I grew up in South Florida. I was a native Floridian, which was pretty unusual. In my 9th grade class of 30 students, for instance, only two of us were actually born in Florida. The rest were transplants. Consequently, there wasn’t much of a unique Floridian cultural identity. Mix the Old South, Yankee transplants, immigrants from Mexico & the islands… it was a mish-mash culture, and not a particular source of pride for any of us.

Then I got to Texas. Sweet Moses, was it different! Texas pride-which I still fail to fully understand-was everywhere.

• “Everything’s bigger in Texas.”
• “Everything’s better in Texas.”
• “Texas is the best.”
• “I [heart] Texas.”

Everywhere you turned, there was this rampant Texas nationalism. I wasn’t really offended by it… I just didn’t get it. I looked around and thought to myself, “Yeah, this is nice and all, but c’mon, people.”

One of my Texas friends, a 300 pound air conditioning repairman, said to me once, (just imagine the accent):

“I don’t know why anyone would want to live anywhere else but Texas. Everything you want’s right here.”

I asked him, “Have you ever been anywhere else?”

He replied, “Well, I went to Arkansas once.”

Now, this is not meant to be an anti-Texas screed; I actually really enjoyed my time there. My point is that moving to seminary means moving. It means, in most cases, a different place with a different culture.

Now the consolation, for many, is that the move is temporary. In most cases, you’re not going to settle down and live there at seminary forever, though I’m sure that happens occasionally.

It was interesting to me to see how people responded to the (temporary) culture shift. There was a significant group of people-usually married-that did not really settle into living in Texas. Most notably, they didn’t make friends while they were there. They seemed to keep all their relationships intentionally superficial.

The attitude was: “I don’t like it here, but I’m living here because I have to. So I’m just going to bide my time for (insert timeline; 2-3 years) until I can go back home where people are (insert attitude: better, normal, smarter, etc.).” In my observation, it was more often not the seminary student with this attitude, but his or her spouse.

(I’m curious, incidentally, if that was just unique to my experience, or if students in other places see this happening. I’ll look for your comments below.)

So this brings me to this word of exhortation: while you’re at living at seminary, live! It may not be home for you, but your real home is in heaven anyway. (Philippians 3:20) Even in your hometown, you should be living as a stranger and an alien (1 Peter 2:11)

The exiles from Jerusalem didn’t enjoy living in Babylon (see for example Psalm 137!), but the command to them in Jeremiah 29 was to settle down, build houses and gardens, start families. In other words, live!

According to the scriptures, God “determines the times set for us and the exact places that we should live.” And he does this, the scriptures say, “so that men will reach out for him and perhaps find him.” I understand that to mean that as an agent of God’s kingdom, wherever I’m living, there are people God sovereignly puts in my relational sphere so I can influence them for His purposes, and vice versa.

So live while you’re at seminary. Settle into the local culture. Do all the things you would do to have a normal life… including making friends.

There were a few churches like this at my seminary. One of them had so many seminary students that-get this-they had multiple Sunday school classes just for seminary students. I can’t imagine a greater waste. Groups of twelve to twenty men and women preparing for ministry… sitting in another class on Sunday morning, expecting someone from that church to lead and teach them. Unbelievable.

Don’t you dare do that. God did not call you to ministry so you can sit on your behind and be served. Every seminary student should be serving on Sunday morning. There are dozens of churches in driving distance that need leaders desperately. Go there, take responsibility and serve.

Some of you will be full-time or part-time pastors or staff ministers, serving in the real world as you’re studying at seminary. This is difficult. You’ll be underpaid and overworked… but it is probably the best ministry preparation you can find.

But even if that’s not you, find a church where you can have responsibility for leading some ministry: youth, children, senior adults, discipleship. Teach Sunday school. Lead outreach. Coordinate Children’s Church. Preach at a nursing home. Help your pastor with sermon research or hospital visitation.

A few suggestions:

Pray for God’s leadership. This seems like a no-brainer, but it’s easy to skip. God uses our current task to prepare us for our next assignment, so choose prayerfully.

Ask around. Some students may be serving in a less-known church with plenty of needs. Seminary placement offices often have information about local churches with full- or part-time ministry positions.

Don’t be picky. We all know churches aren’t perfect, so don’t expect it. The preaching may be average, the music may be crummy, and the people may be weird. Get used to it.

Look for a pastor to learn from. If you’re not pastoring a church yourself, then look carefully at the pastor when you consider a church. He won’t be good at everything-no pastor is-but he will have some strengths you can learn from.

Find a church quickly. Don’t spend months and months in the search. Consider three or four, then decide, join, and settle in. I’d suggest that you join a church by mid-term of your first semester.

Volunteer. Go straight to your pastor and find out where and how you can serve, and get right to it.

Support your pastor. You’ll probably find things about your pastor’s leadership you disagree with. As a general rule, you should support him, unless his theology is clearly heretical, in which case you should leave. Don’t murmur against him or join an insurrection. It won’t be long before you’re the flawed leader who needs support.

Plan to stay. Church hopping, by leaders and members, is epidemic. It’s a sign of immaturity. Staying in one place will teach you lessons that hopping around can’t: loving people, managing conflict, navigating church politics, and leading change. Join a church and stay there.

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?

Learn to Pray

Learn to Share Your Faith

Learn to Submit to Authority

Learn to Love People

Learn to Exercise

Learn to Confess Your Sins

You can find it at theologyblogs.com.

Ryan, the GTS webmaster, has been very helpful to me personally in getting this site up and going.

The newest development is that I will occasionally be contributing some content for them. I wrote a piece on Sustaining Relationships that just posted over at GTS. Head over and check it out!

There’s just one problem. I hate confessing my sins.

I mean I really hate it. Viscerally. It makes me squirm and writhe down to the very core of my soul to say out loud what I was thinking or what I was doing or what I was looking at. You’d think I was undergoing exorcism (which, in a way, is exactly what’s happening). I’d almost rather do anything than confess my sins. I’d rather hide my sins and play the “Oh-I’m-fine” church game for all eternity.

So I’m still learning the discipline of confession. My counsel to seminary students is to join me.

Since most of our readers are from Christian traditions in which confession is not a formal practice, I offer a few thoughts on its implementation

Choosing a Confessor. You need a mature Christian friend of the same gender who knows you well enough and is mature enough to handle your depravity. They should love you and you should be reasonably comfortable with them. If you don’t have any relationships of this quality, you can go to a pastor or counselor as an intermediate measure.

However, the absence of quality friendships in which confession of sins is possible is a big problem. You need friends like this. Be sure that the real problem isn’t your unwillingness to be transparent.

Beware of confessing to new Christians or emotionally immature people. I’ve learned the hard way that not everyone can handle the responsibility of hearing about my depravity. This is especially true for people in ministry, because ordinary Christians sometimes put us on a pedestal. It’s important that we find safe people.

Full Honesty. God desires “truth in the inner parts (Psalm 51:6) Even as we confess our sin, we’re inclined to qualify, justify and minimize it, giving reasons why it’s not as bad as it sounds, etc. Forget that. In confession, we embrace the glorious truth is that Christ is our justification and we need no other. True confession abandons all self-justification, looks our depravity full in its face and holds nothing back.

Don’t Play Language Games. When you’re confessing, do not qualify your sin by saying you’re “struggling” with it. No you’re not. You’re sinning. Deliberately.

Abraham Piper is incisive:

We’re not porn-addicts; we “struggle with lust.”

We’re not arrogant; we “struggle with pride.”

With a simple cliché our sins become palatable.

C. J. Mahaney has great counsel, too:

A sincere confession of sin should be specific (”I was arrogant and angry when I made that statement; will you please forgive me for sinning against you in this way?”) and brief (this shouldn’t take long). When I find myself adding an explanation to my confession, I’m not asking forgiveness but instead appealing for understanding.

Confess Early

I have a close friend from college who’s also in ministry. We call each other when we’re facing or giving in to sexual temptation. It’s always best when I call him at the first sign of trouble:

• It halts the downhill slide of my depravity
• The earlier I do it, the less I have to confess
• My confessing inspires him to come clean about his failures (and vice versa)

Confess Regularly

I’m not of the school of thought that we have to verbally name every sin we commit. I’m not even sure that’s possible. There’s no question, however, that we would benefit greatly from a regular pattern of confession of sin. Think of how much pride would be derailed if every week we named our sins out loud to a loving friend in Christ!

When hearing confessions:

Be gracious. Once a person has come to a point of admitting their sin, they usually don’t need us piling on telling them how awful it is, unless they’re being evasive. Our primary function is to minister the grace and forgiveness of Christ to them. “Watch yourselves, lest you too be tempted.” (Galatians 6:1) Beware of any arrogance of superiority about your brother’s failings.

Don’t say it’s all right when it’s not. Say only things that are true: You have sinned, you are loved, you are forgiven. It’s a chance to be priestly to each other.

Encourage preventative and restorative measures. This may mean memorizing scripture, praying in a certain way, confessing sin to an injured party, taking steps of restoration or repayment, the end of a relationship, a change in schedule, a filter on a computer, or even counseling or some kind of intervention.

Don’t try to fix them. You are not the Holy Spirit. It’s not your job to sanctify them, or to “make sure this never happens again.”

Don’t get over your head. Remember that you’re a brother and not a professional counselor-don’t try to solve problems that are too big for you. At my church, we refer people with serious issues to Christian counselors all the time. We still love, pray and support them,

Always pray together. Prayer brings the presence of God into the confession experience in a very cleansing and affirming way.

“A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

Here’s a bit from the official announcement:

The Bethlehem Institute has graduated nine classes of pastoral and missionary-destined men for Bible-saturated, God-centered ministry….

Now a flash point has been reached for moving to new levels of training and a new place of ministry.

The new levels of education include moving toward becoming an accredited college and seminary. That means offering as soon as is feasible an accredited BA in Biblical Studies and an accredited MA and MDiv at the seminary level.

I’m sure they won’t have a lack of applicants!

Full announcement here.

HT: Adrian Warnock.

So now it’s your turn! If you are a current seminary student, or will be starting seminary in 2008, I’d like to offer you a free T-shirt.

Here’s how it will work. If you’d like a shirt, simply leave a comment below which includes where you’re attending seminary, your degree program, etc. (Extra points to those who give feedback on how SSG has been helpful, or suggest a topic for us to address!) I will respond with an email requesting your shirt size and a snail mail address (so you don’t have to tell the whole world where you live).

Sizes will be subject to available quantities, first come first served. And if you already have a shirt, no fair getting a second!

Hope you enjoy them!

Here’s the question:

Where does this concept of a “call” come from in Scripture? I mean, some of the great men of the faith were audibly and explicitly told by God what they were to do, but how do you know that this is normal and expected for Christian ministry? In what sense are there things that we are “supposed” to do or places we are “supposed” to be beyond the precepts of God’s moral will as revealed in the Bible? I must be missing something…

It’s a good question, and a fair one.

To answer that, I think we have to look at how God has acted in history relative to those who were leaders of his people. In the Old Testament, most of those we have sufficient biographical information about have an experience of a specific calling from God, to a task, which was often enveloped in a relationship or identity. Moses for instance, was called to lead Israel out of Egypt, which included a task (lead them out) and a position (as their leader).

Others that stand out to me: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph (via dream), Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Samuel, David, Solomon, Elisha, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. In the New Testament, the 12 apostles were summoned to leadership by direct invitation of Christ, or in Paul’s case, by a vision. Timothy, the most visible second generation leader, was called out and set apart for his task by the laying on of hands by the apostolic leadership—and was instructed to call out / recognize new leaders the same way.

So while the Scriptures don’t address calling in a formulaic way, it appears that either an internal or external call or both seems to be in play for God’s leaders throughout the Bible. The implication of normativity comes from this pattern.

I also wonder what the alternative would be. If leadership in the church doesn’t arise at God’s initiative and calling, then from whom? From us? God doesn’t care who leads and we pick who we like? Or, from the perspective of those going into ministry, do we pick it as a career just like nursing or engineering or teaching? That notion seems kind of Deist to me. I think God is more involved in our lives than that, and has plans and directions and purposes that are specific, both for us and for the congregations and ministries we lead. I guess I’m enough of a predestinarian to believe in a destiny, at least in the broader sense of the term.

Others, like John Ortberg, disagree with me about the experiential call.

What do you think? Is the notion of calling to ministry really legit or not? It’s an important question.