When God Calls

By Donald Preston

When people say, “God has called me,” do they know what that really mean? When this book was originally conceived in the heart and mind of the author, it was for those who felt “called” to become a pastor. But as it was being written, Pastor Preston realized what he had always known and believed—that the calling of God into any type of ministry is a very serious matter and is not for the weak in heart or for the uncommitted. The reality of the words of Jesus are still true today: “Many are called, but few are chosen.”

Pastor Preston highlights in each chapter the highs and lows of that calling, covering more than forty years of pastoral ministry in the spiritual trenches. His desire is that anyone feeling the call of God on their life into any type of ministry will come away with the answer concerning the call of God. One ought to go boldly for it because when God calls, He also equips and sustains.

The Lord will walk with you every step of the way until He makes that one final call home. It will be there where we will hear those long-awaited words from the Master Himself: “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685703653

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When God Calls

Donald Preston

Copyright © 2022 by Donald Preston

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

All other scripture quotations are in the King James Version (KJV).

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Are You Sure You Are Called?

Will You Take a Church Even if It’s in the Boondocks?

He Doesn’t Even Have the Baptism!

It’s Going to Be a Lot of Work

Come Over and Help Us!

The Devil Is Not in West Virginia

Pastors and Their Families Are Human Too

We Received Your Resume

Major Surgery and COVID-19

Retirement and Beyond?

Lessons I Have Learned and Reflections of My Life

What’s Next?

What I Hope I Have Left for Others

Foreword

The fingerprint of the Creator on the human life is one that is grossly misrepresented in American culture. Flooding our Western-society pulpits and media in the twenty-first century are fleshly, dessert-focused, ear-tickling messages that are lacking the entire Word of God. Incomplete context of passages of Scripture are often used to give the intended audience what they believe they need and want to hear. This methodology is one that has helped contribute to the further moral decline of America.

We, even if well intentioned at the inception, have created our own Americanized version of living out the Gospel. We focus on the blessing scriptures but also are quick to ignore the conditions of receiving such blessings.

We love Jeremiah 29:11 and desire to stand on that single passage of hope, but we ignore the passages of scripture immediately preceding and following it. Hidden in those are conditions that one (in this reference, the entire promised and chosen nation of Israel) must go through for the purposes of repentance, growth, and development through an intimate relationship with the One giving the blessing. If there ever was a critical time for truth, it is now.

When one is led by His Spirit to present the truth, it will not always end up glorified in the vision of our secular surroundings or created Christian world. You may become the most popular person in the room, not for reward or glorification but as the target of wrath, as you become the iron that is being used to sharpen another. The storehouse will likely end up bare on most occasions with a persistent need to seek His daily bread of provision to build your faith in Him.

The walk with Him will be an often lonely one the closer you get to His mountaintop. There is little room for others to stand on that peak of individual relationship with Him.

This book is an honest, modern-day, real-life account of the office of pastor. Pastor Preston shares the good and bad of it all in his forty-plus-year walk. One who feels he is being called into this divinely appointed position will benefit from reading this account. This book will aid you in going from feeling to knowing in either a definite yes or no, in this eternity-impacting decision. God is serious on this assignment of the under-shepherd to the many souls in this world. The confirmation through either a yes or a no is good because our ultimate desire for you, and for everyone else, is to do His will to enlarge His kingdom.

Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture! says the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel against the shepherds who feed My people: You have scattered My flock, driven them away, and not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your doings, says the Lord. But I will gather my remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase. I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking, says the Lord. (Jer. 23:1–4 NKJV)

Dr. Travis A. E. Schildt, MD

Acknowledgments

My highest praise and thankful heart belong to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who not only saved me but has loved me unconditionally all these years. He has also honored me by calling me to the highest calling in this life: to feed and nurture His flock that He entrusted into my care (Isa. 6:1–8).

This book is dedicated to my parents, Harry and Audrey Preston, who dedicated me to the Lord as a baby and raised me in the faith. They taught me to always love the Lord, work hard, and as my mother would say, that I was born to serve the Lord.

Also, I thank my two brothers, Harry and Bob, who watched over me when I was young and prayed for me when I grew older.

But especially, I give thanks to my beloved wife, Diana, who has loved me unconditionally for over fifty years and has worked by my side faithfully in life and in ministry with never a complaint. She has been my biggest cheerleader and my rock. Also, she proofread each chapter when I finished each one to see if I covered everything. She has also blessed me with two beautiful daughters, Audrey and Rebekah (Becky), who in turn blessed us both with five wonderful grandchildren: Sarah, Emilee, Kyle, Karissa, and Philip.

Introduction

Iwas born on November 18, 1953, and the youngest of three sons living in a suburban area of Baltimore County. At the time, my father was a meat manager at a small grocery store, and my mother was a stay-at-home mom. We were a close family that attended Sunday school and church faithfully every Sunday. It was here that I was rooted in God’s Word and, at a young age, accepted Christ as my personal Savior.

We were also a family that loved sports, which found us playing baseball and football in local recreational leagues. Of course, living in Baltimore, we were die-hard, loyal fans of our Baltimore Orioles and Baltimore Colts. We also lived just twenty minutes away from old Memorial Stadium, which enabled us to attend many of their games. When our beloved Colts left in the middle of the night in 1983 to Indianapolis, like so many, we had no team to root for until the Ravens came to Baltimore.

For me, baseball became a passion. At the age of six, I began playing in organized baseball leagues in the spring and summer. Eventually, I played junior varsity and varsity baseball in high school. My life’s ambition was to someday play professional baseball.

It was while I was in high school when I met Diana and fell deeply in love with her. One week after her graduation from high school in 1973, we then married and began our lives together. I was nineteen, and Diana was eighteen. To many, we were simply too young to get married; and looking back, had not the Lord been in control, I would have to agree. It was during this time when I had backslid from the Lord and lived the next two and a half years as I would so often say, I am going to do what I want to do. In the process, I fell deeper into sin.

During that time, I was drinking as well as yielding to foul language and an out-of-control temper. We modified my 1972 Mustang Mach I and spent most of our Saturdays and even Sundays racing at different quarter-mile racetracks during the spring and summer, as well as street racing. I had been working the midnight shift five nights a week, and slowly this lifestyle began taking its toll on our young marriage.

With many praying for us and an invitation to come to church from my brother Bob, Diana and I rededicated our lives to Christ on September 8, 1975 and were both baptized in the Holy Spirit the following year. Then we began the journey of a lifetime together with the Lord. On June 22, 1976, our first daughter, Audrey, was born. In October of 1977, we grieved over the loss of our unborn middle child. On December 16, 1978, our next daughter, Becky, was born.

It was in 1977 when I became involved in ministry in the local church and began to feel the call of God on my life. Furthermore, it was after pastoring in several difficult churches that someone said to me, You should write a book. I said that if I did, it should be placed in every Bible college with the title If You Feel Called to the Ministry After Reading This Book, You Are.

Realizing that not everyone is called to be a pastor, I do believe that every Christian is called to minister in some way for the Lord. That calling could be to children, teens, or adults; it could be to those in prisons, hospitals, nursing homes; or it could be to consistently witness on the job, in the community, or to their families.

So at the age of sixty-seven, after serving the Lord for more than forty-five years and recently retired from full-time pastoral ministry that has spanned forty and a half years, here it is… Though it is a book about ministry, it is more than that.

This is a book about the lessons learned about the faithfulness of God that just so happened to play out in the life of an ordinary guy, whom God called into ministry. Each chapter will bear the title of a question or a statement that was spoken to me; and in each chapter, you will see how God was faithful not only by what I had learned but also through how His Word played a big part. I challenge you to open your heart to the Lord and simply listen when God calls.

Afterword

In the introduction, I had stated that the original title of this book was going to be If You Feel Called to the Ministry after Reading This Book…You Are. I also mentioned that it should be required reading in every Bible college and for anyone who feels called to pastor a church. I realized that when God calls anyone to any type of ministry, it should be just that—a calling from the Lord. So I changed the title with the understanding that we are all called to be witnesses for Christ; and that calling can lead us into a specific call, where God can use our gifts for His kingdom.

With that in mind, I hope that the lessons that Diana and I have learned can help and be an encouragement for anyone reading this book. This leads me to a passage of scripture that many do not understand when Jesus said, "Many are called but few are chosen" (Matt. 20:16, emphasis added). Simply put, many are called, but not everyone answers the call; so then few are chosen to fill the intended calling. But when we do, God will take care of us.

Rose asked me just before moving to Hancock, Do you think you will like living in the country? Because one of our former pastors couldn’t seem to adjust.

I said, I have lived in Baltimore, ministered on the streets, lived and ministered in far more remote places than this. But when God calls us to a place, He has always helped us to adjust.

During our years of ministry, we went through two hurricanes (Gloria and Charlie) in the ’80s and two blizzards in the ’90s; and we lived through them though they were inconvenient, to say the least. In the spiritual realm, we weathered many storms of adversity within and without the church, heartaches personally and in the church, sickness, death, and disappointments. But through it all, God was always faithful not to put on us more than we were able to bear. He always taught us the lessons that we would never have learned had we not walked down those dark roads that made us stronger.

As one pastor said to me when I was just starting out in ministry, The best sermon that you will ever preach is the one you have lived through. I also realized that saved or not, everyone suffers through many adversities. As the scripture says, That you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven; for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust (Matt. 5:45). The difference is that we have the Lord with us to strengthen us through it all.

I have come to understand that God calls pastors to accomplish different things. For us, we were never called to build a new church building, but we were called to complete two buildings that were left unfinished when we arrived. God enabled us to complete both and to help three of the churches that were simply in dire need of repair. We were never called to plant a new church, but instead, we helped one in its infancy and another to be planted out of our existing church.

It seemed that whenever God called us, He wanted us to turn to churches in trouble and were broke and facing bankruptcy—in fact, four had suffered splits. But for us, it was an opportunity to bring healing and vision; and though the pay and benefits were not always the greatest, the results were reward enough. As Diana always says, The benefits are out of this world. When we saw each church and community through the eyes of Jesus, it enabled us to love them even more. God helped us to understand that, that should be the heart of every ministry.

It has also been my privilege to work with godly deacons and board members in every church. They have worked shoulder to shoulder with me, along with some tremendous department heads, teachers, workers, and musicians.

Over the years, most of them understood that when we worked as a team, we could get much more done for the kingdom; but when we did not work with that spirit, the church suffered. For those that understood this, they made my job easier; and to each of them, I say thank you, and it has been my privilege to serve alongside you. I want to thank everyone that have prayed for us throughout the years, especially when I was in the hospital.

To Travis, my family doctor, who sat with me each evening so Diana could go home to take care of things. To those who brought her food (saving her from the hospital food). To those within each of the churches with whom I hunted (and you know who you are), we sure did make some lifelong memories together that I will always cherish. To Tom and Mae for the opportunity to have a nice piece of property to build our home on in wild, wonderful West Virginia. Also, a special thanks to all our police officers, first responders, health care workers, and our great military, that serve us every day. I want to especially thank Pastor Earl Travis and Debbie and the wonderful congregation of Light House Assembly of God in Paw Paw, West Virginia, for making us feel welcome as we worship with them when we are not ministering elsewhere.

But most of all, I want to thank Diana, the love of my life and my best friend. She has served with and alongside me, prayed for me, loved me, and always followed wherever God called. She did so much behind the scenes and served so many in so many ways that I credit her and the Lord for any success that I may have had.

This book is not about me. But rather, it is about the One who saved me and called me and how He navigated us through the years for His honor and for His glory.

To every Christian that has read this book, you must understand that God has something for you to do in His kingdom; in other words, you have a calling from God. Let God lead you by His Spirit and by His Word, and let Him grant you His peace in the process. Be genuine or just simply be yourself, and let the Spirit of the Lord speak and work through you. You will not see all the results of your labor here on earth; but one day, in the place of the redeemed, God Himself will reveal the fruits of your labor here, over there.

When the call is complete, it will be summed up with the words of the apostle Paul:

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the righteous judge, shall give me at that day, and not me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing. (2 Tim. 4:7–8)

About the Author

Don received his call to pastoral ministry in September 1977 while attending Bible school in Baltimore, Maryland. He went on to finish his Bible school education with the Assemblies of God in 1980. He was ordained with the Assemblies of God in 1983 and has served in six churches—as an assistant pastor in one and as a lead pastor in five.

Don also served as a Christian school administrator in four of those churches. He and his wife, Diana, retired in January 2021, after forty years of full-time pastoral ministry. They have been blessed with two beautiful daughters and five precious grandchildren.

Don is also an avid outdoorsman who enjoys hunting in the spring and fall seasons. He has also had more than thirty years of training and hunting with his beloved hunting dogs.

Notes

Chapter 1: Are You Sure You Are Called?

1 Ira Stanphill, We’ll Talk It Over (1949).

Chapter 2: Will You Take a Church Even If It’s in the Boondocks?

1 Edward Mote and William B. Bradbury, The Solid Rock.

Chapter 3: He Doesn’t Even Have the Baptism!

1 Fred Blom (1867–1927), He the Pearly Gates Will Open, trans. Nathaniel Carlson (1879–1957) and Elsie Ahlwen (1905).

Chapter 9: Major Surgery and COVID-19

1 Ira Stanphill, I Know Who Holds Tomorrow.

Chapter 10: Retirement and Beyond?

1 Kittie L. Suffield, Little Is Much (1924).

Chapter 11: Lessons I Have Learned and Reflections of My Life

1 Kittie L. Suffield, Little Is Much (1924).

Chapter 12: What’s Next?

1 Winston Churchill quote; Daymond R. Duck and Larry Richards, The Book of Revelation: The Smart Guide to the Bible Series (Nashville, TN: Nelson Reference, a Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc.), p. excii.

2 President H. W. Bush, on the Fifth Objective, New World Order 2010, The Fifth Objective, YouTube.

3 Thirty-seven NWO quotes, accessed June 5, 2013, https://endtimesprophecyreport.com.

4 ID-2020 Alliance, Digital Identity Alliance, https://www.unhcr.org>blogs>announcing-the-2018-…>blogs>announcing-the-2018-…

5 https://www.unhcr.org/.

6 https://precisebiometrics.com>blog>biometrics-secure.>blog>biometrics-secure.

7 CNN, https/www.cnn.com>2021/08/13>perspectives>cntr…

8 https://www.glbaldata.com > top-countries-moving-to… > top-countries-moving-to…

9 Miha Andrei,