during that time actually that we began to discover a sense of calling.

We're serving the church. Serving. We started a singles ministry because we were gathering lots of young people. So there's no one else to do. So I'm starting to teach in this meeting and there's fruit that's coming.

We're doing outreaches on the beach. We're doing things. People are getting saved. And next. I know this is probably about 1987 that we started this process of pursuing ministry.

Both myself and other guys were all saying man, you know, there seems to be a calling here. And so I was in. I think it might, I don't know if it was the first, maybe second school of ministry that Salv Grace did. And it's like a two year program. Had a couple intensives along the way, but started that and I wound up being ordained in 1989.

And to do that to. Initially I was. It wasn't even a thing back then, but I was serving Bible occasionally. Church couldn't afford to pay me. I'm just serving the church what I can kind of a part time salary.

And the only way I could do that was because what I did like almost three and a half, four years ago, what God did in our heart, not doing it to be in ministry, just doing it to be just give my life to serving God. And out of that this was birthed. So from there, you know, to go into ministry at that point at a church plant, as it was growing, needing help, you know, we had to be able to live on very little. So go Fast forward to 1994. We get a letter from CJ about a church in El Paso, Texas that is in need of a senior pastor.

Some of the details are there at that moment in time we are looking at church planting and all this time we've been living in a rental home. We did get finally getting out of the duplex in a regular home. But we are positioned ourselves to be mobile. God send me. That was what was in our hearts and when this letter came in, both Mary and I felt that if, you know, why would we plant a new church when there's a church that's suffering?

All this was born out of just a desire to serve the church and build the church. So we laid down those ideas and plans of planting, which would have probably been somewhere in Florida. We were looking at Jacksonville, maybe the Carolinas, to go out to El Paso, Texas in the desert. And literally we'd never been west of the Mississippi up to that point. I've been on a couple of business trips out to California.

I'd never driven out there. It was going to another planet, coming from Florida. But so In December of 1994, right after Christmas, we went out there and as soon as we were there and met the folks and the people there, we knew this is where God wants us. Just immediate love for the people of God. And the thing was, because of what God had done with us, that again, we were literally From December to February 1, we were out in El Paso.

We said yes, packed up and moved. And the only reason we could do that is because God had called us. Come follow me.

That is to me. So if you want to talk, if young men want to say, how do I do this? Why do this? Is Jesus saying, come follow me? Then do whatever you have to do to follow him.

If that means going into full time ministry, absolutely. Is it worth the risk? Absolutely. This life is passing, it is perishing. Our life is short.

We don't have time to mess around. The only thing that's going to last, and this is where our treasure needs to be, is the things that we give our life to for Christ and for his glory. And you'll never be sorry that you did that.

Host: The pastor's voicemail is a resource from Sovereign Grace Churches. For more resources go to SGC pastors.com if you've got a question about pastoral ministry, we would love to help find an answer for you. You can submit that as well@sgcpastors.com.

We'll see you next time.