One of my previous churches is located across the street from a once shady fish store. At least, I assume it was a fish store because it had fish-shaped neon lights in the window. Never did I see anyone walk in or out during the day. Apparently I wasn't the only one who thought the situation strange. On a church meeting night, some undercover detectives staked out the place from the narthex of our building. Our meeting veered into talking what worship hymns the church knew but hadn't sung in awhile, so I offered to run to the sanctuary to pick up a hymnal. As I did, I turned on the light, and immediately heard, "Hey! Turn off the light! They can't know we're here!" Yikes. Seminary does not teach you how to assist a stakeout. Or even whether you should. Life and being a pastor teaches you how to be a pastor.
If seminary doesn't teach you how to be a pastor beyond the basic knowledge required, then what does seminary do? What is seminary? Why do we need it? Do we need it? Should our churches demand that clergy be seminary-trained? I'll conclude this series by answering these questions, sort of.
I started the Seminarians Don't Blow Stuff Up series with an eye particularly toward prospective seminarians and current clergy, to inform or remind them of what seminary is really like. Now I will definitively say that seminary should not ever be in the cards simply to learn more about yourself. You will learn about yourself, certainly, but you won't learn any more about yourself at seminary than by living life, if you're open to how God is teaching you. Life that happens at seminary is different, sure, which I'll get to, but you don't need to be saddled with debt for it.
A friend of mine has created and manages 40Form, a forty-day journal exploration into one's life, character, and priorities. It's a powerful experience. Maybe this is a shameless plug for 40Form. Or maybe it's an example of how we can learn about ourselves to the same extent as we would in seminary but in a forty-day course far less expensive.
What does seminary do for you? Think of a toolbox. Imagine that you are like me and don't like working with your hands and don't have any clue what should be in a toolbox or what the tools are for. Now imagine that someone has gifted you with a fully stocked toolbox so that you can now consider yourself an adult. Some of the tools in that toolbox you'll recognize and know how to use: hammer, screwdriver, nails. Other tools, however, you still won't recognize or, if you do, not know how or when to use them. That is, until you break something that needs a basin wrench or box-end wrench (what?). Then you might Google a solution to your problem and realize you have the tool already. It's the same with seminary. Many of the tools you need to be a good pastor are taught in seminary, even if most of the applications and tips are not covered. What you'll learn from being a pastor of how to be a pastor are, generally, advanced lessons on how to use the tools you were gifted in seminary.
For instance, during my first appointment, my father-in-law suddenly and tragically died. In the year I had been that church's pastor, my father-in-law had become a known and respected member of the church. My family and I were therefore not the only ones grieving. How could I minister to the members of my church while I, myself, was grieving? Essentially, I put to good use lessons on appropriate boundaries and the communal nature of grief. I didn't know that I was putting seminary into practice until afterwards when I reflected on the ordeal. The same lessons of boundaries, particularly related to self-care, significantly helped when my young family of four were re-appointed, bought a house, and moved to another state in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic--at the height of it, in fact.
Boundaries and self-care aren't the sexiest learnings from seminary. For survival and thriving, of pastor and church, they can be among the most important. But what traditionally expected lessons can one get at seminary? Personally I think that theological training is the most useful.
Theological training covers a wide territory. Exploring various theologies throughout Judaeo-Christian history, understanding how one's belief in x affects one's belief in y, reflecting on one's own experiences theologically, and reading the Bible accordingly. What will be useful to you, though, is how to live in a space where diverse theologies and understandings of the world are trying to live and associate in unity. Seminary will teach you how to manage the business and administrative side of effective ministry, but not how intense the pushback can be to even the simplest or apparently righteous decisions. That's where theological training comes in handy. Pushback will almost certainly relate back to differing theological positions. Trying to navigate issues within the church simply by convincing people that you're right, without having any idea why and how it is that others believe how it is they believe, will almost certainly fail. Or be miserable for everyone involved.
Theological training can also teach you how to guide others to deeper theological questioning and reflecting, to understand God, themselves, and others more meaningfully. Unfortunately, therein lies a problem. Too many in the church are not willing to explore. Often they are of the opinion that theology is unnecessary because the way that they read the Bible, understand God, and live out their faith is the correct way--the God-instructed way. Perhaps they're right, but those on other ends of the spectrum might believe the same. How are we supposed to live as the Body of Christ if there is indeed a spectrum? Clergy are trained in seminary in the very ways we least like to be challenged. The essence of John Wesley's "Catholic Spirit" is crucial, I think, to living as a unified Christian family serving and worshiping God together, using and empowering all the spiritual gifts of the congregation. Yet that spirit is often rejected because we don't want our pastor to teach us methods of learning about and knowing God more, we want our pastor to teach us the one right way. We judge how well the pastor is doing in that regard based on our present conception of what is absolutely right.
In other words, we're fairly certain we already know God's absolute truth, and that's why we don't see the necessity of a catholic spirit, of allowing or accepting diverse theologies and practices, even if they come from the pastor. If we reject what the pastor says or does because he or she is wrong, then we are basically saying that we only want our clergy to accumulate life experiences to pepper into the sermons that agree with us. Maybe that's why young clergy are often judged more harshly than older clergy. They haven't built up the life experience to compensate for differences of opinion.
All this is to say that the crucial lesson of seminary teaches clergy how necessary it is for churches to discern what role or roles they expect their pastor to fulfill. And what the role of the pastor should be. What's the point of having a pastor if we already know all we think we need to know? If we're already capable of reading the Bible with perfect accuracy on our own? Of judging the pastor's every word and action because we're so perfectly in the know? It's entirely possible that, in the last assessment, we don't need a pastor--we just need someone to stand up in Sunday worship and say words. I say that sarcastically but it is a legitimate ecclesiastical position.
Some basic questions can help us flesh out how we understand the role of clergy and what we expect of them. They may seem silly but they're serious. All the questions will be asked as "do..." but could be replaced with "should..."
Do we call it the pastor's office or study? Is it off limits when the pastor's not there?
Do we listen to the pastor if they preach or teach something unfamiliar or disagreeable? Do we reject it? Do we challenge them? Do we blindly accept? Or do we take what they say and pray on it?
Do we prefer an older pastor? Or a younger pastor? A pastor the same color, sex, and orientation as us? From the same socioeconomic strata?
What do we think when a female pastor wears flats, rather than high heels, in the pulpit? Or when a pastor takes their shoes off? Or when a pastor dresses down?
What do we think when a pastor curses? Or almost curses, with words like, "pissed off" or "crap"? What do we think when a pastor speaks in a seemingly irreverent way?
What do we think when a pastor lives in a way that we feel is unholy? Or not to the standard of clergy?
What do we think when a pastor seems to spend all their time preparing sermon and Bible studies and not with people of the church? Or when the pastor seems to spend all their time out in the community and not with the people of the church? Or when the pastor does spend all their time with the people of the church, and not out in the community? And other variations.
Going to seminary doesn't suddenly transform a person into superman/woman. A pastor can only do so much. There are a bunch of roles a pastor has, historically, and is now expected to fulfill, and we have to figure out our priorities. That is true for the pastor and for the church she or he serves. Not only do we need to discern our priorities, we need to reflect upon our theology and expectations generally. If our expectations are that a seminarian will meet all our expectations, especially if those expectations are unexamined, we're being a bit silly.
On the other hand, if we learn the reality of seminary more, what actually happens there, what it's all about, what you learn and what you don't learn, we can perhaps better discern what hopes and dreams we'll place on the pastor; we can perhaps better live into our own spiritual gifts for the sake of God and God's church, rather than expecting the pastor to do it all. Your church's best hope is for each and every person to commit to living their faith no matter who the pastor is and to do so with a loving, catholic spirit. So best to know that your seminary-trained pastor (if you have one) is still a humorously normal person also doing their best to faithfully live their discipleship with you, with some theological training.
Through all these stories, I hope and pray you've decided, decided to follow Jesus. Don't put that responsibility on the pastor, and if you're a pastor, don't add responsibility you can't meet. Reframe the relationship between church and pastor, clergy and lay, so that everyone's gifts and training can best be used to glorify God.
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