Kept By God
Ten Year Ordiversary
Today marks ten years since my ordination as a teaching elder in the PCA.
Personal birthdays and the like don’t carry much weight for me. But this day is different. This day matters deeply to me (and I imagine most TEs say the same about their own) because it reminds me of the faithful mercy God has continually shown. After all, who is sufficient for ministry? Our sufficiency is from God.
These are the seven ordination vows I made ten years ago at Providence Presbyterian Church in Salisbury, Maryland. They are also framed and sit in my church study as a constant reminder of the seriousness of this ministerial endeavor.
I believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as originally given, to be the inerrant Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice.
I sincerely receive and adopt the Confession of Faith and the Catechisms of this Church, as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures; and I further promise that if at any time I find myself out of accord with any of the fundamentals of this system of doctrine, I will on my own initiative, make known to my Presbytery the change which has taken place in my views since the assumption of this ordination vow.
I approve of the form of government and discipline of the Presbyterian Church in America, in conformity with the general principles of Biblical polity.
I promise subjection to my brethren in the Lord.
I have been induced, as far as I know my own heart, to seek the office of the holy ministry from love to God and a sincere desire to promote His glory in the Gospel of His Son.
I promise to be zealous and faithful in maintaining the truths of the Gospel and the purity and peace and unity of the Church, whatever persecution or opposition may arise unto me on that account.
I engage to be faithful and diligent in the exercise of all my duties as a Christian and a minister of the Gospel, whether personal or relational, private or public; and to endeavor by the grace of God to adorn the profession of the Gospel in my manner of life, and to walk with exemplary piety before the flock of which God shall make me overseer.
Ten years later, I am more aware than ever that I have not kept these vows by my own strength. I have kept them only because God has kept me.
He has been faithful through sermons well-preached and sermons failed, through seasons of confidence and seasons of doubt, through joys in ministry and wounds received in it. He has corrected me, humbled me, steadied me, and sustained me. In all of this I cannot fully express my gratitude to God for my wife, whose love, patience, and constant support have been His chief means of sustaining me. And I am ever grateful for brothers who have borne with me, churches that have loved me, and a calling that has not loosened its grip.
An “ordiversary” is not a celebration of achievement. It is yet another confession of dependence. On this day I am grateful for God’s mercy and for renewed resolve to keep walking in the path I vowed to walk, until the Chief Shepherd appears.
Soli Deo Gloria.