Christopher A. Beeley

“The record of the saints shows that, until we have been shaped, trained, and appointed to our respective ministries, our inward sense of calling can be either true or false when we are left to our own devices. In many of today's ordination processes, far too much emphasis is placed on the candidate's inward sense of vocation, which reflects an unhealthy kind of subjectivism. In the selection process and throughout a lifetime of ministry, the perceptions and faith-experience of the community should be the greatest indicator of leadership potential and success. In the individual candidate, the surest sign of a pastoral vocation is a recognizable desire to build up the church, with some awareness of its joy
and satisfaction as well as its labor and difficulty. Any other form of personal self-fulfillment is misleading in the selection process, and it will cause even greater problems down the road, when pride and vainglory become enormous impediments to the exercise of a faithful ministry.”
― Christopher A. Beeley, Leading God's People: Wisdom from the Early Church for Today