Category: ministry

One of the things that I am very thankful for in my education is that I did not attend a Bible college for my undergraduate degree. Obviously I am not opposed to formal religious education because I have earned my masters degree from a Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and hopefully I will soon earn my doctorate from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. So here is why I think young ministers if at all possible should not go to religious colleges for their undergraduate degrees. I say this with an understanding that most protestant churches are now looking for a minimum of a masters degree from their ministers. If you are going to just get a bachelor’s degree and your denomination/church affiliation will accept that, then what I am writing doesn’t really pertain to you. But if you need at least a masters degree to work in a church/ministry then here is why I think your undergraduate degree shouldn’t be a degree in ministry and in my opinion should not come from a religious college.

1. You are going to cover everything that you would cover in an undergraduate ministry degree in greater depth during a Masters of Divinity. 

The Masters of Divinity was designed for people who have degrees outside of theology and ministry. It is one long stinking masters degree. It was 94 credits when I got mine and some programs go as high as 106 credits. The M.Div covers a ton of material so that it isn’t necessary for students to have a specific prerequisite degree. All that matters is that you have a degree from an accredited school, not which degree you have. So why not take advantage of this fact and get a different degree that might help you in something else? Getting a Bible/ministry degree will at best give you a two week advantage on most of your introductory M.Div courses.

2. Knowing something other than the Bible will help you relate to others better and that leads to better ministry.

When I first believed God was calling me into ministry I asked several ministers whom I respected what they would recommend I study initially. Almost unanimously  they told me business and/or psychology. That’s why I studied both. I have always been thankful for what I learned in both subjects. The knowledge has not only been put to practical use in the ministries that I have been a part of, but it has also enabled me to have some idea on how to talk with people in a variety of subjects. I love studying scripture and theology and will gladly talk with anyone about both but being able to talk about other subjects with people is what usually opens doors for me.

3. Bible colleges are private schools and therefore usually more expensive than state schools.

You really want to be able to follow God anywhere? Then don’t go into debt. Owing lots of student loans makes it much more difficult to hear God call you into situations that won’t pay a great deal. Bible colleges are private schools and therefore generally more expensive. This isn’t always true because private schools often have more scholarships available. In such situations it might actually be cheaper to go to a private school. This was the case for Adam, my oldest son, last year. Still private schools are a great way to rack up debt and in my opinion debt is the enemy of being able to ditch all and go anywhere God asks. Pam and I have almost finished 6 degrees (I’ll finish my doctorate in December) and we’ve never had a student loan. That would have been much more difficult to do if we had built up huge debt working on our undergraduate degrees. I am very thankful that we didn’t have to borrow any money for our schooling.

4. You need to spend time with people outside of the church culture and state schools are better for that.

Finally, I think the Christian bubble can be far too seductive for ministers. It becomes very easy to hang out with other people who basically think like you and value your role as a minister. It becomes tempting for ministers to not spend much time outside of the church culture. So my opinion is that young ministers should start spending time outside of the bubble early. What do you think is the better way to avoid the Christian bubble? Bible college or secular college? I vote secular.

Please don’t hear me criticizing anyone for going to Bible college. If you are or did then great for you. I’m not saying there is anything bad about getting an undergraduate degree in ministry or theology. I’m just saying that in my opinion it is best for young ministers to go to a secular school.

It is purely my opinion and since this is my blog I get to express it here.

One of the things I love about being married to Pam is that I get to see things in her educational / professional world that relate to the world of ministry.

We were walking around our neighborhood yesterday and she told me about a style of speech pathology therapy that drives her nuts. You see in therapy you determine outcomes that you believe the patient needs to reach as a part of their recovery. Some times those outcomes, while not bad outcomes in and of themselves, have nothing to do with the patient’s actual life.

For example, let’s consider a patient who has had a stroke and can no longer sign her name. Some therapists might list one of the patient’s outcomes as helping the patient to re-learn the cursive alphabet to enable her to write. The problem is that being able to write the alphabet isn’t the same as being able to sign you name. The patient could easily be able to learn to write the entire alphabet and still not be able to sign her name. The outcome that the therapist is aiming for doesn’t help the person even if the outcome is achieved. Or for another example let’s imagine a patient who is having identifying issues. Perhaps the therapist picks an outcome of being able to identify silhouettes. Identifying silhouettes is great if the patient is a duck hunter and the silhouettes are of birds but not much use otherwise. Admittedly I am not a speech pathologist and so my examples aren’t very good. Hopefully you still get the point – some outcomes that are aimed for are actually pretty useless.

So while Pam and I were walking and talking I kept thinking about aiming at useless outcomes during sermons. What is the outcome that I am hoping will happen as a result of the message? When I was studying preaching in seminary (I guess I am still doing so) this aim was called the “central idea of the sermon” or CIT.  The CIT is basically “what should change or be done as a result of this sermon (both giving it and hearing it)?” It’s the desired outcome of the message. It is important for the message to have a target and it is also important that what the sermon is aiming for actually matters to a person’s faith.

I wonder if often the hoped for outcomes of our messages don’t really matter much to anyone’s faith. This doesn’t mean that the aim is bad in and of itself, just that it isn’t appropriate at the time or context for the people hearing the message. Remember the silhouettes of the ducks? Well, I as wrote earlier, they are great are great if you are a duck hunter. Not so much otherwise. What if, like the silhouettes, the aim of the sermon isn’t pertinent to the congregant’s lives? For example, what if I am focusing on the congregation understanding the political and societal aspects of the Ancient Near East because I think it is cool, but such info doesn’t really help the members of the church live out their faith in 21st century America. They might have more biblical knowledge as a result of such information but not really more biblical faith. Or what if all I ever preach about are aims that don’t relate to the congregation’s context? What if I am constantly preaching about Christ overcoming to a group of people who are pretty much living the good life and probably need to instead be reminded of Jesus’ call to sacrifice as a part of following Him? What if I am focused on people understanding the different words for love that Jesus uses when he “reinstates” Peter but I don’t shoot for them actually understanding loving someone in their own lives who has betrayed them? Is the sermon useless if the outcomes I am hoping for are useless? I don’t think so because people are still directed to God’s word and God’s word doesn’t “return back void.” Still I don’t think the message is as effective as it could be if its aimed for outcomes are trivial and useless.

The outcomes I am aiming for during a sermon are important and part of that importance is how it changes our lives. I want to preach for changed lives. My own and others. I want powerful outcomes to be a part of my messages.

“You don’t look like a pastor.” I’ve heard that line a few times in my life and I have to say I think it is stupid. Here’s why. It is almost always Christians/church goers that say it to me. A minister looking like or not looking like a pastor seems to matter more to people who regularly attend church than it does to those who don’t. Either they want their pastor to look like some stereotype or they don’t want their pastor to look like that stereotype or, the worst of both worlds, they want their pastor to look like the stereo type of the “anti-pastor” (a.k.a the cool/hipster pastor). All I know is that these externals don’t matter a lot because quite often the pastor who doesn’t look like the pastoral stereotype acts like an extreme version of that stereotype.

My friends who aren’t regular church attenders taught me this. They have never said to me, “you don’t look like a pastor,” but they have said to me “you don’t act like a pastor.” I consider this a huge compliment because what they usually mean is that they don’t feel judged or condemned by my presence. They don’t feel that they have to put on airs and act holy around me. Instead they can actually be their real shelves even if I might personally disagree with something they are doing or believe. They don’t feel that I am treating them like a project or a sermon illustration of how great I am at sharing my faith with others. They know I love them and will act on that love no matter what. In other words, I am not acting like the worst stereotypes of the pastors that they can think of and they like that.

I’ve heard this same “you don’t look like” statement used for pastor’s spouses (usually wives in Southern Baptist/Evangelical churches) and church buildings, often with some great pride. Always seems odd to me when it usually turns out they act just like the stereotype of a pastor’s spouse or a traditional church.

The church building version of this is often “we’re the church for people who don’t like church,” which usually just means “we don’t have pews” or “we have a bass player with facial hair.” If you actually want to be “the church for people who don’t like church” then try to actually do things differently. I don’t mean forsaking the central beliefs of Christianity, rather treat people different than they believe the church typically does. Value the thoughts and abilities of everyone in the church rather than celebritizing/deifying the lead pastor and worship team. Spend an inordinate amount of the church’s tithes and offerings outside of the church building rather than spending almost everything on your own church building, program, people, etc. Forgive to the point that regular church-people get worried that you might have gone too far. In other words, be different don’t just look different.

The pastor’s spouse version of “you don’t look like” seems to be “you don’t look as dowdy as I expect a pastor’s wife to look.” You want to actually not be like the worst stereotype of the pastor’s spouse? Be more of a servant than a taker? Be so busy taking care of other people’s needs that other people are worried that you never think of yourself. Or, my personal biggie, don’t expect everyone else to take care of your kids while you do something cool and un-pastor’s-wife like. I’ve met a few pastor’s spouses who loved people saying that they didn’t look like a pastor’s spouse and yet they were some of the most self-focused people I have ever known. Again I don’t care if you look like a pastor’s spouse stereotype or not. I care greatly if you act like that stereotype and I am greatly thrilled that Pamela doesn’t (I can brag on how wonderful my wife is all day folks).

I don’t remember any descriptions of Jesus’s physical appearance in the Bible. I take this to mean He probably looked pretty much like what people expected a rabbi to look like. I do know of tons of descriptions of His behavior that caught people off guard. In other words He didn’t act like what people expected a religious leader to act like. I want to be like Him.

I am by no means an expert on the ministerial candidating process, in fact, thanks to CPE I am discovering how different it is from denomination to denomination. I do, however, believe that most Southern Baptist/Evangelical ministers should need to take some good classes on interviewing and being interviewed. The reason I say this is because I know a decent number of people who went into some horrendous situations/churches without ever doing any basic research into the church/pastor/congregation that was doing serious research into them. What do you mean you are surprised everything turned South? If you had done even a small amount of digging you would have found ten people who would have told you about the church’s or staff’s issues.

I guess the stated reason for not digging into a church or staff is because the candidate thinks they are trusting God by not questioning things. I think that is baloney. I trust God and I have gone into a difficult situation or two in my ministerial life but I never went into those situations, nor would I take my family into those situations, blind.

Researching didn’t mean that I wouldn’t go into a situation if something didn’t seem right. In fact, I went into Parkview Baptist Church, where I stayed for 7 years, knowing there was a decent chance the pastor would leave when I got there. My family and I went to Baton Rouge and two months later Wayne DuBois, the pastor, left Parkview. My research led me to believe God was calling me to Parkview and it had nothing to do with the pastor, therefore him leaving didn’t really matter. Same came true again when Bill Pruitt, who I loved as a pastor, left. I wasn’t there to work with a pastor so it didn’t really matter who the pastor was. My research into Parkview helped me to know that.

My mindset in interviewing with a church was that since I would be bringing my family into the church/city I better research it as much as possible. That’s what I believe good spouses and parents do. I don’t want to blindly bring my family into a terrible situation and I don’t think God wants me to blindly do that either. Therefore, I always researched the church as much, if not more, than they were researching me.

What does this mean?

1. I always interviewed the person who had the position before me. Why did they leave? Would they work with the pastor again? Would they work with the staff again? What do they wish they had known before they went there? I learned a ton from this. I interviewed people who had left the position on good terms and bad terms. I didn’t care why they left. I cared greatly about any info they could give me. My call threw a couple of former ministers off but their info helped me a lot.  I offered this same opportunity to the people who came after me and I told them I would shoot straight with them on their questions. Know how many took me up on it? None.

2. I always interviewed the other staff and pastor of the church. Since I was usually interviewing for a Youth Ministry position I asked questions about working with the pastor. What is he like? If its a Southern Baptist/Evangelical church you can pretty well guess that the pastor will be a male. Would you work with him again if you had the opportunity? Is there anything you wish you had known before you came to the church? Is there anything you think I should know that you don’t believe I know? That last question was how I found out that Wayne Dubois at Parkview was probably leaving. Two staff members answered that question by saying “you might want to ask Wayne how long he is staying.” So I did. I asked him if I came was going to be there for at least the next year. Most people, especially pastors, don’t want to lie to you but they don’t mind simply not telling you something if you aren’t smart enough to ask the question. Wayne DuBois stumbled around a little bit and finally said “I have been looking but I promise you I will tell you immediately if I get serious with another church.” Since I didn’t come to Parkview to work with him, it wasn’t any big deal when he left. Actually the person I really wanted to work with became pastor so it worked out great. Also please understand when I say “staff” I mean everyone, not just ministerial staff. When I left Jessica Lawrence could have told you more about Parkview and what was going on there than most other people. Administrative assistants and secretaries offer a wealth of information and I wanted to talk with them.

3. Interview other ministers from the area. I called other churches and the associational offices (Southern Baptist churches are usually a part of area associations). I wanted to hear what other ministers in the area thought about the church and about the staff of the church. What was the rep of the church? What was the rep of the pastor? This was important to me since I was going to be inheriting that rep. The associational office was also invariably able to give me lots of numbers concerning the church. Those numbers were always helpful in understanding what was really going on in the church.

There were some other things I did because I am my mother’s son and I enjoy researching people and place but the above is the stuff that I found most helpful that I believe every minister should do.

While I can’t write about a lot of what I am experiencing in Clinical Pastoral Education, because it might break HIPAA or could break the confidentiality of the CPE meeting, I can write about what I personally am learning. What has been really hitting me over the past week is how much I need to ask one simple question of all that I do. The question is…

Why did I do that?

I know this question sounds kind of self-focused but it is actually a way of making sure that I am focused on the the patient that I am visiting instead of myself. A lot of chaplain (and ministerial) work is in high stress, unusual or awkward situations. We all have things that make us feel uncomfortable or disturb us and we respond to those situations in different ways. Maybe confrontation gets your goat. Or maybe it is silence. How do you respond to those circumstances? Your response is important and may effect your connection with the person who are supposed to be ministering to.

Anyhow I have begun to ask “why did I do that” of a lot of my responses and actions. Did I say something because I thought it was actually needed by the patient or did I say something just because it made me feel better? Was I intimidated by the pain I saw in the room and therefore I tried to excuse myself from the room as soon as possible? Did the patient remind me of someone I have a hard time with and therefore I changed my behavior with him? Did the silence feel awkward and therefore I said some platitude to make myself feel better? Why did I respond the way I did? Was it about me or about the patient?

When I know why I did something I am able to make sure that I am responding to the person’s needs rather than my own. This is a valuable lesson that I needed to be reminded of.

I won’t really be able to blog about any of the specifics of what I will be doing for the next 17 weeks but I am pretty excited about it. The reason I won’t be able to blog about it is because I am a student in the 2013 Spring unite of Clinical Pastoral Education. This means that I am now an intern chaplain at St. Mike’s hospital in Point. Therefore what I will be doing will be confidential both because of ministerial ethics and HIPPA. I will spend 20ish hours a week doing clinical work under the supervision of a full time chaplain and then meeting with a group of other CPE students critiquing the experience and how I responded. I first heard about CPE when I was in seminary back in the 90s and have often thought it would be an enjoyable and challenging experience. It took me long enough but I finally decided to try it. I had my first group meeting yesterday and I have gone through a two-step TB test so the only thing left before I can get started in the hospital is the employee orientation which happens early next week.

While pastoral care is a part of the duties of a chaplain this will be very different from my typical pastoral duties. I think the difference will be quite interesting. I also think that spending so much time with ministers from other Christian denominations will push me in ways that I haven’t experienced before. Through must of my time in vocational ministry I have known and spent time with ministers from other denominations this will be different. I haven’t usually been critiqued by the people I knew from other denoms. This group will question how I respond to situations and often they will do it from very different theological understandings than I have. The group is all protestant (which is unusual around here) with a great deal of variety still within it. My guess right now is that  I am probably one of, if not the most, conservative person in the group which is the opposite from the ministerial groups that I am typically in right now.

This is going to be awesome.

Seth Godin made an interesting post today concerning the ways professionals respond to amateurs entering their field.

A few years ago, typesetting, wedding photography, graphic design and other endeavors that were previously off limits to all but the most passionate amateurs started to become more common. The insecure careerists fought off the amateurs at the gate, insisting that it was both a degradation of their art as well as a waste of time for the amateurs. The professionals, though, those with real talent, used the technological shift to move up the food chain. It was easy to encourage amateurs to go ahead and explore and experiment… professionals bring more than just good tools to their work as professionals.

I thought it was an excellent point because I’ve heard a lot of this with photographers talking about lots of people who get dslr’s and then proclaim themselves professional photographers. I understand their complaint but I also think that a large part of that complaint is that often the reality is that their skill won’t stand out enough for people to be able to tell the difference between the quality of professional work and that of amateurs with good equipment. Godin calls them careerists, i.e. people who have the career but whose skills aren’t really good enough to be professional.

I bring this up because I think the same thing is true with many ministers. Often they become scared of the person who has put his/her nose into a little theology. Some ministers view these people as threats and worse call them trouble makers. Why? Well sometimes they might actually be trouble makers but that has nothing to do with them having a little theological knowledge. I think these people are often viewed as threats because the minister doesn’t actually have a good enough theological knowledge to deal with them. The minister’s fear is more about his/her lack of skill than it is the person he/she is dealing with. The answer? Probably for these ministers to bone up on the theology they studied back in seminary because some of them have unfortunately never touched it again.