Search Results for: learned in seminary

This month, we asked our bloggers to name a few things that they wish they had learned in seminary.  Visit the Outlook Outpost blog for other perspectives on the question and join the discussion.   I am a proud graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary.  I had some amazing professors, took some phenomenal classes and engaged in some life-changing academic discourse.  That being said, I do not feel I was adequately prepared for ministry, and to be fair, not a single graduate I have spoken to from any seminary in the country has said differently.  Seminary helped me think theologically, expanded the way I look at and read the Bible and made me somewhat aware of my pastoral identity, but was I ready to run a church after receiving my diploma?  No. Way.   So here is my list of things I wish I’d learned in seminary.  Some are practical and some are less so.    1) How to say “I don’t know”   The dangerous thing about the academic … [Read more...]

This month, we asked our bloggers to name a few things that they wish they had learned in seminary.  Visit the Outlook Outpost blog for other perspectives on the question and join the discussion.   We live in a time of high expectations... if church cannot bring about fulfillment, entertain our children and accomplish our particular agenda for social justice, then everything must change, everything must be fixed, everything must be packaged so as to appeal to the 18-49 demographic or the nones or to provide captivating new programs for the previously churched or unchurched or post-churched.  I remember going to an NBA game in the early 1990s – what was perhaps the golden era of professional basketball – and realizing that there was not one idle moment.  We were never allowed to just sit and take it all in or have a conversation with the person sitting next to us.  If there was not someone dancing at any pause in the action, then there was a big … [Read more...]

Lest anyone should think me ungrateful, yesterday I wrote a list of things I was glad to learn in seminary.  You can read that piece here.  Today, I share the things that I missed in my theological education.    1. I wish I had learned that, like all professionals, good pastors make hard things look easy.  And work that looks easy is easy to under-appreciate.   When a pastor “effortlessly” makes welcoming remarks at a community event or leads worship with grace and ease—none of the hard work of preparation is readily visible.  Even pastoral visits that provide comfort and peace can be taken for granted on the grounds that, “We have such nice conversations—it’s not really work for her to visit me.”      2. I wish I had learned how important it is for pastors to give generously.  No one in seminary ever told me this.  Not my pastor, not the CPM, not my professors or field education supervisors.  I’m not sure why.  Many of them were deeply generous people.  I wish someone had pulled … [Read more...]

In seminary, I had terrific classes.  Old and New Testament, Church History, Theology, Pastoral Care, Hebrew, Greek and some handy German. Oh, I’ll see your Heilsgeschicte and raise you a Sitz im Leben.  In my current context, many of those power words might sound like what would land you on the prayer chain.  “Did you hear about Susan?  She had a midrash on her pericope.”  “Oh dear.”    Not all of what I learned translates to the congregational setting.  More than anything, the theology we studied, the history we covered, the friendships we made and the Bible we studied with a furious intensity and plenty of nuance seem to carry me over the cultural waves that are pounding the church I have only recently come to serve.  Seminary was foundational.  I am not hoping that it morphs to focus only on the technical.  But, here are a few things I wish I had learned.   1 - How to manage a successful non-profit Our church has a budget … [Read more...]