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“My Call to the Ministry”
By Raymond Driskill
As a teenager in the 50's, my first real decision for Christ, I remember setting in the second row on the right side of the Church of God in Independence, Kansas. I felt like I was so heavy that the pew I was setting on was going to break under the load. At altar time I went forward and asked Christ into my heart. Getting up from the altar there was a sense of weighing very little that if you blew at me I would float up over the pews just like a feather.
Thru the years I had drifted away from the Lord as far as being deeply concerned about living for Christ. I had done many things wrong that were against the teachings of Christ. I knew all the right things to say and do but no relationship with Christ.
There in a Nazarene Church in the first or second day of November in the year 2000, God called me into evangelism. I remember it well. As I was and had for many weeks been bothered by Matthew 7:21 “Not everyone who says Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven but he who does the will of My Father which is in heaven.” I wasn’t listening to who was speaking that night. My thoughts had put me in a prayerful mode and then it was there that I knew God called me. God had said, “Ray, you are 57 years old, when are you going to work for Me. My churches need a wakeup call because I am coming soon.” As the service ended I asked our pastor, Jim Furnas, what was the next class up from the Joplin District School of Ministry and he told me it was Evangelism and the next class was on Holiness. This was a kind of reaffirmation of the call but a few months later I went to Sapulpa, Okla. to visit Bud Armitage. I trusted him and was going to tell him what God was doing in my life, but before I could say anything Bud began to talk. “Ray, I’m worried about the people in the church,
many of them are living different lives when they are away from church. Matthew 7:21 talks about such people. The church needs a wakeup call.” As Bud went on, not
knowing about my call, he said almost word for word the things God was speaking to me about in November of 2000. Now that really reaffirmed God’s call on my life. Opportunities to minister were present.
During the next few years as I took the courses, designed by the Colorado Springs Bible College, God also had been molding me and I have tried to plan, but have let Him take me from day to day. I’m almost finished with my courses and my main concern is that I don’t let God down.
I was attending the Neosho Church of the Nazarene when Jesus called me into Evangelism. God said My Church needs a wake up call.
As I look at the beginning of the Church of the Nazarene I have developed a desire to preach holiness more deeply than I had before. The deep desire is there because of my experience in Sanctification with the filling of the Holy Spirit and my developing relationship with the Father and Son. Is it possible that the reason many don’t preach Holiness very often is because they never have really experienced the real second crisis
experience of Holy Spirit Baptism?
Not to preach Holiness causes the church to “drop the ball” that those in the early years of the church fought so hard to hold on to. I pledge to pick up that ball and carry it on as much as God has plans for me to do so.
Presently I am active in bringing other churches to come together in unity and identify as brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. This I am doing through the Neosho Christian Ministerial Alliance. We are now doing small group studies using "The Truth Project" sponsored by Focus on the Family.
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