Seminary Cemetery

In this blog I am going to be critical of seminaries preparing men and women for ministry in the local church. I do this understanding that it has been a l-o-n-g time since I attended seminary It should be noted that I appreciate my seminary education. My professors were wonderful men and women of God. The entire faculty participated in praying for the students every morning at 4:30 am. (I didn’t know this until my senior year.) I entered seminary prepared for law school and I knew nothing about Christianity or ministry. Nothing.

I think I was the only student in a school of 750 students who didn’t know there are 66 books of the Bible. In the youth group at the church I grew up in they served a small meal before the meetings began. When served each kid had to respond with a Bible verse. Each week I repeated the shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept.” Like I said, I knew nothing. At least, nothing about what they were teaching. The professors often said words that were completely foreign (Often Greek.) to me while everyone else in class obviously knew exactly what he was talking about. As my dad often observed, I was a lost ball in the high weeds. So, to say seminary was a challenging experience for me with a huge learning curve would be an understatement. I started out knowing zero.

Unlike many seminaries, the seminary I attended taught some courses that were practical and useful in pastoral ministry. During my three years there I took classes on prayer, church administration, evangelism (That’s talking to people about Jesus.), Bible study, and Bible content, pastoral ministry (Talking to people about important, personal stuff.), stewardship (giving), Christian education and counseling. I did take a butt load of classes loaded with information that I have not used at all in ministry. Some of those provided some foundational information that helps me think methodically about scripture, praying and just basically doing the work of the church.

I am comfortable stating that presently seminaries are failing.  I feel comfortable making such a sweeping statement because over the past 60 years the mainline denominational church has been tanking, doing it rapidly and speeding up every year. The quality of seminary education, obviously, isn’t the only reason for the decline of the church. But seminary is the one place where pastors could be trained to reverse the trend. But that is not happening. The course work is often times not practically applicable to pastoral ministry. Many courses are developed around the most talked about social issues of the moment. These classes may be fascinating and challenging but often are not material that interests people who are not involved in the academic community. This approach is founded in the idea that because we are educated we are smarter than the common people and we must be prepared to go forth and educate them (get them straightened out). I still believe the New Testament model of going out and meeting people where they are and introducing them to the God who can change them. Have we lost faith in a God who can change lives?

A second basic mistake many seminaries are making is not providing leadership training. Churches must be led. Without dynamic leadership, churches will just naturally follow the lifecycle of the church and die. It is normal and natural. But it is not good. Pastors must be trained to love, care for and bless the flock but NOT be people pleasers. Most of us have been trained and it has been modeled for us that if the folks in the church are unhappy, we have failed. Trust me, the church is made up of sinners – I am one – and they often seek comfort and happiness outside of the will of God. In addition to a pastoral ministry, we have a prophetic ministry. We are obligated to lead people to God’s truth. And sometimes that is a difficult, unhappy and unpopular task. It takes courage. It takes a leader.

A third basic mistake I believe seminaries are making is who they hire for faculty members. As in other graduate schools, it is commonly believed that the only people qualified to teach master and doctoral students are people holding Ph.D.’s from reputable and accredited schools. I have no problem with a Ph.D. degree. I have met some brilliant people with Ph.D.’s. But I have met others who couldn’t teach someone to sharpen a pencil. My concern lies in the fact that a Doctor of Philosophy degree is an academic degree. They have learned who to study; how to do research and how do write on subjects that very few people care about. If you doubt me on that look up how many doctoral dissertations hit the best seller lists. My brother’s, something about modeling in glass furnaces, sold a copy or two because my sister and I bought some. My thesis, “The Biblical Basis of Nouthetic Counseling”, didn’t exactly fly off the shelves. Ph.D.’s are trained to go to school, not to teach pastors how to do ministry effectively.

My suggestion is that seminary students should be taught by teachers who hold a Doctor of Ministry degree (a practical degree) and have a proven, successful track record in ministry in local churches. Let those who have shown they can do church well teach the next generation of pastoral leaders. Perhaps then things will turn around.

I realize what I have written will not go over well and will attract many negative comments. The academic community has much invested in what they are now doing (Jobs and investment in buildings) and academic communities are notoriously slow to adapt and change. I understand that. But it looks like we don’t have time to slowly change.

Copyright © 2016, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved

Bill McConnell is Senior Minister at Norwood Christian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is a Church Transformation consultant and a Christian Leadership Coach. He is a frequent speaker at Church Transformation events. His latest book on church transformation is DEVELOPING A SIGNIFICANT CHURCH and is available at Westbow Press.

He can be contacted @ bill45053@gmail.com. Connect with him on Facebook @ William T. McConnell or on Twitter @billmc45053 or visit his Amazon Author Page @ Amazon