[Over on Patheos, they are doing a great series on the future of Seminary education.  I haven’t read it all, and nobody asked me for advice, but I thought I’d throw in at least a couple of cents.  Kurt Willems nails the economic burden and Tony Jones makes a compelling case for the very tools of the trade.]

It feels like people have always complained about seminaries.  The favorite line is to say that “they never teach the ‘important’ stuff” or that “they don’t prepare you for the ‘real’ world in ministry”.  Both of these statements, of course, imply that the pastor’s real role is fixing the copier when it breaks down, tending to a parishioner when their cat has died, or leads the charge to weed the garden.  These aren’t euphemisms.  And I’m not actually belittling the mundane or “servant leadership” which today seems like a tortured excuse for both putting the pastor on a pedestal and tying him/her to railroad tracks, Snidely Whiplash-style.  It is to say that these statements argue that we should tailor our seminaries to more acurately reflect our parishes that don’t accurately reflect the Christian ministry we actually want.

My last year at seminary, a guest speaker (I’ve forgotten who) pointed out that seminaries get into a bind.  Bishops and clergy and laypersons complain that clergy aren’t prepared enough for parish ministry, so they have to add more courses that reflect the relative dysfunction in parish life.  We need more classes, I suppose in database maintenance and pastoral care for this group of shut-ins.   But no one wants to take any classes away.  No one wants to eliminate Systematic Theology or a part of the existing curriculum.  Just add to it.  Every couple of years.  Think of some deficiency in your pastor?  Let’s just add another course in seminary!  That’s got to be the problem!  She wasn’t sufficiently prepared to deal with our risk-averse parish and spiraling debt!  She needed another class!

Let’s not kid ourselves.  Adding classes doesn’t change the problem.  Perhaps our leaders aren’t prepared to do the ministry we are asking them to do.  But who in their right mind would year after year blame only the ordained or the seminaries for this?  When do we start asking ourselves what is wrong with the ministry itself?  When do we ask ourselves that they ministry we are subjecting our leaders to is neither what we need or really what they were likely called to perform?

It seems as if we have been training our clergy to be CEOs.  But not in a good way.  Not CEOs of Apple or Google.  But CEOs of Tandy Computers or Radio Shack.  We aren’t putting together a compelling product.  They have to go and try to convince the world that what we are doing is essential and superior to anything else, and we all undermine it.  And then, they have to spend every waking hour dealing with a board of directors that spends more time comparing us to the competition than actually leading anyone or some other person concerned that Jack is pissed off because you preached peace or justice or mercy from the pulpit.  Too political, you know!

The only way out of this is for the diocese, synod, or other superstructural bodies to deal with the three unchangeable elements that we value so highly:

1. professional training
2. residential instruction
3. outdated systems

None of these is something over which we are willing to compromise in the slightest.  And our ability to both adequately prepare and provide adequate opportunity for ministry keep decreasing across the board.  Something has to give.  One of these three may need to get chucked out the window to keep things going.  Either eliminate the need for accredited universities or relocating entire families so that the aspirant can live on campus or overhaul the system of paying and providing for instruction and placement within the denominational body.  Something’s gotta give.  Local congregations aren’t going to make this move.  Seminaries sure as heck aren’t either.  That leaves one place.

I’ll leave my vision of a better church for future posts, but I’ll tell you this about seminary: it rocks.  Studying, attending a school in the flesh was totally worth it.  But here’s my choice:

1. There are great opportunities for local training and apprenticeships with outstanding correspondence instruction, allowing for active education ministries all over the country, in every church grouping.  Existing institutions would remain the academic backbone, but shored up through increased participation, though many fewer residential opportunities.  Or…
2. Keep the existing structure but shift both the economic burden and the employment fear off of seminary students.  The current structure depends on massive relocations to attend seminary, career abandonment, and a huge influx of economic anxiety.  And when we come out of seminary, the potential of finding a sufficient stipend to warrant our relocation is dropping like crazy.  Our organized religious bodies, such as dioceses must reallocate resources to allow leaders and parishes to do vital ministry without the persistent economic burden that makes the whole endeavor untenable.

Oh, and then there are those of us caught because we actually want to be honest.  We don’t really want to glad-hand and say “what you’ve got to say” just to get your foot in the door.  Seminary changes you, and that stuff just doesn’t fly with me anymore.  It seems sad that this is not the most marketable stance to take.

Honestly, I don’t care which direction we take, but it seems like we need to make up our minds.  Like yesterday’s post about student debt and college costs, yesterday’s tomorrow is already today.  We need to have fixed it before now.  So let’s move!

Question:

What’s your fix?