The sad state of the modern Church, particularly in America, is well-documented. One could create a seemingly-endless list of reasons for her disarray, and many of those reasons would be valid. Human nature, a failure to cling to Scripture, material prosperity, and postmodernism, along with many other issues, can all claim some of the blame, but no discussion of the issue would be complete if we did not discuss the failures of the leadership of the Church. This is a Biblical concept. Throughout the Scriptures we see the leaders, both religious and secular, being held accountable for the spiritual decline of the people. Again, a long list of issues plaguing the leadership in the Church, regardless of denomination, could be compiled, and behind those issues there could be found another list of underlying problems, but this is not the place, nor am I the person, to make such a list. I want to narrow the discussion down and focus on the role that seminaries have played in weakening the Church.
Certainly seminaries have blessed the Church in many ways, but few would claim that seminaries share no blame for the current state of affairs. Instead of giving a shotgun list of the downsides of seminaries, I'd like to relate my own personal experience. It's only fair that you know the horse that I have in the race, so to speak. I am a PK. I was raised in the small Reformed church in Greentown, OH that was pastored by my father. For a while I was a silly, wandering teenager, but when I started to find my bearings around age 19, I started thinking about what God wanted me to do. I am now 28 years old. Every other Sunday I preach at the same small church in which I was raised, though there have been a few detours along the way (my father is no longer the pastor there...it's a long story). It is my continuing desire to further my education, in any context, formal or informal, that I can find. I am currently a deacon, but have been called by my church (leadership and congregation), with approval by the denomination, to preach as I work towards becoming an elder (our denomination doesn't recognize a difference between teaching elders [pastors] and ruling elders).
So, that's who I am. In my quest for higher education, I stumbled across TNARS, from which I earned my BATS. TNARS is not the most esteemed academic institution on the planet, but it fit the basic criteria I needed--affordable, mentor-based, Reformed, and flexible. Their program is only really as good as you take the initiative to make it, but, if you faithfully follow their courses, you will be exposed to good, Biblical training. I looked at several schools before finding TNARS, and, let me say, my search for Biblical training was disillusioning, to put it mildly. First of all, most seminaries are simply too liberal, theologically speaking. That slimmed down the list dramatically. There are, however, several fine Reformed and Evangelical seminaries out there, but most of those institutions uproot you from your hometown, drown you in debt, and leave you scouring the countryside looking for employment, so the problem is that even the good seminaries create a product of well-educated (indoctrinated anyway), disconnected intellectuals who are career-minded.
Let me clarify something. There are plenty of good pastors who faithfully serve congregations with all their hearts. I don't want to defame them. I don't want to generalize and imply that seminary is entirely bad and that seminary-trained pastors are bad, greedy people. That's not what I'm trying to say. There is, however, a systemic issue, I believe. Too many pastors getting out of seminary are simply looking for a job that will utilize their training/degree. Most of them are not greedy; they're just trying to survive. Nevertheless, this is far too much like the Episcopal form of church government that the Roman Catholic Church has employed for so many years, and which has often been subject to nepotism and corruption. The pastorate/bishopric became so corrupt that clerical positions were viewed as good careers instead of ministries. I think we're experiencing the same issue in many churches today, even when the pastors are generally well-intentioned. A much more desirable alternative would be to have homegrown pastors--pastors who know their congregants well and are emotionally invested in the spiritual welfare of specific congregations. These men should be raised within a church and trained to take over the leadership when the time comes. This is not always possible, of course, but I think it should be "normal."
"But," you say, "a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown!" You're right, and that's not a good thing. Jesus's words were not a recommendation--they were an indictment. The congregations (some would say laity, but I generally dislike that term as it perpetuates a dramatic clergy/laity distinction) share a large portion of the blame for these problems with the pastorate. Many people who have attended a church for decades often don't want to see little Johnny take over the church. They have a mental block against anything he says because they saw him grow up and they remember when he was a little whippersnapper. This is not the way it should be. We should be entirely willing and ready to welcome the sons of our congregations into positions of teaching and authority when the time comes. Instead, we'd rather have cookie-cutter, safe products of big-name seminaries come in and take over when Pastor Jimbob retires and moves to Florida. We need someone with a Th.M. behind his name, and a Th.D. would be even better! We value a degree more than we do a servant's heart.
Another problem the sheep have caused the shepherds is that they treat them like CEOs instead of spiritual leaders. They want growth. They want excitement. They want programs and change and sermons like the ones they see on TV and hear online. If they don't get what they want, the pastor is out of a job and he has to uproot his family to find work again at some church across the country. These types of expectations, and the instability that accompanies them, are crippling to individual pastors and the leadership of the Christian Church in general.
To summarize, here's where we are. Pastors are career-minded because they are saddled with debt, largely because of unrealistic/ungodly expectations. Pastors are CEOs. They are often not even members of their own churches (this is true of many Presbyterian denominations), which inherently creates this us/them divide. They are a separate group of itinerant tradesmen desperately looking to peddle their wares, trying to find receptive congregations where they can simultaneously support their families and serve God's people. Seminaries dilute the truth, charge outrageous sums of money, separate men from their communities, and encourage them to scour the world looking for a way to pay off their school debt. The leadership of the Church, both in America and abroad, looks far too much like the corrupt Episcopal system the Reformation fought centuries ago.
Maybe, just maybe, it's time for a change, and, as is often the case, maybe "change" means we need to go back to the beginning. Maybe it's time to go back to leaders who come from within their own congregations. Maybe it's time to align our expectations for pastors (what they do and how they're trained) with the Bible and not with our culture. Maybe it's time that local congregations and denominations take responsibility for raising up their young men to lead the next generation. I don't know exactly what that means, or exactly what it would look like, but our current system is definitely broken. Local congregations have more resources than ever before to provide solid, Biblical training to young men aspiring for to the ministry, and I believe it's time that we rethink the classical seminary model.
Certainly seminaries have blessed the Church in many ways, but few would claim that seminaries share no blame for the current state of affairs. Instead of giving a shotgun list of the downsides of seminaries, I'd like to relate my own personal experience. It's only fair that you know the horse that I have in the race, so to speak. I am a PK. I was raised in the small Reformed church in Greentown, OH that was pastored by my father. For a while I was a silly, wandering teenager, but when I started to find my bearings around age 19, I started thinking about what God wanted me to do. I am now 28 years old. Every other Sunday I preach at the same small church in which I was raised, though there have been a few detours along the way (my father is no longer the pastor there...it's a long story). It is my continuing desire to further my education, in any context, formal or informal, that I can find. I am currently a deacon, but have been called by my church (leadership and congregation), with approval by the denomination, to preach as I work towards becoming an elder (our denomination doesn't recognize a difference between teaching elders [pastors] and ruling elders).
So, that's who I am. In my quest for higher education, I stumbled across TNARS, from which I earned my BATS. TNARS is not the most esteemed academic institution on the planet, but it fit the basic criteria I needed--affordable, mentor-based, Reformed, and flexible. Their program is only really as good as you take the initiative to make it, but, if you faithfully follow their courses, you will be exposed to good, Biblical training. I looked at several schools before finding TNARS, and, let me say, my search for Biblical training was disillusioning, to put it mildly. First of all, most seminaries are simply too liberal, theologically speaking. That slimmed down the list dramatically. There are, however, several fine Reformed and Evangelical seminaries out there, but most of those institutions uproot you from your hometown, drown you in debt, and leave you scouring the countryside looking for employment, so the problem is that even the good seminaries create a product of well-educated (indoctrinated anyway), disconnected intellectuals who are career-minded.
Let me clarify something. There are plenty of good pastors who faithfully serve congregations with all their hearts. I don't want to defame them. I don't want to generalize and imply that seminary is entirely bad and that seminary-trained pastors are bad, greedy people. That's not what I'm trying to say. There is, however, a systemic issue, I believe. Too many pastors getting out of seminary are simply looking for a job that will utilize their training/degree. Most of them are not greedy; they're just trying to survive. Nevertheless, this is far too much like the Episcopal form of church government that the Roman Catholic Church has employed for so many years, and which has often been subject to nepotism and corruption. The pastorate/bishopric became so corrupt that clerical positions were viewed as good careers instead of ministries. I think we're experiencing the same issue in many churches today, even when the pastors are generally well-intentioned. A much more desirable alternative would be to have homegrown pastors--pastors who know their congregants well and are emotionally invested in the spiritual welfare of specific congregations. These men should be raised within a church and trained to take over the leadership when the time comes. This is not always possible, of course, but I think it should be "normal."
"But," you say, "a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown!" You're right, and that's not a good thing. Jesus's words were not a recommendation--they were an indictment. The congregations (some would say laity, but I generally dislike that term as it perpetuates a dramatic clergy/laity distinction) share a large portion of the blame for these problems with the pastorate. Many people who have attended a church for decades often don't want to see little Johnny take over the church. They have a mental block against anything he says because they saw him grow up and they remember when he was a little whippersnapper. This is not the way it should be. We should be entirely willing and ready to welcome the sons of our congregations into positions of teaching and authority when the time comes. Instead, we'd rather have cookie-cutter, safe products of big-name seminaries come in and take over when Pastor Jimbob retires and moves to Florida. We need someone with a Th.M. behind his name, and a Th.D. would be even better! We value a degree more than we do a servant's heart.
Another problem the sheep have caused the shepherds is that they treat them like CEOs instead of spiritual leaders. They want growth. They want excitement. They want programs and change and sermons like the ones they see on TV and hear online. If they don't get what they want, the pastor is out of a job and he has to uproot his family to find work again at some church across the country. These types of expectations, and the instability that accompanies them, are crippling to individual pastors and the leadership of the Christian Church in general.
To summarize, here's where we are. Pastors are career-minded because they are saddled with debt, largely because of unrealistic/ungodly expectations. Pastors are CEOs. They are often not even members of their own churches (this is true of many Presbyterian denominations), which inherently creates this us/them divide. They are a separate group of itinerant tradesmen desperately looking to peddle their wares, trying to find receptive congregations where they can simultaneously support their families and serve God's people. Seminaries dilute the truth, charge outrageous sums of money, separate men from their communities, and encourage them to scour the world looking for a way to pay off their school debt. The leadership of the Church, both in America and abroad, looks far too much like the corrupt Episcopal system the Reformation fought centuries ago.
Maybe, just maybe, it's time for a change, and, as is often the case, maybe "change" means we need to go back to the beginning. Maybe it's time to go back to leaders who come from within their own congregations. Maybe it's time to align our expectations for pastors (what they do and how they're trained) with the Bible and not with our culture. Maybe it's time that local congregations and denominations take responsibility for raising up their young men to lead the next generation. I don't know exactly what that means, or exactly what it would look like, but our current system is definitely broken. Local congregations have more resources than ever before to provide solid, Biblical training to young men aspiring for to the ministry, and I believe it's time that we rethink the classical seminary model.
Comments
Post a Comment