Reflections on Education and the Church | Part 2

By on April 19, 2011 in Education

On Saturday I started this series, so if you haven’t read that first post you probably want to click over there first and then come back here. It will give you some context to where I am coming from and even to where I am headed.

After the panel talked about the current trends that I mentioned earlier, they moved directly into how the church should be functioning in equipping pastors for ministry. Al Mohler, the president of a seminary, said this:

Seminaries should not exist to train pastors. Seminaries should exist to help churches train pastors.

The emphasis in the previous statement is extremely important and identifies how many churches have failed to help future pastors prepare for the pastorate. Let me illustrate this with a fairly generic, albeit common, example.

Johnny goes to summer camp and comes home stoked about ministry. Over time through his youth group or through his youth pastor, he is encouraged to go to a Bible college and get a Bible education. Johnny heads off to Bible college, learns a lot about the Bible, graduates and then asks what is next? What is next? Well that could be to find a church or if Johnny has been led well it might be that he heads off to seminary to get more education. Johnny gets to the point where he graduates from seminary and is finally ready to start shepherding some sheep…or so he thinks.

The problem in this scenario is that nowhere along this education processes was Johnny plugged into a church that was evaluating his calling or his gifting to be a pastor. In essence what the church has been doing is franchising pastoral education to the colleges and seminaries instead of owning the responsibility themselves. I am not saying that colleges and seminaries are not important, they absolutely are. However, they should be working hand in hand with the churches.

Mark Driscoll illustrated this well for us at TGC conference. In Re:Train, the education arm of Acts29, they focus on on three things; Head, Heart, and Hands. The head is for knowledge, the heart is for character, and the hands are for skills. Colleges and seminaries can equip for the head, they can give the knowledge. However, there are few schools out there that can adequately address the heart and hands. This is where the church is so important. The church should be working alongside the schools to test the character and to give the skills men need for ministry. So the problem is that many schools only address the head, but never the heart or the hands. Thankfully the school I work for does address the heart well, but what about the hands?

The reality is if you are not in a church based education program then the hands aspect of this illustration will not happen. It must happen through the church. So what is the solution for the church then? We will address some of these ideas in the next post.

  • Paul Leverson

    G… excellent points. I’d liken this to even my own profession in the medical field. I learned a ton of information in college…and knew very little. There’s a saying I learned once that says “Knowledge comes from college, but wisdom comes from the Lord.” Seminarians may be graduating with a thorough understanding of scripture, but not necessarily any practical skills in Its application. In fact, knowledge can often make us prideful or, at the very least, inflate or create a blindspot in our mission. We stop listening because we already have the answer. We wield truth like a club. We become unapproachable in our intelligence. We become unteachable…hardened…dogmatic…

    Exhibit A…the pharisees. Well schooled. Way off the mark.

    I’m of the idea that knowledge can be learned while under the study of a mentor. Look at Paul and Timothy as an example. I’m wondering if too much emphasis is placed on learning when more should be placed on doing. Shepherds learn to shepherd by shepherding with shepherds…not by reading about it. Study is assumed and must be done by every serious pastor. But service is perfected and the heart is exposed only through practice of the Word.

  • Stephanie

    Greg–I love that you are bringing this up. It is so true that as a congregation, we need to lead our “pastors in training”. Aren’t we all called to minister in some fashion? Don’t we all need to be prepared to share the Gospel? I don’t think that it is only for the “professional” to lead someone to Christ, it is a task for all believers.