Is My Call to One Thing Only, Never to Change?

I remember very clearly why I ended up in California from Arizona in 2003.  This was after the fiasco I had barely survived in Idaho, and after three years of being a house-spouse suffering with depression.  I had gone in view of a call (a technical Baptist term referring to when a person goes to a church, usually to accept a call to be their pastor).  In this process the church asked me questions about my views on the Bible, church, roles in church and the Holy Spirit.  It seems my answers were not to their liking and the vote failed.  I don't know for sure, but it seems that my views on spiritual gifts and possible roles for women in ministry were the real problems for the church to accept.  In any case, my wife had quit her job, and we had packed up, lock, stock, and barrel to show up, ready to go to work.  OK, I admit, it was jumping the gun, but we were all in, committed to what God was doing, and apparently really confused about what that was.

Later on, in the church we ended up in, I began preaching a Saturday Night Service while working a job 50 to 60 hours a week (sometimes more, but I tried to keep it to that).  The good thing about that was that it put me in the shoes of the people listening.  The bad news is that it killed preparation time, so I delivered less than my best.  But one thing that came out of that experience was my acceptance of my ability (calling?) to tell stories.  The way I made short prep time work for me was to stick to passages of Scripture which were narratives.  I would read the story over and over, then present it without notes.  It looked cool, sounded neat, and relied heavily on the people to derive their own point.  In a very real sense I was dependent upon God to connect the dots between the message and the people.  The problem with which I struggled was being confident that the source of the message was God and not me.  Pastors/preachers/teachers can probably identify with that struggle, but it applied way too often to what I was doing.

Because I spent so much time at work, I had little to no time to visit or meet with people during the week.  Without the relational element, the service really didn't grow or catch on like I had hoped.  It floundered and finally we shut it down (or rather it was shut down, I was still in denial that it wasn't worth the effort).  The eventual end of the service challenged me once again to assess my calling.  I struggled with looking at my job as necessary, I struggled with seeing the "pastorate" as my calling as opposed to just a "preacher", and I struggled with whether or not what God had called me to initially might now be at an end.  I voted for the third option since the other two made little sense to me.  I didn't see many preachers who were not also pastors, so I turned my back on that sort of ministry all together.

Now I am grappling again with my understanding of what my call by God really is, and whether it changes.  If my call is to one thing and only one thing, never to change, then I can't be doing just anything as ministry.  Each time I have tried to teach a Bible study, the study just doesn't grow or take off.  I realize that this is because I'm not developing that relational level.  I could and should, but I don't.  I have to admit that when I have tried to preach while not being a "pastor" so to speak, that ministry didn't take off or grow either.  But in each case, those who were involved were consistent in affirming that I was doing a good job, they liked what I was doing, and that enjoyed the Bible study/service.  They just didn't invite or bring friends (I guess it wasn't THAT good).  The good feedback I received has factored into my evaluation of what I am called to and whether that has changed, but can I rely on that?  People are polite, and just because they like me personally they may not want to hurt my feelings.

So, here I sit, pouring out my brain activity through a computer onto a web page for public consumption, so that I can better discern, by sifting through the thoughts, what is it God is saying to me from all this.  I freely admit that I don't know, which is easily discernible by any reader.  I read Chambers this morning and it sounds like he is saying that God calls us to one thing and we are to exclude all other paths in pursuit of it.  He ties this pursuit to devotion to Jesus, or "loyalty" as he puts it.  So not to pursue what I perceived to be my call is disloyal?  Is it disloyal to consider that I misunderstood the initial call and look for the possible alternatives God may provide?  OK, so I "assume" I misunderstood, which means that I have rejected the initial call, but perhaps now I "consider" that the initial call was correct.  Maybe that is more accurate.

I'm lost at this point, and really have not progressed any further in my understanding.  The Scripture does not seem to be crystal clear here.  The only reference I know of to the calling of God being irrevocable refers to the election to salvation and is used by Paul in Romans in reference to the Jewish people.  I don't find it used in reference to ministry (I could be missing something - a good thing to include in a comment if you know of one).  So, I will end where I began with the confusion remaining and the question unanswered.  I will have to be content with my Master as I know Him now, and wait for what He will show me about my calling.  I just admit that I have to be open to whatever the call may contain, committing ahead of time to not screen out anything just because I don't want it, or because it hurt me in the past.  Wait, worship, and walk through one more day.  Here I go...