Mark Warnock, Editor of SSG.com

I began this website in December of 2007 as a way to give counsel to seminary students from a vantage point outside seminary. Now, I have returned to seminary, this time as a Ph.D student. I just completed my first semester toward a Ph.D in Christian Philosophy at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

The primary reason I’m returning to seminary is to sharpen my ability to think, write and teach. After 15 years of full-time ministry in the local church, I’ve found I’ve settled into a mental slump. The day to day life of local church ministry hasn’t kept me as intellectually stretched and sharpened as I should be. To paraphrase Paul, I’ve been neglecting my gifts. Time to fan them into flame again.

So I hope to write here some fresh material on the seminary experience, this time from the perspective of a doctoral student. I hope to see the seminary environment with fresh eyes, and have productive and helpful things to say. This time, however, I will have the joy of taking my own advice!

Thanks to all of you who have followed this modest little project called Seminary Survival Guide, and who have commented and participated along the way. Some of you may be new to our conversation: welcome! Please make our discussion richer by contributing your own thoughts and insights.

Also, I’m open to guest posts, if you think you might have something edifying and practical to share with seminary students. You can query me at mark (at) seminary survival guide.com.

Next week I’ll post some reflections on time management, based on my first semester of doing Ph.D study and maintaining a full-time ministry position.

On first read, it seems to me that his perspective, and that of those avoiding seminary is (1) essentially pragmatic, and maybe too pragmatic; and (2) true of some seminaries, surely, but definitely not all.

Read and see what you think.

Ed and I are working on the relationships section of the book and realized we needed to hear from more perspectives than just ours. So how about it?  Have any thoughts or perspectives on seminary dating life you think would be valuable for other seminary students?

You may leave a public comment below, or if you’d prefer to email your response, send it to mark -at- seminarysurvivalguide.com.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Next week, however, I’ll be taking a couple of days away to write with Ed Eubanks. We’re working on putting some of our material on seminary life and ministry preparation into book form. I’ll keep you updated as we have progress to report.

Thanks for your continued prayers and support. In the meantime, as always, all of our archives are available for you to browse. I hope you find them beneficial.

Best,
Mark Warnock
General Editor
Seminary Survival Guide.com

Make Sure You’re Supposed to Be Here

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Sounding the Call

Part Four

The Calling to Ministry Self-Assessment (pdf)

And as a bonus:

Is “Calling” a Biblical Idea?

Ed has been working for a while on a book about the transition from seminary to your first post-seminary ministry position.  He’s done a lot of very mature and careful thinking about this process.  I’d encourage you to check out his blog, Placement Reflections.

Welcome to the team, Ed!

(RSS readers: embedded video)

If you manage your time and priorities right, people will be mad at you.

Get used to it.

HT: Chris Gensheer

A little knowledge, however, is a dangerous thing. “Knowledge puffs up.”

I remember having a conversation about scriptural interpretation with some fellow students during my first semester of seminary. The topic of our conversation was a very respected and godly older leader in our denomination whom I had heard speak at a recent conference. He told of how God had spoken to him through a particular passage of scripture, and led him to make a major, life-changing decision.

The only problem was that according to all we’d been learning in hermeneutics class, he’d interpreted the scripture incorrectly. My buddies and I discussed it thoroughly and agreed that the poor silly man was wrong. He’d misinterpreted the scripture and someone should show him the error of his ways.

I shudder now to think of my hubris and judgment. Even if I was right about the scripture, my sin was far more grievous than his mistake.

Seminary is a season of time where you’re gaining knowledge at a faster rate than you’re gaining wisdom. We have to be careful how we use what we’re learning.

A former student recently told me that at the conclusion of his first semester of Hebrew class, his professor gave the class a very stern lecture: “Don’t you dare go back to your home churches and tell your pastor all the things he’s doing wrong. Don’t you dare! You’re not as smart as you think you are.”

You’re not as smart as you think you are.

Some questions to ask yourself before you spout off your newfound knowledge:

• Am I being wise or just smart?
• Would Christ speak to someone in this way?
• Is my conviction genuine or is it a cloak for my pride?
• Is my motivation to love others or feel better about myself?
• Are my words useful for edification, giving grace to those who hear (Eph. 4:29)?
• Has gaining this knowledge made me more the man or woman God wants me to be?
• Can I say this with true humility?

If in doubt, it’s probably wiser to say nothing.

More:

Knowledge is not Life

Learn to Submit to Authority

1 Timothy 4:7-8 – Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

Why are you at seminary? If you are like most, you will say that you are at seminary in order to receive training for ministry. You are learning. You are working. You are thinking hard. You are doing what is necessary to get out of seminary and into a place of service to the Lord.

As you think of your training, as the semester begins, let me give you this reminder: train for godliness. So many students come to seminary to build knowledge-an act which is certainly necessary. However, many students come to seminary and only build knowledge. It is very tempting to study and theorize about obscure principles while growing more and more conceited. The more you spend time in graduate-level courses pondering the deep things of God, the more tempting it is to think that you are smarter, wiser, and simply better than the average local church member. Beware.

Bodily training is of some good. Doubtless mental training is also of some good. But neither of these two kinds of training is training for godliness. You must learn more than religious theories and theological argument. You must learn to be godly. You must learn not only to define holiness, but to live holiness. You must learn not only to preach sermons, but to love those to whom you preach. You must learn not only to plan programs, but to live out godliness in secret. If your seminary time educates you theoretically but does not aid you in your own personal sanctification, your seminary training does not prep you for ministry.
How can you train for godliness?

• Read the Bible for growth and not just for class.
• Spend time with non-seminary, godly men and women in a local church.
• Seek out someone as a friend at seminary who is deeply devoted to growth in godliness and who is not simply a seminary know-it-all.
• Live with character at seminary. Do not be dishonest (even on reading reports). Do not break the code of conduct (even if you disagree with its standards). If you won’t live with integrity at school, you will set a pattern of failure for your future ministry.
• Get connected to a local pastor who is not a seminary prof and who is not starry-eyed about your seminary education. Let him show you what godliness in ministry looks like.
• (You can probably come up with 50 more.)

Make a commitment to be trained at seminary for godliness, and you will find that you have done something truly worthwhile when you graduate. You must, absolutely must, take advantage of this glorious opportunity to grow in Christ (not simply to grow in your own understanding of how bright you are). Take it from a guy who has spent a few years in local church ministry, you will be glad for what you have learned in seminary; but you will treasure seminary if you are truly trained in godliness.
———
This is a guest post by Travis Peterson, a pastor in Southern Illinois, a D. Min. candidate in Biblical Counseling at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a blogger.

However, there is a snare associated with it. Seminary is not the real world. It is a bubble, insulated both physically and ideologically from the lost culture in which it stands. In one sense, this is good. Seminary should be a place you can saturate your self in the biblical worldview. This is why the doctrinal integrity of faculty is so important. The word seminary means “seed-bed.” It’s an incubator—a safe place for Christian leaders to grow.

But it is exactly the safety of seminary that makes it alluring. It’s very easy to get comfortable living in a place where everyone shares the same basic convictions and worldview. It’s easy to get used to living without regular contact with non-Christians.

The life of a seminary student is pretty culturally insulated: you go to school with Christians. You read only Christian books (who has time to read anything else!?), you go to church and serve there, surrounded by Christians. The only place you might have to interact with unbelievers is at your job—but many seminary students wind up working for churches, Christian ministries, or in Christian companies, and so have little or no contact or friendship with lost people.

See how easy it is to completely lose touch with the lost world we need to reach?

And if it only takes three weeks to form a habit, what will three or four years of living an insulated life in the seminary bubble do to you?

Many pastors and Christian leaders leave the insulation of seminary, and go straight into church work where the habit naturally continues. I believe that when Christian leaders are unengaged with lost people, their churches will be, too. This insulation is a major factor in the church’s ineffectiveness at evangelism.

So my suggestion to live off-campus is directly linked to my admonition to get out of the Christian Ghetto. Wherever you live, you need a plan to engage regularly with the real, lost people around you.

How do you get out of the Christian Ghetto?

Similar:
Learn to Share Your Faith