So Part 1 was pretty much just figures and numbers and connecting some dots to form a logical conclusion. Parts 2 and 3 won’t be so clean and neat and there will probably be more room for disagreement, but I think they may be more important to talk about.
I think the way in which the Wesleyan Church and most denominations are training, educating and ordaining pastors needs to be reformed, not just because of the financial collision that’s coming, but because the way in which we train pastors doesn’t seem to very effective.
I find it interesting that, when Jesus chose those who would be responsible for beginning the Church, he mostly chose ordinary, uneducated men and lived and traveled with them for three years. However, when a denomination wants to train someone to lead a church, you have to be able to make it at a four-year liberal arts institution (and possibly a seminary as well) and you’re stuck in a classroom. If you want to know how Jesus began a movement and why we’re basically just maintaining an institution, this could be a good starting point. Classrooms and lectures certainly have value, but they are no substitute for life-on-life learning and modeling. Somehow we have valued the classroom more than practical learning. It takes about four years to get all the educational requirements for ordination but only two years of practical experience.
I graduated from college and thought I knew everything I needed to know in order to be a successful minister. What I know now is that I graduated from college as a very well-informed fool who had no real clue of what it took to minister effectively or to really make disciples. I thought it was most important that I knew the Bible, theology, how to “manage” the church and how to preach well. Given that the vast majority of the 24 required courses for ordination dealt with those things, I felt reasonably well-prepared for that. What I wasn’t prepared for was how to come along beside a teenager in my youth group who was sleeping with their girlfriend/boyfriend and lovingly disciple them. I wasn’t prepared to know how to interact at a party where most everyone else is drunk or on their way there. I wasn’t prepared to know how to lovingly confront unhealthy religious behavior. In other words, I didn’t know how to do the things that the disciples regularly saw Jesus do.
Now you might say, “Well, that just comes with experience,” which is exactly my point. The people that I see do well in ministry are, more often than not, the people who had strong modeling and mentoring relationships with people who were doing it well themselves. Good youth pastors grew up having good youth pastors. Entrepreneurial leaders spent a lot of time in entrepreneurial environments with entrepreneurial leaders. You get the point. I know this isn’t true across the board and I’ve never done any quantifiable research to back it up, but I have no doubt that there is a stronger correlation between observation/modeling and ministry “success” than there is between education and ministry “success”.
If what we value is leaders that know how to craft a good sermon, understand 20 times more theology than the average person in their congregation, and know what the Council of Nicaea was all about, then we’re doing a really good job. But if what we value is leaders who can lovingly lead people in the mission of God, then there are some radical shifts we must make in the way we train and prepare ministers.
P.S. I thought this was only going to be three parts, but there’s way too much I’m thinking about to do that, so Part 3 will be laying out more problems with this and Part 4 (and maybe 5) will be talking about solutions.
Right on again, Matt. How many Wesleyan ministerial majors got credit for “field ministry” that was done at the last minute and consisted of 2 meetings with a “supervisor.” Some take it seriously, like my current intern Tim who spends 2-3 days with me per week, and get out of it what they put into it. What’s weird is that the professor who was lambasted the most(let’s call him the “story teller”) is the one whose stories I recall when faced with certain situations. What would’ve been nice would have been to go on hospital and chaplain calls with that man who always demonstrated the heart of a pastor to me. I think that more young pastors think that having a band, cool lights, the right clothes, and a killer sermon will bring people in by the droves. They aren’t prepared for the hard work of ministry. Looking forward to posts 3-8.
So how would you propose field experience as what you described. Maybe going to one of IWU’s baseball parties are part of the pre-requisite of ministry?
Seriously though, I get what you are saying. What frustrates me is my last 8 years in the ministry as commissioned and ordained by other churches, yet in the Wesleyan church I am still a student. I am a long way off from ordination and it is tiring. But the Wesleyan church is the path that I have chosen, so it’s the rules and regulations I must concede to. Fortunately, I do feel like I have a lot of experience (for example: during my 3 weeks of being a ministry major at your alma mater, I went to 5 Clemson Rugby parties and definitely was able to hold my own with them). Hey, that might be a way for SWU ministry majors to get some experience…Go hang out at Clemson….
I think I’m proposing something wholly different than our current field ministry courses. I won’t really get into it until after Part 3, though. Tim, you’re a good example of some of what I’m talking about. I would say you’re far more prepared for ministry than someone who’s gone to college and seminary, but only had one or two years of practical experience. That person is already ordained and you’re not.
Rampdog, I think we still need those classes. What happens when you get somebody who is “really good at ministering” but their theology is WAY off?
What I think might be good for someone in my circumstance or others, would be some sort of test (written or verbal) that could maybe help me test out of intro to homiletics or something. I would like to see where life experience would be able to count for something in the ordination process.
As far as ministry experience in while studying for the ministry; I know IWU up’d the practicum hours to 7. That means that 7 out of 8 semesters at IWU need to be in supervised ministry. That is better than the 3 semesters that were required.
I’m not saying we should lose the theological training. I am saying that ministerial training skews too far to the theological side. I’ll get more into this when I write about possible solutions, but with information so easily accessible, there’s not much good reason, when you consider the cost, to get your education requirements done through a four year liberal arts school.
It’s good to see IWU taking a step in the right direction with more field ministry requirements, but I’m looking at this from a different angle than just improving what we do with ministerial education at our universities. I’m thinking more along the lines of not using the universities for that kind of training. Again, I’ll cover it more later on.