Category: Academics
The Seminary Book Review
One of your most common assignments at any seminary is going to be the sometimes joyful, often tedious, yet always necessary book review. While every seminary will have different requirements for their book reviews, nearly all fall into a fairly similar mold. How can you attack this task in such a way as to do [...]
Master Your Seminary’s Required Reading in Half the Time (or Less)
Seminary requires a massive amount of reading. Often the workload for even a single course can go over a thousand pages. Multiply that by four or five, and it becomes daunting, especially if you’re not a natural reader. The numbers of people who struggle with reading seems to be growing, and I’m sure that’s the [...]
Writing Learning Objectives for Your Seminary Experience
I worked four years in a church staff position during and after college before deciding I needed to further my education by going to seminary. Those years were invaluable to my development, because I experienced ministry and discovered what I didn’t know and needed to learn before starting my studies. I wish all incoming students [...]
Using Mentors in Seminary
Having a learning coach or ministry mentor is a great way to leverage your seminary experience. Our research on theological education as well as surveys with people in the field led us to make mentoring a significant part of our learning model. Many seminaries will involve mentoring during the last two semesters of their study [...]
Category: Academics, Featured, Spiritual life
Lessons Learned about Online Learning
Five years ago, I left a residential seminary campus to start a fully online seminary from scratch, known today as Rockbridge. In my travels and discussions with ministers around the world, I discovered many ministers that wanted seminary training but didn’t feel called to leave their ministry fields in order to get it. Technology now [...]
Shorter degrees
Here is an example of a guy who lived out my counsel on being judicious with your choice of degree. This is a sensible exercise of triage.
No one cares what your grades are, part two
Part one was addressed to the grade nerds. Today, I speak to the rest of you. No one else may care what your grades are in seminary…. but you should. (Fair warning. Those who know me know that one of my finger wagging episodes is only moments away.) You should care about your grades, to [...]
Category: Academics, Time Management
No one cares what your grades are, part one
In seminary, I was a grade-nerd. It started early in my academic career. I was in the gifted program from 3rd grade through high school. Once I discovered that I had academic gifts, I found I liked achieving well in that arena. And my parents never settled for less than I could do. In high [...]
Category: Academics, Time Management
At the start of each class
Here are the questions you need to ask and answer at the beginning of each class: 1. Will this be among the 20% of most valuable classes, to which I should devote my best energy, or will it be one of the 80% that are (comparatively) low-value? Many things go into this determination. Some classes [...]
Category: Academics, Time Management
Sucking out the marrow (and spitting out the pits)
Back to planning your study. Again, I mention that our key idea here is triage. If you have time to devote full attention to every class (and your ministry and your job and your marriage and your health), then knock yourself out. If you’re one of the rest of us who has to let something [...]
Category: Academics, Time Management
