How does someone know whether or not they are called to ministry? Maybe you are wondering that about yourself, which is what led you to reading this blog today.

As a person in full-time ministry, I love helping people understand what the job actually entails and I am passionate about helping those who are curious about God’s calling for their lives begin to walk in His purpose. 

Ministry is hard… like really hard. There are days when you will want to celebrate, days you will want to cry, and days that you do both. 

Related Book: Am I Called?: The Summons to Pastoral Ministry by Dave Harvey

This post is going to explain two reasons why you should not go into full-time ministry. 

Charles Spurgeon says it best, “If you can do anything else, do it. If you can stay out of the ministry, stay out of the ministry.”

Ministry requires a conviction – a feeling in your gut that there is nothing else on this earth that you want to devote your life to than seeing God work in other people and training future leaders to spread God’s word. There must be a conviction to share the gospel of Jesus Christ to the people who have never heard of the hope that is inside you.

With that said, here are the two reasons that you should NOT go into ministry:

1. The burden of pressure and anxiety.

Galatians 6 calls all Christians to “bear one another’s burdens”. When it comes to working in ministry, you are tasked with bearing the burdens of other people all the time.

There is no “off-switch” in ministry and there is no guessing what is going to happen to other people.

On any given day, you can be helping a family deal with death, go to a coffee meeting with a student about sports, then go into a school for an event, and finally go to dinner with a family to talk with their student who is going through major depression.

You will swing from relationship heartache to people having mountaintop experiences that they want to share with you. Why? Because life gets messy, and you are stepping into the trenches with your entire congregation. 

This pressure and anxiety to be there for everyone can make it extremely easy not to take care of yourself. This is one of the primary reasons that ministry workers burnout.

There is also pressure to constantly have your own life together – pressure to always execute a good service, be consistent in all of the disciplines, to ensure that each person feels known and loved on a Sunday, and pressure to grow the congregation. Not to mention the personal pressure to raise your family well. 

Ministry is a true calling, because none of it is without hardship. After all, though, Jesus doesn’t call us to live an easy life – and he calls his children to be servants of Christ. Ministry truly calls you to lay down your desires, and a lot of times your own personal time and money, to pour into the lives of those around you. 

2. It becomes a challenge to grow personally.

After a day of dealing with other people, the temptation will always be to veg out and rest. After all, who doesn’t like a good Netflix binge and quart of ice cream?

Late nights, early mornings, and meetings in between. Your schedule is building quite fast and now you have to throw in sporting events, school outings, and family time (if you have one). 

It becomes very easy to put your personal needs on hold when you pursue a career in ministry. Ministry never sleeps, and there is always something to do. Always another email to answer, another sermon to prepare, another calendar to create, another event to plan. 

At some point, you will be so deep into talking about the Bible with other people that it will be tempting to utilize that as your own personal quiet time. Please, for the good of the people you serve and your own life, don’t. 

Maintaining a life that allows for a healthy personal, mental, emotional, and physical life is a challenge in any career – but I argue that the challenge heightens in ministry.

Pizza parties and free food get people in the door, and there are a lot of them. Office meetings create a sedentary lifestyle, and exercise is not a typical way to cope with the stresses of life. 

When your physical life is out of whack, your personal spiritual life will be as well. What’s worse, is that as a staff member in a church, you are expected to have a great and growing personal life. This creates the temptation to fake that you are doing well, and to hide the challenges you go through from those around you.

Another challenge is your ability to worship in the church, especially if you go to a smaller church. There are so many roles that you are expected to fill, and even if you get the chance to sit in a worship service your mind will most likely be on the flow of the production or the faint, far off, cry of children from the Kid’s Ministry area.

In conclusion, ministry is hard. It requires all that you have and you will lay your head to rest many days having spent yourself for the kingdom.

So… is it worth it? 1000x yes! Do I recommend that you go into ministry? Only if you know that God is leading you to this life. If you are willing to sacrifice, though, I promise you are in for a life of more joy than you can imagine. 

If these reasons didn’t scare you off, check out 4 Reasons You Should Consider Going Into Ministry.

My last piece of advice as you consider God’s plan for your life is to pray that he opens doors, and that he gives you eyes to see how he is working in the process. I trust that you will find your answer, so long as you lean into trusting your shepherd.

Friend, the harvest is plentiful and the field needs you. I hope that you answer the call to go and make disciples, teaching other people about Jesus!