Kevin was hired as a pastor by a local conference. He had many good qualities he was outgoing, loved people, and enjoyed studying the Bible.
But he had no theological training. His college degree was in business, and even after serving several years as a pas tor, he showed no interest in pursuing formal seminary training. Any suggestion that such a training maybe helpful to him brought out the same response: "It was God who called me to ministry, and that's all I need."
- Mary, a local church member, visited her pastor about a recently re leased book. Published by one of her own denomination's presses, its theological perspective had created quite a stir. Many pastors and church members were reading and discussing the book, and Mary wanted to discuss it with her pastor. But there was a problem. While the pastor had heard of the book, he had not read it, nor was he inclined to do so. He told her not to bother with it. "This whole controversy will blow over soon enough," he said.
- Pastor Smith had recently arrived at a new church district. An elder at his former church passed on some information to relatives in the new church: "The church Pastor Smith pastored before coming to ours told us that he moves every two to three years, when he runs out of sermons. He preached the same sermons here that he had preached there, and he'll probably do the same in your church. So plan on a two to three year run."
These cases emphasize two points. First, scholastic preparation is necessary in order to function effectively as a pas tor. Second, the need for scholarship is a continuous one.
Ministry and training
Kevin represents individuals who function in the pastorate with little or no training for the profession of which they have become a part. Clearly, God is able to call, commission, and enable any person to function as His emissary, regardless of the presence of formal training or its lack. Christ Himself chose uneducated fishermen to be His disciples and witnesses.
Furthermore, we must not minimize the fundamental importance of the divine call to ministry. God's call does not wait for college or seminary graduation. God chooses whom He will, at times to the consternation of religious governing bodies.
However, should the call of God to pastoral ministry negate the need for preparation and education for such work? Does God's call in and of itself contain all that is needed to function effectively in a pastoral role?
The New Testament doctrine of spiritual gifts affirms that "every believer has been called to be Jesus' disciple and to serve in the kingdom of God."1 If God's call to serve includes vocations of medicine, law, or architecture, and if such a call is as divine and real as His call to pastoral ministry, it must be noted that while based on God's call, the practice of these vocations must also include appropriate and necessary education. The idea of a dentist, pilot, or contractor functioning in a professional realm without adequate prep ration is both absurd and dangerous. In our day, such education is seminal to the scholarly ability needed by the pas tor.
Ministry and reading
Mary's pastor illustrates a different but related concern. Most pastors despair of keeping up with all the important literature being written. However, it is not good pastoring to be unfamiliar with or even uninterested in the concepts of an important book published by one's own denominational press on a topic of interest to the church as a whole.
Pastors recognize the importance of knowing their congregations. This enables them to preach sermons relevant to their struggles and stories. But each individual congregation is situated within a world larger than itself. Such a world contains larger issues of faith. Not understanding that world impairs the pastor's ability to speak appropriately to the individual congregation's world. The scholarly capacity to exegete not only the biblical text but one's own culture is vital to the task of pastoral ministry. One obvious way to maintain such contact is through the printed page. If reading is a lost art in our society, it is of even greater concern if pastors aren't readers!
Our colleagues in other professions, (medicine and law, for example), are held to fairly high standards when it comes to the amount of professional material current research and recent rulings with which they are expected to be familiar. The pastor-as-scholar ought to cultivate the discipline of reading broadly enough to remain cognizant of current developments in theology, biblical studies, Christian ministry, and culture. These trends impact the practice of ministry and ultimately affect the views of those in the pews.
Ministry and continual study
Pastor Smith illustrates the same is sue from another angle. Most pastors preach some sermons more than once and certain sermons many times. But when previously-preached sermons be come the weekly staple of a congregation on an ongoing basis, worshipers are shortchanged. The pastor's continuing spiritual development is a gift the congregation deserves, and hence weekly sermons need to reflect the ways in which a pastor is growing and developing. There fore, the exercise of continuing to read, study, exegete, and write is a discipline the pastor cannot treat lightly.
What, then, ought we to do? "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth" (2 Tim. 2:15, NIV). The essence of the Greek word used here, spoudazon, translated "do your best" may best be captured by a combination of terms: "to exert oneself, endeavor, give diligence."2 Clearly, mental exertion and thoughtful effort are essential to the process of preparing oneself for and capably carrying out the work to which God calls us. This includes both educational preparation for the work of pastoral ministry and on going scholarship to remain consistently equipped for such labor.
Not only is such thoughtful work vital to pastors' own spiritual lives, it is also crucial to the life of the church. Pas tors help to form and inform the church's theology. Like it or not, their theology undergirds their preaching. Though this theology may not have been intention ally studied and carefully thought through, it is nonetheless present. How important, then, that such a theological underpinning be sound and intentional. This is even more vital now as pastors serve in churches that are becoming increasingly biblically illiterate.
Suggestions for a more literate ministry
Three suggestions are in order. First, those who hire pastors need to either hire those with appropriate and adequate ministerial education, or be willing to assist and support pastors in the process of acquiring such education. Regardless of how experienced one may be, "study is not an alternative to experience but is itself a form of experience that grants understanding, even expertise, on a range of subjects."3 The people to whom these pastors will minister hunger for biblical and theological expertise. They desire pastors who have "been instructed about the kingdom of heaven" and are like landowners who bring out of the storehouse "new treasures as well as old" (Matt. 13:52, NIV).
For such an ideal to become reality, pastors need focused education. "We [leaders of the church] have lost time in neglecting to bring young men [and women] to the front and give them a higher, more solid education. The most earnest and continued efforts to acquire qualifications for usefulness are necessary; ... but unless God works with the human efforts, nothing can be accomplished,"4 Educational expectations should be evident and the means to achieve them, implemented.
Second, a consistent plan of personal study cannot be overemphasized. Shortly after having been hired as a pas tor, my father, himself a minister, said something I still remember: "Make it a habit to study in the mornings on a consistent basis. Make it a habit early in your ministry. Then it will be easier to maintain as the years pass. If you wait until later to try to develop it, it will be harder to do so." I have been grateful over and again for that sound advice.
This process which takes place in the privacy of the study, on a consistent basis, through the reading and study of Scripture and significant biblical and theological writings is foundational to the entire pastoral task. "Time spent in study is never getting away from daily work but getting into daily work.... Study will protect the parishioners from the excessive influence of the minister's own opinions, prejudices, and feelings. Study is getting a second and third opinion be fore diagnosis and treatment."5
Third, take advantage of the many options available for continuing education. If one lacks the educational requirements for pastoral ministry, ex tension and distance-learning programs are increasingly available. Pastors need to take advantage of them! Such opportunities are more readily available now than they ever have been before. Rea sons for not furthering professional knowledge and ministry skills need to be rigorously questioned.
Doubtless, "all [God's] biddings are enablings."6 He who calls us to ministry is able by His grace to prepare us to meet its challenges. Still, pastors need to avail themselves of the various ways through which He may accomplish that very thing. It is time that a divinely called, attentively equipped, and thoughtfully ministering pastorate be thoroughly pre pared to lead an increasingly educated church into the new millennium.
1 R. Paul Stevens, Liberating the Laity: Equipping All the Saints for Ministry (Downers Grove, 111.: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 29.
2 Joseph H. Thayer, Thayer's Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1977), 584.
3 Fred B. Craddock, Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1985), 74.
4 White, Testimonies for the Church (Nampa, Idaho: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1948), 5:582, 583. Emphasis supplied.
5 Craddock, 70.
6 White, Christ's Object Lessons (Hagerstown, Md.: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1941), 333.
