Those of you who have been following the Blue Collar Theology (BCT) series remember that the purpose of this emphasis is twofold: to recover a theological emphasis by raising the bottom shelf, and to encourage theological education in the local church as its primary context. Blue Collar Theology argues that theology is meant to a priority and pursuit of all Christians. It also argues that the best and most natural setting for theological education is in the local church, not colleges or seminaries.
This leads me to a very candid confession and encouraging word from Dr. Mohler, who happens to be president of the largest seminary in the United States. In the Fall annual meeting of the Board of Trustees of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Mohler argued that, while courage and boldness are needed in seminary students for an age of theological apostasy and opposition from within and without, “the greater challenge for us is to inculcate in them the gentleness to be with Christ’s people.”
I think Dr. Mohler’s challenge is certainly not unfounded. Seminary administrations and churches alike are hearing disappointing news that students fresh from the seminaries are becoming more and more unsuccessful in their first tenure in the local church. This, however, is usually not due to their inability to exegete and exposit Scripture or provide a robust apologetic to some of the most important questions facing Christians in our postmodern culture. Rather, it is in their inability to lovingly and sacrificially give themselves to God’s people–a giving that includes hardship, pain, longsuffering, and criticism.
As I proceeded to read through the initial paragraphs of the Baptist Press article, I found myself thinking, “Dr. Mohler is issuing a challenge to the trustees of a seminary that neither he nor the seminary can meet.” It was only a matter of seconds after that thought where I read Dr. Mohler admitting to just that reality.
The article states,
While seminary teaches budding pastors how to interpret Scripture accurately and how to preach the Gospel clearly, Mohler said local churches must teach seminary students by example how to love and tenderly care for the people of God.
Learning both sound doctrine and loving pastoral care is imperative for the present generation of students, Mohler said, because nearly half of the pastors of the Southern Baptist Convention’s 40,000 churches will reach retirement age in the next 10 years. Mohler challenged trustees, many of whom are pastors, to be mentoring future ministers within their churches.
What Dr. Mohler addresses is one of the major impetus for the upstart of Blue Collar Theology. Seminaries cannot train ministers for success in local churches for the simple reason that much of the cause for success cannot be attributed to a diploma or initials but a towel and bucket. I have written earlier about the disconnect between seminaries and local churches, and lest be too quick to cast all culpability upon freshly trained seminary students, the fact is that many are led into church contexts in which they are entirely unprepared. Many will go to churches who have never heard expository preaching. Others will find themselves in churches who have a form of church government comprised of committees or deacon boards contrary to the prescription of God’s Word and counterproductive to any new visionary ideas that may change the traditions the church has long held dear. These are just a few examples of issues that raise the crucial question of how we can best train and equip young ministers for faithful, enduring, and successful ministry in Southern Baptist churches.
Dr. Mohler confesses,
“I want to remind you that there is a great stewardship that has been entrusted to this seminary and a great deal which we can and must do, but we cannot make a minister. Only Christ can do that.
I believe that He does it more in the local church than in the seminary by far. We need to pray to have churches across the world that are training pastors to be pastors and nurturing the gifts of ministry. I don’t think in a classroom you can learn what it means to love people the way the Apostle Paul talks about it [in 1 Thessalonians 2].
I think you have to learn that in the local church. You have to learn that at the bedside of a saint who is going home to be with the Lord, you have to learn that in talking to a couple that thinks divorce is an option and you’ve got to tell them it isn’t. You have to learn this the hard way.”
Dr. Mohler is right on, and I am really encouraged to be hearing this from my seminary president. I am hopeful that greater emphasis of theological education in the local church can be reached as leaders such as Dr. Mohler recognize that the greatest needs of seminary students cannot be met in our seminaries, and the lessons students like myself must learn can only be taught in the classroom where there are no walls and where the tests will not be whether we can analyze the semantic range of agape in various exegetical contexts but whether we have showed it in the giving of ourselves to God’s people.
Yet another fine “warning” and “battle cry” from Dr. Mohler! What he says is true, and unfortunatley many seminaries haven’t discovered or designed a way to address this DURING the seminary years. Still, it is vital and will be learned the “hard way” if it is not something seminary students are required/directed to pursue, and churches are willing to foster.
Thanks for sharing Timmy. These are important things to keep in mind for ‘real life’ ministry.
I am a fellow student at SBTS and this post brings to mind a concern I have that may apply, one that Connie also seems to allude to. Often while on campus I speak to other students in passing or try to begin conversations, but the responses I receive far too often are either a blank stare, a critical look, or ignored outright. I am from Southeast KY where everyone waves and speaks to strangers, so it may be a cultural issue I just need to get used to.
With this in mind, however, one of the quotes from Dr. Mohler you mentioned above really stood out, ““the greater challenge for us is to inculcate in them the gentleness to be with Christ’s people.” I pray that this will be as important in our relationships here at seminary as it is in the churches.
Blessings!
We’re certainly seeing it happen here at First Baptist in Muscle Shoals! We’ve got more and more families moving here from all over the country just to be trained in our church to then be prepared to go out on pastorates/church plants. In the last couple of months, we’ve seen folks from FL, NE, CA, IL, and GA! I praise God that Dr. Mohler is getting it!
It is amazing that the situation ever eventuated. We set up seminaries and sent men to learn what the Scripture teaches. And, what it teaches is that the local church is the equipping body, not the seminary. Seminary is a fine organ of the local church, to train in a extraordinary way, skills and knowledge which should be the common possession of the local church.
When we speak of the family of God, it is not just an expression. I might send my children to refine life skills and particular expertise in a university, but in reality, the functions and life skills of family and by extension society are taught in the family. When we shift it to the university, it loses the exclusive dynamic of personal investment in others most intimately connected. Likewise shifting discipleship to the seminary disconnects the disciple from the family of God. When we look at what Paul says, “you do not have many fathers…and…my little children” or in John’s epistles, “to you fathers…young men…little children…,” and the numerous allusions to family we should only expect that relational Christianity cannot be taught outside that family of God into which we have been grafted.
We had gone the way of the world that says experts trained in academia know better than parents. And it is just not true. Praise God that the ebb has ended and the tide is flowing back toward the root of all education, the family. Let us do then the things that were done first. Let the men and women of the church be trained up in intimate relation with each other. The older men, teaching and modeling for the younger. The women doing so too, so that “She will be saved through child rearing.” We forgot the dynamic that was so simple, and so sound, that we are one body, one family, each part contributing to the edification of one another into a mature whole.
Pastors, Elders, and if we can remove the stigma, fathers in the church, are to be raised up by others of like kind. So too, our young women being taught by the elder women, as mothers, faithful to wash the feet of the saints. There is not a seminary degree that can replace or replicate the beauty of the natural way that God has structured his churches.
You know, sometimes that man says stuff that just gets me fired up for the future of the SBC. I am grateful for his prophetic voice in many circumstances. Doesn’t mean I agree with him on every topic, but he sure has a passion for the local church.
For some reason the first thing that came to my mind when I read this was the whole business with anti-Calvinist SBC leaders criticizing young reformed pastors who went into non-Calvinistic churches (allegedly) without telling them about their theological positions. I’m sure it still would have been an issue, but how many anti-Calvinist diatribes would we have been spared if every one of these young men had gone in humbly, with a desire to serve their people with truth, rather than with swords drawn to do battle? Take that for what it’s worth, certainly not as a criticism of young Reformed folks, of which I am one — and take that with my own confession that I have not desired to serve, but rather to steamroll, in too many circumstances!
It also brings to mind the shift that happened in my father’s ministry when he took down his degrees and accolades from the wall in his office and hung a towel in their place.
I have long said that the seminary education model is unworkable if we are going to be faithful to the great commission. The “lostness” of America is simply growing faster than we can give people master’s degrees and send them out. Also, “the clergy-laity”
divide is fallacious anyway. We Baptists give great berth to the notion of the priesthood of the believer but don’t practice it very well. This past weekend I preached at a small country church that is seeking a pastor. In this congregation is a young family man who obviously has the gift of teaching and a love for the congregation. I encuraged him to consider the position. This was a revolutionary thought to him. How is it that the local church has completly lost the concept of training its own leaders? Thanks to Dr. Mohler for the honesty.
Great piece Timmy. I agree with the importance of a local church’s influence and experience. I do think, however, that one of the issues may be that students tend to idolize and imitate seminary profs. Not all, but many teachers at our seminaries don’t glow with pastoral beams of light. Students will probably be around the profs. more than theie pastors and they should have a model to follow, first in Christ and also in pastors and seminary leaders.
ROLL TIDE ROLL!
GO ROCKY STOP!
“WITH Christ’s people” (emphasis mine)
I praise God that He gave me the opportunity to work under an elderly interim pastor who displayed what being pastoral meant.
There was probably NOTHING about him that would impress folk in academia. I dont think he was a brilliant Greek Scholar, outstanding in the pulpit [but good I might add], profound in the breadth of his knowledge of church history, etc.
And there was probably nothing that made him “marketable”
But he had that pastor’s heart. He was lowly in spirit. He loved the people. He reached out to me.
And he taught me “You’ve got to get down WITH the people”
I quickly glanced at the article. I was on Southern’s Board from 93-03. One troubling statistic we heard regularly towards the end of my tenure on the board- many of the students had never had a good experience in a church before they came to seminary. I’ve wondered if somehow we need to teach churches near seminary campuses to be training grounds for pastors- in my first pastorate (while in seminary) my DOAM met with the church leadership (all 3 of them-it was a small church) and told them in no uncertain terms that their task was to raise a great pastor. We had ups and downs, but it was a wonderful experience.
Steve,
I was one of those in the troubling statistic that you mentioned in your comment. There are some good churches in which seminary students find themselves; however, it is often the case that such a church will have dozens of seminary students–more than they can train while they are in seminary. One of the problems is that some DOM’s and churches do not want students of SBTS because of our confessional identity (i.e. Reformed) or because of the past Reformation which apparently angered a lot of people.
One other issue to think about is whether the professors and administration have had any pastoral leadership prior to coming to seminary. I cannot say with certainty, but I think a considerable number of professors and administration have not pastored churches.