What Nobody Taught Me in Seminary That I Had to Learn the Hard Way

Excerpts from Sermons by Dr. John Huffman, Chairman of the Board of Trustees
Eight Things Not Taught in Seminary Part 1, October 29, 2013
Eight Things Not Taught in Seminary Part 2, October 30, 2013

1. Seminary is the best place in the world to lose your faith.
2.  Maintain a daily devotional life independent of your studies and sermon preparation.
3.  The highest calling tin the world is not professional ministry.
4.  You will never be more in ministry than you are today.
5.  Get involved now in a covenant group and never be without one all through your ministry.
6.  A simple trust in God's Word is more important than a highly sophisticated intellectual set of answers for everything.
7.  Spend as much time in the newspaper as in the Bible, and vice versa.
8.  Be faithful to biblical moral standards now.
9.  Develop a physical exercise program now and treat it as faithfully as you do your devotional life.
10.  Ministry marriages are not exempt from the same problems other marriages have.
11.  Begin tithing now, don't rationalize that you will do it later.
12. If you mess up, claim God's grace, get help, and get up and get going.
13.  Pastors too come from dysfunctional families and can perpetuate it and even originate it.
14.  Because you are in fulltime Christian services does not mean you are exempt from catastrophe.
15.  Yours is the privilege of a "task within a task."
16.  Write out one sermon per week as your best effort and then claim God's help to come as close to possible to preaching without notes.

To download Chapel podcasts, visit https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/hamilton-campus-chapel-2012/id593878978?mt=10

Pulling a Sting

By David Horn, ThD
Director, The Ockenga Institute

When he said it, not many of us really thought that much about it at first. In fact, it sounded a bit odd. We were all sitting around the Ockenga conference table—the thirteen of us as we do every month at our Pastors Roundtable—and one of our group told us very innocently that the thing that finally was bringing his congregation back to life was his fledgling little Junior High ministry.

This pastor had been racking his brain for years, trying to motivate his church toward some sense of vitality. He had given his congregation the big vision talk, followed quickly by the even bigger envisioning process, leading to the development of a vision statement. He had read all of the books. He had preached all the sermons about perishing without a vision. Nothing seemed to pry his congregation from the grips of years of lethargy. Nothing…nothing seemed to be working.

And then, out of no where, with hardly a strategy in mind and certainly beyond the scope of his own best intentions, the right volunteer couples from his little church in Maine, with the right giftedness and sincerity in their hearts, connected with the right junior high students. And it was this that brought new life as families began to be attracted to his little church. Broadsided with the simple and unintended! Imagine that; the life and vitality of a church resting on the narrow shoulders and low riding jeans of a group of adolescents. The church took off.

In subsequent conversations with this and other Pastor Roundtable groups, similar stories began to surface. In another of our New England churches whose pastor had a cup of coffee on a pro sports team, the church’s sports ministry to the community became the place of new growth and excitement for the congregation. For another pastor, it was their children’s ministry. Imagine a church whose annual summer focus on Vacation Bible School became the spark that has brought genuine excitement to the entire congregation the year round.

I wonder sometimes if we miss the forest through the trees for those of us who are committed to breathing new life into our places of ministry. With our best intentions in tow, we place five thousand pounds of vision and strategy down on a five hundred pound church. It is utterly crushing.

I admit it. I have done the same thing periodically when asked to do church consulting. Frankly, it is not that difficult to diagnose the problems within most churches. The real difficulty lies in churches having the resources and the will to respond to the solutions offered. The economics of the situation work like this: The smaller the church, the bigger the problems to be solved. But, alas, the smaller the church, the less resources there are to respond effectively to proposed solutions. The solutions sometimes almost become more onerous than the problems.

To be considered healthy, why must every church have a thriving small group ministry and thriving youth ministry and thriving evangelism ministry and thriving hospitality ministry and a thriving community outreach ministry and so on…? Rather, what if we looked at our churches more organically than systematically? It takes some investigative work, but where is the place—sometimes ever so small—of vitality in your church? Where is there evidence that God is working, and how can we come along side of that place(s) where He has decided to work uniquely in your setting? Where is the thin thread in your church that, if pulled, could unravel into whole new possibilities for your church?

I am convinced that every church has these areas, sometimes in the most surprising of places. As one pastor of a church that is filled with the currently perceived deadly demographic of elderly people told me the other day, the point of excitement currently in his church is a small group of his elderly couples that have found new excitement in their faith. The fragrance of their newfound excitement has wafted across the rest of the church. Go figure, old people and junior high kids: places where God is doing His best work in His church. There must be a God.

James’ Long Boney Finger

By David Horn, ThD
Director, The Ockenga Institute

I was reading through the second chapter of James the other day and found his long boney finger poking me in the chest again. The good brother of Jesus was once again yelling at me, in this case about my ever so subtle tendency toward expressing favoritism in my church.

The scene he paints could not be more vivid: The setting is the gathered place of worship, perhaps a messianic synagogue (James 2.2-4). As we read the story in the second chapter, possibly the glint of gold on the finger as the sun hits it is what we are drawn to first. Then we notice the purple robes. Clearly this person who just entered the synagogue is a person of distinction. We cannot help but notice him, and if noticing him is our only fault, perhaps we would be okay. But, it takes only this first glance at this visitor for the social gravity of the place to take over. Like a rock, the rich visitor falls to the front of the place of worship. When he arrives at the front, he found a poor man without a ring, void of a colorful robe, and perched at his feet. Let the worship service begin.

Extending beyond my own personal proclivities in this matter as I face the fellowship hall of my own church every Sunday, I find the most dramatic example of preferentiality in the church today in general is in the celebrity status we give to some within our congregations. Don’t we offer certain individuals in our Christian circles celebrity status that mimics the larger culture around us? People and US magazines have nothing on us in this regard. If we were to compare the lists of celebrities who are hot commodities in the Christian world at any time, our lists would be remarkably similar. We should resist this celebrity culture for the sake of these individuals as well as for our own.

Further, the greatest dangers in our churches in this regard maybe the most subtle. Discussions involving the status of churches themselves inevitably will illicit a clear profile of what would conventionally be considered “healthy” or vital churches versus those considered not so. Any pastor committed to the current canon of literature involving numerous church growth models in circulation will know that the “sweet spot” in any congregation involves attracting young couples in their 20’s through their 40’s who have lots of children and youth to fill church programs. These are the productive years in the lives of families; the hope is, of course, some of this productivity will translate into the productivity within our churches as well. Conversely, when discussing less productive churches, the most natural description is that they are small churches “filled with old people.”

There is undoubtedly logic to this profile that has a great deal of merit to it, and it has, by and large, passed the test of time for pragmatic reasons. But stepping back far enough to see this perspective against the larger backdrop of the kingdom of God, does this profile of church life not illustrate precisely what James rails against in his example of what is not to go on in the churches he is writing to in first century Asia Minor? Like the silver ring and purple robe of the wealthy visitor, we give preferential treatment to the most productive in our midst. It is for these that we re-engineer our worship services, sometimes to the objections of a prior generation. It is for these that we develop our best programs. And it is to these we seek to attract and accommodate. We do these things while those who we may deem less productive—the aging, sometimes singles, at times the economically challenged—tend not to get as much of our attention. Even our descriptions of them suggest that we view them somewhat as liabilities to our church life.[1] Of this, I will only repeat James’ admonition: “My brothers (and sisters), as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism (2.1).”

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[1] There are several who are beginning to rethink some of these values that have become so central to our thinking of church life. Two who have especially rethought the role of the elderly within our churches are Gordon McDonald, Who Stole My Church (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2007) and Cedric W. Tilberg, Revolution Underway: An Aging Church in an Aging Society, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1984.

Extending Hospitality is Messy Business in Churches

By David Horn, ThD
Director, The Ockenga Institute

One of my all time favorite images from the vast storehouses of wisdom hoisted on us by Garrison Keillor in his radio show, Prairie Home Companion, as I can recall it, can be reduced to a single two minute moment when a young Garrison, resisting all impulse to do otherwise, found himself in the late fall of the year throwing an overly ripe tomato toward his older sister who just happened to be bending over looking south. The overly juicy tomato came in low and hard from the north and hit her squarely on the part of the anatomy where one normally sits. Can you hear the wonderful, big juicy splat of that tomato?[1]

Putting aside the deviance of an adolescent young boy, this is the kind of sound we need to hear more of in our churches. We need to hear more splattering. We need to see and accept ourselves more in the context of the messiness of our lives. I realize this runs contrary to some of the efficiencies and professionalism that many of us like to bring to doing church life, we corporate types. But, we are not neat and tidy people. Nor do we serve neat and tidy people. In building our lives together—programmatically, institutionally, socially—should we not be more attentive to the actual condition of our lives outside of our gathered community? In our planning, should we not be attentive to the dangers of forcing square individuals into round holes?

Sometimes expressing hospitality to one another abhors the neatness we want to give it. We hesitate extending ourselves, for example, hoping for the “perfect time” to invite someone into our lives, not realizing that sometimes the less-than-perfect time is really the absolute right time. Sometime we are so concerned about chipping our fine china that we don’t extend hospitality on paper plates. And, on a more programmatic level, sometimes we have become so scripted that we have wrung all the spontaneity out of our life together. People live messy, messy lives and churches should bear some of that messiness with it. I leave it to you to decide what this might look like in your church.

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[1] Garrison Keillor, A Prairie Home Companion radio broadcast, recorded, May 15, 2008.

Whining Through the Ages

By David Horn, ThD
Director, The Ockenga Institute

Let me whine for a while. I think I’ve reached that moment similar to when I have played a favorite song one too many times. You know the kind of song I am talking about; the song with the lyric, the melody line, the refrain that perfectly encapsules some part of your life…perfectly. And, you make the fateful, if understandable, mistake of playing it one too many times. Now crushed by the weight of redundancy, the song loses its meaning. When does a cliché become a cliché?

This is what I feel about the current language describing Generation theory. No longer is it enough to call ourselves Christians, human beings for that matter. The current climate has us all corralled into increasingly-smaller holding pens called Gen X, Y, Z, post X, Y, Z, the emerging X, Y, Z.

It is not that Generation theory hasn’t been a helpful paradigm, even truthful to a point. The simple reality that cultural values shift through time from one generation to the next is so self-evident it is hard to conceive that it has only been in recent years that the idea has taken root in our national consciousness.

But, have we not pulled the thin strands that hold this concept together almost beyond the breaking point? How many churches have I observed in recent years being completely re-engineered on the basis of this concept alone? Worship services, small group ministries, evangelism, outreach, teaching: Every aspect of church-life has been filtered through the generational lens. Pastors now look upon their congregations as if they are filled with generational subspecies roaming across the Serengeti. Each subspecies—Gen X, Y, or Z--thinks differently, speaks a different language, and responds to God differently in the most fundamental of ways.

Not long ago, I met with the leadership of a national para-Church organization on behalf of the seminary and I made the fateful mistake of questioning the veracity of Generational theory. The silence around that table of leaders was deafening. For a moment, I thought perhaps I had questioned the Resurrection.

Part of what drives my passion on this issue is personal and results from my own work in my doctoral work on assessing the empirical research on religious conversion. Fifteen years ago, if anyone would have questioned the truthfulness of brainwashing or deprivation theories as singular explanations for how individuals change religious commitments, they would have been laughed off the stage. Not so today. We have moved well beyond these explanations to others. Similarly, the surrounding orthodoxy around Generational theory is equally vulnerable to change. To speak of it as a concept is not so much to diminish its usefulness as to caution us of its limitation. How much now rides on this conceptualization in your church?

I think one of the most dangerous implications of our over-dependence upon Generational theory is that it so causes us to focus upon the differences in individuals within our churches at the expense of what unites us together. My twenty-some-year old son wears his pants a little lower than I do. He uses vocabulary at times that sends me scurrying for further explanation. He enjoys different forms of music. But, when I look deep into his eyes, when we talk about what touches us most intimately, when we speak about God, and our family, and our mutual traditions, we are the same species.

Further, we share the same Gospel. The things that both of us look for in Christian community—authenticity, honesty, winsomeness—are the same. Exactly the same. The similarities far outweigh the differences, and the current focus on what makes us so different prevent us—prevent us as a church—from focusing on the most important things, that which binds us together in Christ. The huge amounts of time spent on fine tuning our churches into parts has become a grand diversion from what really, really matters.

I’m done whining now.

Restoring Old Things

By David Horn, ThD
Director, The Ockenga Institute

You could shake all of the contents of the entire series of books into its corners with room to spare: children, fauns, dwarfs, friendly giants, the White Witch, even the great lion. I’m telling you, it is huge!

I refinish furniture for relaxation when I’m not working at the seminary. A few years ago, I began to refinish an old walnut wardrobe that could accommodate all of Narnia… literally. When I started the project, I found it too cold to work in my shop that winter, so I had all the parts—base, cap, sides, back, inner chambers, hardware—scattered throughout the rest of my basement. Did I mention that the wardrobe is huge? It is so gigantic, in fact, that I wasn’t able to get it through the door when completed. I had to re-construct it in the room where it ended up.

The wardrobe almost got the best of me. Alone for hours, up to my elbows in skin-blistering stripper, filthy dirty, the thought actually crossed my mind: Why am I doing this? I could be upstairs reading Narnia rather than down here finding it a new home.

I won’t bore you with the results of such ruminations (brought on by stripper fumes no doubt), except to say that, like perhaps many of you with your methods of relaxation, part of my satisfaction in restoring furniture I attribute to my tendency toward distraction.

To restore furniture—to be a really good furniture refinisher—you have to be a really good daydreamer. You have to let your mind wander back to see the piece of furniture for what it was at one time, the glory days of the piece when it wore its newness so naturally. I wonder about the original creator of the wardrobe. What tools did he use; what obstacles did he have to overcome; what purposes drove him to make such a fine piece?

To see the piece for what it was at one time is key in seeing the piece of furniture for what it could be again. What potential is there in an old beat up wardrobe? Look at it again. Scrape off the blistered old finish, glue back the free edges of veneer, replace the broken hardware and you will see its past, and in seeing its past, you will give it a whole new life.

What I am speaking about, of course, is the act of re-creating something, an act that begs reflection on our human, divinely ordained mandate in Genesis 2. The reader can do this for him or herself while I reflect one more time on my re-created wardrobe. Even when refinished, that old piece bears the marks of its past. I have yet to restore a piece of furniture to its original condition. The beauty of my wardrobe is in the newly applied stain that only partially covers the conspicuous missing chips of veneer. It’s newly found beauty is partially in comparing its past with its new present.

So, why do I bring up my wardrobe? I bring it up because the very same act of re-creation goes on with pastors in their own churches. Without ignoring the wonderful things God is doing with the church planting processes throughout the country, most of us—most of our graduates who leave us—are dealing with old furniture when we consider the churches and other places of ministry we serve. Who of us doesn’t live with years of old varnish and bleached stain when we enter our sanctuaries on Sundays, interact with our leadership, administrate our threadbare programs, or counsel weak and battered members within our church?

What should our expectations be as we seek, through the Spirit, to restore old churches back to usefulness? One of the things we see with some of our students who leave us after their years of study here are well-intended church re-creators who put their newly acquired tools to the task of reshaping old ministry contexts. Their desires to polish these old churches back to new luster are very good. In their tool chest, they may often pull out a newly sharpened church model that, on the surface, would seem to be just the thing to bring new life to these old places.

Then why don’t these old churches polish up? Too often, I am afraid, they—we—who dream about new life in our churches—new programs, new leadership, new potential— seek to change these antiques after our own image without seeing them for what they are, wonderful old places with rich histories of God’s faithfulness. They may have gone astray. They often are filled with old, entrenched leadership. They don’t move very fast. Dump them on the table and you will find tired old programs rolling aimlessly around the edges. We want to change all this and the sooner the better.

But, to be a good daydreamer of these old churches, is there not something to be said for first accepting them for what they are in all their uniqueness, in the context of their rich histories, and with appreciation for what has brought them to their present condition? It seems to me, to be a good restorer of old churches begins first with letting our minds wander back to their glory days. How did they start? Why did they start? In what context were they placed? How has that context changed? What kind of leaders have led these unique churches in the past and how do they represent leadership needs in the present? What kinds of programs worked earlier? Is there a relationship between these kinds of programs and what could be offered, in new ways, in the present?

I wouldn’t trade my house full of old furniture for all the furniture stores full of new furniture in the world. I love old things. I love to re-create old things. To be a re-creator of churches, I think, too, requires that we love, we truly love, old things.

How to Get More Out of Committee Meetings in Your Church

By John Jefferson Davis
Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics

Can you relate to the following scenario? Two friends meet one evening in the church parking lot and one says, “I have just come out of a mind-numbing budget committee meeting at the church. I can only stare at lines of numbers on spreadsheets for so long before my eyes glaze over.”

Most of us can remember committee meetings in our churches that, if not exactly “mind numbing,” have left us tired and frustrated, with the feeling that all the talk and discussion and debate had not accomplished as much as we would have hoped. Perhaps we find it difficult to rest well that night, our minds still running with the unresolved issues and tensions of the meeting. Many of us spend a lot of time in our church or other Christian organization going to meetings. Does Scripture give us any hints as to how committee meetings in the church can be more satisfying and productive? The good news is that the answer is a definite “Yes!” Let’s consider briefly a number of key passages that can take our meetings to a whole new level of satisfaction and fruitfulness.

Before looking at the first passage – Exodus 4:2 – we can stop to observe that typically, church committee meetings follow a pattern like this: 1) open with a sincere (but somewhat token) prayer for God’s guidance; 2) individuals on the committee share their ideas and have discussion and debate; 3) a plan of action is adopted; 4) the meeting is closed in prayer, asking God to bless the plans that we have made. As we shall see, a more biblical pattern would look something like this: 1) united prayer, seeking a common mind; 2) corporately listening for the voice and plan of God in the midst of the discussion; 3) being energized by the Spirit of God to execute God’s ideas (cf. Acts 13:1,2, the church at Antioch, energized and united for mission).

Principle One: Relinquishing Our Agendas to God: “What Is That In Your Hand?”

In the call of Moses God meets Moses at the burning bush, and later in the conversation asks Moses the question, “What is that in your hand?” (Ex.4:2). Moses answers, “a staff.” God tells Moses to throw the staff on the ground, and it becomes a serpent. God commands Moses to pick it up again, and it becomes a staff – which later God uses, in the hands of Moses, to part the Red Sea waters. The “staff” can be a symbol for those things that we bring to the meeting: our ideas, our agendas, our knowledge, expertise, training, and hopes for the church. God asks us to throw our staffs on the ground – to relinquish and surrender our ideas and agendas to him, so that he can return them in a form that has been transformed and energized by God’s own power. This conscious and intentional act of each committee member being willing to relinquish control and surrender his or her “staff” to God is the first step for having God’s empowerment for the committee’s work.

Principle Two: Seeking a Common Mind: the Principle of Spiritual Alignment

Another beautiful picture of extraordinarily fruitful “committee work” in the church is found in Acts 1:14: “They all joined together constantly in prayer” (Acts 1:14). Jesus had commanded the disciples to wait in Jerusalem until the Father sent the gift of the Holy Spirit to energize them for mission (Acts 1:4,8). In 1:14 Luke uses the relatively infrequent word in New Testament Greek, homothumadon, which means “of one mind” or “of one purpose.” Luke also uses the same word to describe the unity of the early Jerusalem church in worship and fellowship (Acts 2:46) and in the praise of God (Acts 4:24). This significant word homothumadon signifies that the disciples in Acts 1 were “on the same page” – not only being in the same place physically and geographically (in the upper room), but in the “same place” mentally and consciously, with shared understanding and purpose. This could be called the principle of spiritual alignment: when the disciples were united, with their minds aligned with the purpose and plan of God, the Spirit powerfully energized their mission (Acts 2), and the church expanded in effective mission (Acts 3 - 28). The key here is to see the critical order of the process: 1) achieving unity of mind; 2) being empowered by the Spirit; 3) engaging in fruitful mission. All too often, “conventional” work in the church tries to accomplish step #3 without first achieving steps #1 and #2. The powerful transition from Acts 1 (“common mind”; “alignment”) to Acts 2 (empowerment by the Spirit) is reflective of the fact that the “Acts 1” unity is an answer to Jesus’ Jn.17 prayer for Christian unity – and of the fact that Jesus blesses richly those who obediently align themselves as answers to his prayer!

This crucial principle of alignment can be illustrated as follows: an ordinary bar of iron has countless iron molecules each of which is a tiny magnet (“dipole”), but the bar of iron as a whole has no magnetic force, because the individual iron molecules are oriented in random directions, and the little individual molecular magnets cancel one another out. If you take a powerful magnet and stroke the iron bar repeatedly, the molecules in the bar become aligned, the little magnets are working in the same direction, and an ordinary bar itself has become a powerful magnet that can do some “heavy lifting.”

Or consider the advice that the coach of the legendary hockey team – TeamUSA – that upset the Russians in the 1980 Winter Olympics – gave to his players: “Forget the name on the back of your jersey – your name – the only name that matters is the name on the front of the jersey: TeamUSA.” The being-of-one-mind alignment of TeamUSA lifted a talented collection of individual hockey players to an extraordinary level of team effectiveness.

Principle Three: Lectio Divina Committee Listening: Listening as Body of Christ

A third principle of effective committee meetings in the church could be called “lectio divina committee listening.” Most of us are familiar with the lectio divina method of scriptural prayer and meditation: a quiet, unhurried, contemplative and meditative listening to a passage of Scripture read perhaps several times, with a view to hearing the voice of God speaking to us through the biblical word. The same posture and attitude can inform how we listen to one another during the meeting. All too often, in the typical meeting, after the opening prayer we revert to our individualistic mode of relating, not really acting as though we really believed that we were connected as Body of Christ; not listening to one another intently and empathically, but being preoccupied with preparing our own statements so that we can voice our own ideas when we “get the microphone.” In the lectio divina model of committee listening, the committee members bring an awareness that as they meet, they are an expression of the Body of Christ, not autonomous individuals. They patiently try to hear what God might be wanting to say through the other members of the body.

This lectio divina style of committee listening can in itself be a small answer to Jesus’ High Priestly prayer for Christian unity (Jn.17:21) that the disciples would be one as he was one with the Father. Christian unity is not just about the “macro” issues of interdenominational relations – but can start at the “micro” level of a church committee meeting.

This type of listening was modeled by Jesus himself: “I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me … what I have heard from him I tell to the world” (Jn.8:28;26). These principles of having a “common mind” and “listening” are so powerful because they reflect the very inner life of the Triune God, manifested in the life and ministry of Jesus, and in Jesus’ relation to the Father: Jesus first listens to the Father; then aligns his mind with the Father’s mind; relinquishes his will to the Father’s will; and is then empowered by the Spirit for effective and fruitful ministry (cf. Lk.3:21, at the baptism: “as he was praying”; 4:1-13: listening to God/testing in the desert; 4:14: “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit”).

In the plan of salvation, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit always work as a team – not as independent individuals. A church committee that patterns its methods of work on the model of the Trinity and on Jesus’ relationship to the Father will discover that God will bless the work in extraordinary ways.

A Concluding Summary: Some Suggestion on “How To”:

To conclude, how could these principles be applied in practice? Here are some suggestions: First, the leader of the meeting could recount the story of Moses (“What is that in your hand?”), and invite the members to “throw their staffs on the ground” at the outset of the meeting. Second, the committee spends some time in quiet prayer, asking for Christ to bring about a common mind, and asking the Holy Spirit to be present, and to help in attentive listening for hearing and discerning the Father’s ideas as the members speak with one another. Third, the committee then engages in its discussions and agenda items, but with a consciousness that “We are ‘Body of Christ’ as we meet as a committee – not separate and autonomous individuals.”

Fourth, and finally, before the close of the meeting, the committee again spends some time in quiet, silent reflection, asking God to “push forward” the ideas and action items that he wants to go forward. At the close of the time of silent reflection, the leader attempts to articulate any consensus that seems to have emerged, or items about which consensus has not been achieved.

It’s not rocket science; it is really quite simple. Try it in your next church committee meeting, and see if God turns what could be just another meeting into a surprisingly fruitful event in the life of the parish. Believe me – it really worked for Jesus – and it can work for us as well!

For Further Reading:

Roy Oswald & Robert E. Friedrich, Jr. Discerning Your Congregtion’s Future

(Alban Institute, 1996), pp.5; 145-146; “Centering Prayer”.

Charles M. Olsen, Transforming Church Boards into Communities of Spiritual Leaders

(Alban Institute, 1995).

Seminary or Cemetery?

By Maria Boccia, PhD
Professor of Pastoral Counseling and Psychology and
Director of Graduate Programs in Counseling at the Charlotte campus

“Seminary or Cemetery? Cultivating Spiritual Vitality in Theological Education.” This was the title of the Integrative Seminar at GCTS-Charlotte this past Saturday. The title reflects the common joke about seminary experience: that it kills the soul. We spent this past Saturday talking about this topic. Dr. Hollinger challenged us in the opening chapel to ask ourselves “have we lost our first love?” speaking from the letter to the church at Ephesus from Revelation 2:1-7. He pointed out that Ephesus was once a thriving city with a vibrant growing Christian community. Now it is an empty ruin. The challenge for us is to journey through seminary and our theological education without becoming an empty ruin. How can we do this?

Dr. Steve Klipowitz started the day with a presentation on the survey he took of GCTS-Charlotte students. He asked our students to rate their spiritual vitality and indicated whether it had increased or decreased during their seminary training. About 50% of the student body responded to the survey. Respondents were 37% MDivs, 28% MACCs and the rest the other MAs. I will not repeat all the results here, but I would like to highlight some of the outcomes that could be worth noticing and taking into consideration.

The average score on spiritual vitality was 6.65 out of 10. However, the responses really were bimodal: there were a group of students who reported their spiritual vitality was “fair” and a group that were “good” or better. There were some key factors that discriminated between these two groups. The three most important were: active involvement in a vital church, maintaining regular devotional life, and participating in a small group. Students reported factors contributing to the decline in their spiritual life such as tyranny of the urgent (over-committed, too busy, stressed), lack of devotional time, and just the vagaries of life. Those who reported the poorest spiritual vitality tended to be those working more than 40 hours a week as well is going to school, being in seminary more than four years, and being in full-time ministry.

I would just make a couple of comments: while the seminary is very concerned about the spiritual life of students and tries to be actively engaged in encouraging spiritual vitality, the three biggest factors were factors that are for the most part outside the control of seminary: Church, devotional time, and small groups. Again, some of the biggest threats to spiritual vitality are in the students’ control; e.g., working more than 40 hours a week while going to seminary.

At student orientation this year, I encouraged the new students to consider their priorities and make adjustments in their time commitments to accommodate the demands of seminary. When I came to GCTS for the D.Min. program, I sat down and counted the cost. I realized that I needed to add about 20 hours to my weekly schedule for work related to the program. I then chose to drop teaching Sunday school, leading a small group, serving on the board of a nonprofit, and serving as faculty adviser for a Christian sorority at UNC Chapel Hill. All of these things were good things, but they were not the things to which God was calling to me at this season of my life. I encouraged the students to think about this, and decide whether good things might be interfering with God things.

I will leave you with a couple of other gems from the day. Dr. Alan Myatt talked to the students about spiritual friendships, and the important role they can play in maintaining spiritual vitality. He recommended the book Sacred Companions: the Gift of Spiritual Friendship & Direction by David G. Benner. I encourage you to check it out. Finally, I will leave you with some of the questions that were addressed to the students at our integrative seminar:

• In what ways are you encouraged by your spiritual condition?
• In what ways are you challenged or discouraged?
• What steps can you take to support and encourage future spiritual growth in your life?
• In what ways do you think the seminary could better support spiritual formation in the lives of students?
• How could students better help each other maintain a fervent life with God?