A Pilgrimage Of Faith, J.B. Toews, 1993

nt- ment according to the method of the Apostolic church (Matt. 9:37-38; Acts 1:15-26; Acts 13:1-5). The church was to unite in fervent prayer and call upon God, fully trusting that Christ as the head of the church through his Holy Spirit would reveal those who had the gifts for service, thus fulfilling his divine promise: "And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding" (Jer. 3:15V The writings of Henry W. Lohienz in the 1920s and 1930s reflected the Mennonite Brethren scriptural understanding on the matter.2 He introduced the subject with the text of John 10:1-2. Entering the fold through "the door" identified one as a true shepherd called by God. Entering "some other way" disqualified one from being a true shepherd. Men, churches, may be instrumental in some way or an- other; but fundamentally it is a call from God. Where this is missing, the most essential element of the call is missing even when churches or conferences express a call by a unanimous vote . . . The call of the Eternal must ring 53 A PILGRIMAGE OF FAITH through the rooms of the minister's soul as clearly as the morning bell rings through the valleys of Switzerland call- ing the peasants to early prayer and praise.3 The manner of this call from God was not uniform but re- flected the candidate's personality and circumstances. The call was transmitted in diverse ways, as the examples of the Old Testament prophets and the call of the disciples and Paul in the New Testament demonstrate. However, the man who entered the ministry through the right door would recognize the glory of his calling. He would continuously walk with the consciousness "that he has been appointed a servant in the treasuries of grace, to make known the unsearchable riches of Christ.** Basic to the calling was a sense of unworthincss for this sacred responsibility as expressed by Ephesians 3-8: "Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace giv- en, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,"5 Observed Lohrenz, MI do not wonder that men shrink from the calling even when they feel the glory of it! I do not wonder at the holy fear of men as they approach the sacred office,"6 For Lohrenz, as for others, the ecclesiology of the Menno- nite Brethren was vital to selecting candidates for ministry. "Where a church is alive to its obligation and its opportunities, the normal course is that the call of God comes through the church." The affirmation of the church superseded