As I am preparing to speak to a group of young pastors in south Texas, my thoughts have returned to Jonah and a long-ago presentation I did for another group of young ministers, entitled, \u201cSettled at the Start.\u201d \u00a0One day Jonah received a call from God to go to Nineveh and preach (Jonah 1:1-2).\u00a0 \u00a0Nineveh was an ancient city with an unhappy past.\u00a0 These days we would call service in Nineveh, Urban Ministry or perhaps Church Starting. While there were many people there, it was not a popular assignment for an up-and-coming prophet with an impressive resume.\u00a0 So, Jonah had a decision to make.\u00a0 Should he go to Nineveh, capital of the Assyrian empire, or go somewhere else, like to Joppa and on to Tarshish \u2013 resort missions perhaps? Jonah missed an important feature of God\u2019s call to ministry \u2013 the proper response is, \u201cwherever He leads, I\u2019ll go.\u201d\u00a0 When I left collegiate ministry in Texas for a national consultant position with the then, Home Mission Board, I took a salary cut.\u00a0 Again, when I left the Home Mission Board to join the faculty of Southwestern Baptist Seminary, I took another salary cut. I clearly remember the Dean telling me, \u201cYou will need to write books, lead conferences, or serve as an interim pastor, to supplement your salary. Some, including members of my family, were wondering why.\u00a0 I was simply doing what, as a teen-ager, I told God I would do \u2013 follow anywhere. In other words, I had settled it at the start. Following anywhere, at any time, is a principle that goes beyond God\u2019s call to vocational ministry.\u00a0 Fortunately for Jonah, after a brief visit to the inside of a large fish, he got a re-call (Jonah 3:1). So, wherever you are in your life journey, when God calls, agree to follow, wherever He leads.<\/p>\n
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As I am preparing to speak to a group of young pastors in south Texas, my thoughts have returned to Jonah and a long-ago presentation I did for another group of young ministers, entitled, \u201cSettled at the Start.\u201d \u00a0One day Jonah received a call from God to go to Nineveh and preach (Jonah 1:1-2).\u00a0 \u00a0Nineveh…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3129"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3130,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3129\/revisions\/3130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}