When do you get ordained?

When the Spirit tells you.

Make sure the Spirit is leading.

 

Make sure you can answer the question, "Why do I want to get ordained?" Have the right motivations.

Also, this is not just your decision...ordination is the church recognizing and affirming God's call on your life for ministry. Is the church ready to take that step as well? If not, keep plugging along, learning, and developing your skills as you follow God.

I have some rather unorthodox views on ordination anyway, but that's for another thread...

 

I am assuming you have a home church. Find out what the requirements are for your local church.Ask you pastor.

 

Your ministry plans sound great. Youth ministry is incredibly important IMO. Churches really do vary on ordination. In my church we are licensing a 20 year old college student next week who is a gifted preacher. Ordination for him will likely come after he finishes seminary--which is how the SBC churches around here tend to operate. May the Lord bless your ministry.

Tom

 

There are many kinds of Baptists.Each denomination has it's own practices and requirements. You will find that in some churches it is strictly local church that does the deciding and in others the bar is pre-set.Which is why I said ask your pastor.It could be anywhere from no training up to a MDiv before ordination would even be considered.

 

I was ordained at the age of 24, which was about a year after I surrendered to full-time ministry. I had already been to college and received a master's in counseling. They did not require me to have a seminary degree.

Each church is different - speak with your pastor (or youth pastor). They should have good advice.

 

When your pastor and church say you are ready to be ordained.

 

My pastor approached me for ordination. I did not seek it.

With that in mind, talk with your pastor about it...the pros and cons of ordaining now or waiting.

 

In the Baptist circles I have been in, it was done when the pastor and/or church saw potential in a young man and thought he was ready to start out in ministry. AS for my husband, his church was a fighting church, and no one ever did that. He served as a youth minister, a US2 missionary, and then our first year in seminary when he was already pastoring, that church realized he had not been ordained, and did so.
I kinda feel differently than most do about it, probably. I dont see any biblical basis for the way we do it.

 

As do I. I believe we've made ordination in many churches "a third ordinance." I think the NT basis was simply the church recognized God's hand on the lives of a couple of guys, and they got together and prayed for God's power and blessings on them.

Not saying it ain't important, but I think we've made it into more than it should be.

My $0.0005 (after taxes).

 

great point rbell!

It is the Holy Spirit who ordains us in the first place, he sets us aside and calls us to the ministry. He then continues to guide us and help us throughout the ministry... so really, as long as we are in the Lord's will/way, ordination should really be a secondary issue.

JRG39402,
Don't be too quick to desire ordination... just make your service to the Lord the main thing... and if it later becomes the will of your church/pastor then start to pursue it.

 

I was ordained at 24 years old... at the same ordination with my father who "surrendered" to full-time ministry as on older man. It was an awesome worship service and one I look back on as a pillar in my ministry.

 

I agree with those who have suggested that we have made too much of ordination in many ways. I am not sure that we Baptists have or need to have a theology of ordination, since for us there is a priesthood of all believers. What does ordination confer, since we do not believe we have sacerdotal powers?

Are we sure we are not doing ordination in order to be like "all the nations" (other churches) or because the state generally wants some form of credentialing in order to permit someone to officiate at weddings? (And even there, I like the Quaker notion that a couple stands before God and marries one another, without clergy mumbo-jumbo being said over them!). Well, I never did use that line, "by the authority vested in me by the state of ...." because if I have any authority at all, I don't think it came from the state!

 

To JRG49402: I would first ask my pastor what he thinks about ordination. Then as so many have said here, make sure the Holy Spirit is in it.

To the other posters: Ordination in God's eyes is a small thing as far as government goes. But, here in Illinois, you have to be ordained to make any ministry expenses tax-deductible. Otherwise, all those expenses are just hobby expenses.