Four years ago today, I was ordained into the office of holy ministry.\u00a0 On April 26, 2005 when I received my first call to be a pastor, President Wenthe read these words to the men who had just received calls:<\/p>\n
Go, then, take heed unto thyself and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghose hath made thee an overseer, to feed the Church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood.\u00a0 Feed the flock of Christ, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lord over God’s heritage, but being an example to the flock.\u00a0 And when the Chief Shepherd shall appear, thou shalt receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.\u00a0 The Lord bless thee from on high and make thee a blessing unto many, that thou mayest bring forth fruit, and that thy fruit may remain unto eternal life.\u00a0 Amen.\u00a0 (The Lutheran Agenda, p. 109)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
These words are a very tall order.\u00a0 They should put the fear of God into a man who has received a call into the office, for it is indeed a very important office which we undertake.\u00a0 These last four years have been challenging, both on a personal and spiritual level.\u00a0 However, if asked if I would trade my vocation for that of another, my answer would wholeheartedly be no.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Four years ago today, I was ordained into the office of holy ministry.\u00a0 On April 26, 2005 when I received my first call to be a pastor, President Wenthe read these words to the men who had just received calls: Go, then, take heed unto thyself and to all the flock, over which the Holy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186537,6443241],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-clergy","category-office-of-holy-ministry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}