Education for ministry
I read an article today on clergy educational standards, an issue that will no doubt come before the Convening General Conference this month. And it is something I have discussed many times with other leaders in the Great Lakes Conference of the GMC. In this post, I don't want to outline any particular course of study or path to ordination. But I want to talk about an issue that I see both in clergy and lay training.
Whether we are talking about clergy candidates or people wanting to become Certified Lay Ministers (not a clergy category), I see too many people just wanting to find the quickest, easiest route. Now, I understand that if we make the trail too difficult, we discourage some of those who would make fine ministers. And the same goes for making it too expensive. People starting late in life don't want to spend ten years trying to qualify for service. And so on.
But a lot of folks are obsessed with credentials rather than education. They don't really want to know anything more than they know right now. They don't want to explore ideas or have new experiences or expand their understanding of things. They think they have what it takes right now to do whatever it is they want to do. All that stands between them and their goal is a bunch of hoops to jump through. They expect to come out the other end the same as they went in, so what does all that foofaraw matter, anyway? This, I think, is the greatest challenge to educating anyone for any kind of ministry.
Yes, you are a servant of Christ right now, as you are, and you can give good service immediately. But, dude, if you think you know it all now and that no amount of book-reading or class-taking is of any real value to you, think again.
I went off to seminary very young (just 21 years old), with a very sketchy church background. I was immature in many ways and unformed spiritually. A very fine seminary education didn't make up for either of those deficiencies, and I had a lot of hard lessons to learn before I really hit my stride as a pastor. Meanwhile, I saw many second-career clergy who entered the ministry already grown up and experienced in dealing with people, and who had faithfully absorbed the habits of spiritual life that came late to me. In many ways, they were better prepared for service at the start of their careers than I was. But. Having started late, they had no time (they thought) for the fancy education I had had, and this was a handicap to them. They could not take time off at this stage of life to take the courses I had taken when I was young and my life relatively uncomplicated.
In the end, it takes both things to succeed in ministry. You have to be grown up and spiritually formed, and you have to know a lot of stuff. The most efficient way to learn a lot of the stuff you need to know is to take a degree or course of study all at once. And the stuff you learn, whether in concentrated form or strung out in a long process, will take discipline and humility (things that are often lacking in people in a hurry), and it will change you. If you are not willing to be changed, then education can be seen as threatening, as well as hard.
When I have acted as a mentor to clergy candidates over the years, I have always tried to affirm them where they are, for what they are doing for Christ now. But I have also tried to point them to the goal of acquiring more knowledge than they have now, so that God can use them in bigger ways down the line. Refusing to go on the journey means you never get anywhere; you stay pretty much where you are, as you are. You limit yourself.
At the same time, just saying you've taken so many courses, or acquired so many degrees, does not guarantee what many think it does. And being able to swank around with "Reverend" or "Doctor" in front of your name doesn't make you more special than someone else. The thing to remember is that the brand doesn't guarantee quality; quality guarantees the brand. Credentials don't make you an educated person, let alone a spiritual guide worth following. Your performance says more about where you got your education than where you got your education can predict about your performance. But that doesn't mean that formal study is a nothingburger.
Years ago, I was attending a Scout weekend where chapel was presided over by some local preacher. Not my denomination, I'm guessing, and of limited formal education. His text that morning was from 1 Thessalonians 5:21, "hold fast what is good." And the way he explained it was that when God offers you something, you've got to grab it quick! It was good preaching, but terrible Biblical exegesis. This guy was confusing the meaning of fast ("secure") with fast ("quick"). You didn't have to know Koiné Greek to spot the error; this was a failure to construe English properly, of which he was a native speaker. He was probably six times holier than I'll ever be, but he was misleading his charges in a serious way.
For if I know anything about Call, I know that God doesn't just call once. Call is not Opportunity, Call is who you are/were meant to be. God will call again and again. You may miss an opportunity, and that may limit what is available to you. But you will not miss your call just because you are slow on the uptake. And in that passage of 1 Thessalonians, context is important, too. Paul is talking about the danger of false teaching. We are to be open to what anyone says when moved by the Spirit (God can use anybody), but we are to test what they say. And what shall we test them against? Against the accumulated wisdom of the whole Church from all times and places, and especially in the Church's long meditation on the Scriptures; in other words, all that stuff we have to learn -- somehow, somewhere, sometime -- so that we don't fall for every fast-talker who comes down the pike, or becomes such a one ourselves.
Whether we are talking about clergy candidates or people wanting to become Certified Lay Ministers (not a clergy category), I see too many people just wanting to find the quickest, easiest route. Now, I understand that if we make the trail too difficult, we discourage some of those who would make fine ministers. And the same goes for making it too expensive. People starting late in life don't want to spend ten years trying to qualify for service. And so on.
But a lot of folks are obsessed with credentials rather than education. They don't really want to know anything more than they know right now. They don't want to explore ideas or have new experiences or expand their understanding of things. They think they have what it takes right now to do whatever it is they want to do. All that stands between them and their goal is a bunch of hoops to jump through. They expect to come out the other end the same as they went in, so what does all that foofaraw matter, anyway? This, I think, is the greatest challenge to educating anyone for any kind of ministry.
Yes, you are a servant of Christ right now, as you are, and you can give good service immediately. But, dude, if you think you know it all now and that no amount of book-reading or class-taking is of any real value to you, think again.
I went off to seminary very young (just 21 years old), with a very sketchy church background. I was immature in many ways and unformed spiritually. A very fine seminary education didn't make up for either of those deficiencies, and I had a lot of hard lessons to learn before I really hit my stride as a pastor. Meanwhile, I saw many second-career clergy who entered the ministry already grown up and experienced in dealing with people, and who had faithfully absorbed the habits of spiritual life that came late to me. In many ways, they were better prepared for service at the start of their careers than I was. But. Having started late, they had no time (they thought) for the fancy education I had had, and this was a handicap to them. They could not take time off at this stage of life to take the courses I had taken when I was young and my life relatively uncomplicated.
In the end, it takes both things to succeed in ministry. You have to be grown up and spiritually formed, and you have to know a lot of stuff. The most efficient way to learn a lot of the stuff you need to know is to take a degree or course of study all at once. And the stuff you learn, whether in concentrated form or strung out in a long process, will take discipline and humility (things that are often lacking in people in a hurry), and it will change you. If you are not willing to be changed, then education can be seen as threatening, as well as hard.
When I have acted as a mentor to clergy candidates over the years, I have always tried to affirm them where they are, for what they are doing for Christ now. But I have also tried to point them to the goal of acquiring more knowledge than they have now, so that God can use them in bigger ways down the line. Refusing to go on the journey means you never get anywhere; you stay pretty much where you are, as you are. You limit yourself.
At the same time, just saying you've taken so many courses, or acquired so many degrees, does not guarantee what many think it does. And being able to swank around with "Reverend" or "Doctor" in front of your name doesn't make you more special than someone else. The thing to remember is that the brand doesn't guarantee quality; quality guarantees the brand. Credentials don't make you an educated person, let alone a spiritual guide worth following. Your performance says more about where you got your education than where you got your education can predict about your performance. But that doesn't mean that formal study is a nothingburger.
Years ago, I was attending a Scout weekend where chapel was presided over by some local preacher. Not my denomination, I'm guessing, and of limited formal education. His text that morning was from 1 Thessalonians 5:21, "hold fast what is good." And the way he explained it was that when God offers you something, you've got to grab it quick! It was good preaching, but terrible Biblical exegesis. This guy was confusing the meaning of fast ("secure") with fast ("quick"). You didn't have to know Koiné Greek to spot the error; this was a failure to construe English properly, of which he was a native speaker. He was probably six times holier than I'll ever be, but he was misleading his charges in a serious way.
For if I know anything about Call, I know that God doesn't just call once. Call is not Opportunity, Call is who you are/were meant to be. God will call again and again. You may miss an opportunity, and that may limit what is available to you. But you will not miss your call just because you are slow on the uptake. And in that passage of 1 Thessalonians, context is important, too. Paul is talking about the danger of false teaching. We are to be open to what anyone says when moved by the Spirit (God can use anybody), but we are to test what they say. And what shall we test them against? Against the accumulated wisdom of the whole Church from all times and places, and especially in the Church's long meditation on the Scriptures; in other words, all that stuff we have to learn -- somehow, somewhere, sometime -- so that we don't fall for every fast-talker who comes down the pike, or becomes such a one ourselves.