discerning a call to ministry on this edition of Truth and Love.

I'm Heath Lambert and you're listening to Truth and Love, a podcast of the Association

of Certified Biblical Counselors where we seek to provide biblical solutions for the problems

that people face.

One problem that many people face as they are considering whether they should follow the

Lord into a ministry position is whether the Lord actually would have them to do that.

And I am excited to host this week on the podcast, our guest, Dr. Jason Allen,

who is the president of Midwestern Seminary, and who is the author of a book discerning your call to

ministry. Dr. Allen, we are really glad that you're with us on the podcast this week to talk about

a question that is of crucial relevance to so many people who are pursuing ministry in the Lord Jesus

Christ. It was a question that I struggled with for years before I finally got sorted out, and I know

there's many listening to us this week that are struggling as well, so we're glad you're here.

Thank you, Heath. It's a delight to be with you. You're a good friend. I so appreciate the work you're

doing with ACBC. And, man, what a great topic for us to visit You're a good friend. I so appreciate the work you're doing with ACBC.

And, man, what a great topic for us to visit about a few minutes today. Well, so what is a call to ministry? How do we take that term out of the clouds and have it really mean something? What is it? Yeah, and that is the million-dollar question. And if I could just be a touch personal here for a few moments. I wrote the book two years ago, came out last year, part obviously to shepherd, to explain, to bring along young men and young women who are

wrestling with a call to ministry. But also I wrote a touch autobiographical based upon my own life.

I grew up in a large Southern Baptist church, a conservative church, saw many people called to ministry,

and always was mystified

by that process. And to complicate matters all the more, as an adolescent, as a teenager,

I would see people come back from youth camp, what have you, and go public with their call to

ministry, but it never seemed to really take off. And so I just did not understand any of that.

I become a believer, my freshman year in

...