Comments on Baptists Today Blogs: Can ministerial students be pastorized?

I've only been a pastor for a little over 10 years...

2007-08-30T22:00:00.000-04:00

I've only been a pastor for a little over 10 years of my life, and for the most part have had good experiences. A few bad experiences can overshadow the good, unfortunately. My point is that it goes back to "calling" and knowing you are in the right place.

I can't blame younger seminarians for staying clear of the pastorate. I have joked with our church that I can't recall that many happy preachers out there.

The church can be a dangerous place, there is a cruelty among some church folks that is simply hard to understand.

Another thought may be that the church needs to do a better job encouraging youth and college students to consider this life work and have positive models.

Thanks to all for your responses. The increasing p...

2007-08-30T07:31:00.000-04:00

Thanks to all for your responses. The increasing profile of specialized ministries, as scott suggests, could indeed play a role in fewer students seeing themselves in a senior pastor role. My wish is that senior pastors in multi-staff churches would give all staff members a periodic opportunity to preach in addition to praying or doing the "children's sermon."

And, I hear mduv's concern about what appears to be a shortage of churches that are comfortable with "moderate" ministers, which may be geographically uneven. The experience at Campbell is that there are far more churches clamoring for our graduates (in both pastoral and staff roles) than we have to graduates available.

I resonate even more so with a.lin about the lack of opportunities for women to serve as pastors. As we know, many churches that may accept the idea of women pastors in principle remain unready to accept it in reality ... all the more reason for staff persons (particularly women) to be given more opportunities to preach. This gives them a chance not only to hone their skills, but to display their talents.

It is my prayer that more churches will recognize that the best man for the job may well be a woman.

I would be interested if there was some data on th...

2007-08-29T23:29:00.000-04:00

I would be interested if there was some data on this question as it relates to gender.

As a baptist woman, I went into divinity school unsure of where I would end up. I came out of divinity school knowing that God had called me to the pastorate. Five years later, I have yet to fill the role of pastor in a church. CBF churches are good at saying they support women, but fail a bit when it comes to putting the women in the pulpit as pastor. I had several women friends who are still searching for pastorates.

I have settled into a youth minister role, even though I know (and my church knows) it is not my true call, simply because I need some experience in a local church to hopefully be called as a pastor someday (maybe it will occur before my idealism completely fades).

Do you think doors will open to women because of this trend?

Mduv makes a good point I don't have an answer. ...

2007-08-29T15:10:00.000-04:00

Mduv makes a good point
I don't have an answer.
I do think there is palpalble ignorance across the board in lay leadership of Baptist Churches about the kind of Baptists CBF and Alliance won't to grow.
Go to what passes for the "better" moderate Baptist churches and check out their church libraries and see if anybody is reading Kimball, Marsh, Noll and Balmer.
I don't want to poison there air with cynicism today, but if churches like Dawson Memorial in Bham give 35% of their receipts to the SBC Cooperative Program, where is there hope that any reasonable number of "Baptist" churches in the near future will deserve the products of the Progressive Baptist Div Consortium.
I may crossblog your most timely blog here Tony; may crossblog you at my blog with more on my personal experience in the hinterland of NE Alabama

Tony,As a graduate of one of the "moderate consort...

2007-08-29T14:18:00.000-04:00

Tony,
As a graduate of one of the "moderate consortium" of Baptist Theology Schools where this conversation is ongoing about the lack of interest from young ministers for going into the local pastorate, this article does bring up some good points. There is a disconnect for many in my peer group of ministers when they consider serving in the local parish, particularly as pastors. I believe much of it does center around the lack of a desire to perpetuate the institutions that have been built over the years. What is often seen in this is a management of budgets and buildings and less and less about "actual ministry." This was articulated well in the ABP article. There is another side though. There are also those of us (both men and women) who do have a deep desire to pastor a church, and who feel called to do so. We leave seminaries and theology schools filled with idealism and enthusiasm to find a church that will give us the place to use our gifts, and what we have found is that there is no place for us. I have heard the lip-service that has been given for years from so many individuals and organizations about the clergy shortage, but in our moderate baptist world, what exists is a church shortage, or rather a position shortage. Meanwhile, the same groups of pastors trade out pulpits and an entire generation of "would be" pastors are left without a place and have to choose instead to go into chaplaincy or other non-traditional ministry roles, or they become so frustrated at the lack of "place" that many leave ministry all together. Never mind the loss of the energy and enthusiasm to help bring the church into the future that many of us envision, because we spend years in churches and organizations doing things that we do not feel called to do. The response from the pastoral establishment is..."we had to do the same thing...that's just the way it is." The reality is that most of these guys had a church waiting for them when they finished Southern or Southwestern or South-whatever. We have no such mechanism in place. We also have a fraction of the job "possibilities" because we have created our own world of churches that we connected to. It is not enough to encourage young people to go into the pastorate anymore. We have got to do a better job of creating pastorates for them to go into. Or else the great baptist brain drain will continue.

Tony,This is an interesting trend and you have ide...

2007-08-29T12:58:00.000-04:00

Tony,
This is an interesting trend and you have identified some of the factors contributing to the decline. I wonder also if the growing specializations within ministry that have flourished over the last 30 years in churches doesn't also contribute to the way seminarians conceptualize pastoral ministry. Today most church staff responsibilities are defined by programmatic demands and age specific assignments. While these are important catagories for addressing the needs of groups, what if we assumed that all ministerial staff were to participate in preaching and teaching, administering the Lord's supper, visiting the sick (of all ages), performing weddings and funerals. At the same time we have this specialization, the pastoral ministry is reshaped as well - often leaving couseling, pastoral care, teaching, visiting, (the arts of ministry that often go unnoticed) to the "senior pastor".

This is an interesting dilema. When I reflect for a moment, it has, in my experince, been a long time since I have heard a pastor make a compelling case for why one should consider pastoral ministry. I use to work with seminary students and at least one in four would tell me that their own pastor had tried to influence them to explore other areas of christian vocation.

One other thought: After several years of working with seminary students, I am convinced that many seek theological education in a formal setting out a deep hunger for learning and spiritual integration that they are not finding in their local congregations. Many seminary students simply want to find a place where they can "think" about their faith in a context where real questions can be addressed and explored. The local church is not always providing for that hunger. What they really want to be is educated and faithful laypeople who are active in shaping the church's mission.

Thanks for your blog and thoughts.