Recently, Brett Younger wrote an article challenging seminaries to do more for their students: Seminaries should not focus on ministers being efficient, effective and successful. The church needs fervor, anger and desire. Seminaries should not produce ministers who want to…
How Seminaries Fail 2: “this time it’s personal”
Recently, pastor, author, and professor Brett Younger penned a thought provoking essay outlining a few of the ways in which seminaries fail. Aside from listing the more obvious shortcomings of any institution attempting to convince well-intentioned and impassioned twenty-somethings to invest…
Bivocational ministry is a thing of great beauty
Jack was the bivocational pastor of the church I attended in Pennsylvania when that church licensed me to ministry as a step towards my ordination. Dale was the bivocational national leader for bivocational ministries among Baptists. Glenn was the bivocational…
Thinking outside the seminary
Seminary on $3 per day? I had a great seminary experience in the 1970s. I matriculated for nine years, and earned three degrees. The total cost I paid for my seminary education was under $10,000, which was just less than…
What if a generation of women in ministry planted new congregations?
It is hard to believe it has been more than 35 years since I was ready to leave seminary in Louisville, KY for what I thought would be my first full-time church pastorate. Although I had grown up in Baltimore…
Don’t call your next pastor. Draft your next pastor.
The pastor search process might be a whole lot more fun (or funny) if it was run like the National Football League draft. Why go through months—even years—of searching for the right pastor when you just need to be ready…
Theological education that works
Theological education is just beginning to catch up with changing needs of churches and culture that must be addressed if seminaries and divinity schools expect to survive. I received my first seminary degree 42 years ago this month. There is…
Amanda died the other day, but her singing continues
Almost four decades ago while I was serving as pastor of an inner city congregation near a Baptist seminary, I would often have seminary students visit to see if they could obtain some ministry experience as a volunteer with our…
Absolute complexity is not allowed here
More than 35 years ago I was working on a graduate degree in the sociology of religion at the Southern Seminary in Louisville. The time came to declare the subject of our thesis. Some of us were sure and others…