As we near the end of another school year, those of us in theological academia ready ourselves for Baccalaureate and Commencement exercises yielding yet another crop of pastors who will soon stand behind pulpit and table in churches all over the country. This will be my first opportunity as the new president of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary to pass out diplomas and wish our graduating seniors well as they take on a new mantle of responsibility.
What will I be thinking as I shake their hands? I will be thinking about a line I said to our program staff at First Church, Dallas at the end of every staff meeting. It was, “Praise the Lord,” to which they replied, “The Lord’s name be praised.” Then I always added a phrase from Hill Street Blues, “Be careful out there.” My reason for saying this line to 2006 graduates is that I’ve just come back to the academic world after 22 years of parish ministry in one congregation, and I know it’s not easy being a pastor these days.
In many ways the church that today’s graduates are heading into is not the same one I faced 33 years ago. The world is not the same either. As a result I want to encourage our soon-to-be clergy to “think outside the box” in two ways as they leave their places of learning.
First of all, thinking outside the box means we should be exploring new, creative ways of being and doing church in today’s world.
When I left seminary in 1973, the enduring model for ministry was the pastor as lone ranger. Now, seminaries and churches are thinking of the parish as the learning and praxis community that works together ‘loving God with all the mind’ and ‘going into all the world’ with the Gospel message of justice and grace. Thus seminaries and divinity schools are training the equippers who will be “equipping the saints.” What does this mean? It means that parishioners participate in small groups, not only growing in their own faith individually and corporately, but offering insights into texts on which the preachers will be preaching on Sundays. I found this approach unbelievably stimulating in my own ministry in Dallas. Even though I was a seminary professor before coming to the parish, I never pretended to have all the answers. One great danger in preaching is to act like Moses coming down from Mt. Sinai. Out of this more communal experience of preaching grew a course I taught at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and a continuing education seminar at Princeton Theological Seminary called “Sermon Building by Community.” Next spring I will teach it at Pittsburgh Seminary.
Another creative way for us to be training the equippers is to remember that they are readying themselves for a missional church, that is, a church that sees itself as part of the community transforming culture and not a monastic enclave. This means training equippers for both local and global mission. It means helping students do community assessment and understanding the society in which their parishioners live and work every day. In addition to actual courses that address these issues, our seminaries need to be modeling this kind of ministry by being involved in the communities around them. Happily, our Presbyterian schools know the importance of this kind of extra-curricular activity where education is more “caught” than “taught,” but we could all be doing more. The Metro-Urban Institute and the World Mission Initiative at Pittsburgh Seminary are examples of what I am talking about. But there are ways we at Pittsburgh could be even more involved in our immediate community.
Second, by thinking outside the box I mean something even more crucial for the larger church today. In this case, “the box” to which I am referring is the box we put people in so quickly when we hear what they are saying about certain controversial, political issues. One of the great things about marriage is that you eventually discover that the person you married is infinitely more complex than you ever imagined. The same is true for persons with whom you work. It’s also true for singles who develop lifelong friendships. The more you get to know them, the harder it is to put them into a box. The same is true in the church.
This person is conservative on this issue but liberal on that one–so which box do I put her in? If you are a member of a certain advocacy group, should I assume that you believe the same thing every other member of that group believes? Of course not, but we do it all the time. If I am into evangelism, does that mean I don’t care a thing about social justice ministry, and vice versa? If you think that about me, you would be wrong because I care about both and think the church should too.
What can seminaries do about this nagging ecclesial problem? We can model proper behavior in the ways we express our differences of opinion and deal with conflict. We can quit talking about “left” and “right” and start talking about what we can do together. Even if we believe something deeply, we can allow for freedom of discussion in our classes. Sure, we have our differences, but they only represent a small part of the total Gospel message. We need to quit playing only one string on our violin and realize we have a whole symphony we can play together. We need to remember that real friendship in Christ means that we have the right to disagree knowing that mutual respect and affection are not at stake. If seminaries can’t model this kind of behavior, how do we ever expect our graduates to live it and teach it in the church?
As I hand them their diplomas, am I going to have time to tell each of the graduates about thinking outside the box? Probably not. The truth is it’s going to take all of us helping them understand.
William J. Carl III is president of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, Pa.
