Five Things I Didn’t Learn in Seminary

Ministry is like walking with a bucket. A bucket has a lot of uses: You can add solids and liquids to a bucket. You can use a bucket to sit on or to stand on. You can pack your tools in a bucket and use your bucket as a tool. 

Seminary training is one of those tools to put in your ministry bucket. Seminary training is crucial for the pastor and aspiring pastor. I’ll stop short of calling it “essential,” as some of the finest pastors I know do not hold seminary degrees. But as for me, I committed 20 years ago to get as much seminary education as I possibly could. I was saved when I was nineteen, so I didn’t grow up attending Sunday School and church every Sunday. To learn as much as I could and be challenged in my beliefs, I knew seminary was essential, at least for me. It was a tool I needed in my bucket.

I love my seminary experience. I love it so much that I’m still learning in pursuit of a Doctorate. Even with a “terminal degree,” I fully confess that seminary can only teach a person so much. Some lessons that we learn in ministry can only be learned on the frontlines. 

Many of these lessons I learned 14 years ago when I became an Associate Pastor. Some of these lessons I’ve learned in just the past year. And while I’m confident I could add ten more lessons, I present Five Things I Didn’t Learn in Seminary.

I Didn’t Learn How to Cry one Minute and Rejoice the Next in Seminary.

There are dramatic emotinoal swings in ministry. Even within an hour, those swings can be polar opposites. While it’s not an everyday occurrence, there have been days when I will rejoice with one family over some ecstatic news they just received and cry with the next family over their devastating news. I’ve left one house after crying with a family over a medical diagnosis, only to show up at an event and speak with a smile less than an hour later. Ministry is challenging for several reasons…its emotional swings are one of them.

I Didn’t Learn How Different One Day Would Be From The Next in Seminary.

If you expect to graduate from Seminary and sit in an office at a boring and predicitable job, ministry may not be for you. Ministry looks vastly different day to day. Sometimes ministry looks like laboring over a sermon by pouring into study. Sometimes ministry looks like a day spent in nursing homes visiting the sick. Sometimes ministry means spending the day with kids at VBS and Camp. Sometimes it means helping a member move because their landlord kicked them out. Sometimes it means helping a married couple rediscover the joys of marriage. Sometimes it means advising a woman to leave because her husband is abusive. Sometimes ministry means cleaning toilets and taking the trash out. Sometimes ministry means uncomfortable meetings with someone who thinks you are doing the work of the devil. Sometimes ministry means leading a person to Salvation in Christ; sometimes it means mourning over one who left. Every day is different, and most days are unpredictable.

I Didn’t Learn The Spiriutal Significance of Rest in Seminary.

A good friend and pastor once told me there are seasons in ministry. Sometimes you’ll work 80 hours a week and still not get everything accomplished. Other times you’ll be done with the week after 30 hours. The trick is to take advantage of the light week because you know the heavy week is coming. I freely admit that I am not good at rest. Some months the busyness of ministry is unavoidable. June has been one of those months. We started the month in Mexico on mission, returned to serve in VBS for a week, and left immediately the following Sunday after Services for a convention in New Orleans. Looking ahead, July and August are much more relaxed (on purpose). But, if I’m being honest, even that makes me uneasy. I’m just not good at rest, but I realize how needed it is.

I Didn’t Learn That Thick Skin is Never Thick Enough in Seminary.

Question: What do you get when you put two or three Baptists in a room?
Answer: Four or five different opinions. 😉 

Everyone has an opinion on what the pastor should say, do, think, how he should dress, and what he should be most concerned about at the moment. Sometimes people can say some unkind things in an effort to persuade. Sometimes these opinions can bring criticism and to be sure, sometimes, the criticism is justifiably deserved. The point here isn’t about criticism, but what criticism reveals about the pastor: insecurity. When someone brings a complaint or a criticism, our first instict is to defend ourselves and remind the world why we are right and they are wrong. But this is often our insecurity talking and not refelctive of our best moments in ministry .

I often remind our Pastoral Trainees that insecurity has no place in the life of a pastor. Satan will expose our insecurities quicker than a Baptist can schedule a potluck. And therein lies the rub: Insecurity has no place in the life of a pastor, and yet everyone has insecurities. So how does a pastor respond? By recognizing those insecurities and being secure enough to admit he has them. Honesty about insecurities is one way to guard against the personal devastation that Satan can bring when criticism comes our way (i.e. “You know, they’ve got a good point about that…” OR, “I hear what you’re saying, but I disagree and that’s ok”) and the congregational destruction that pride can bring when pastors pridefully and arrogantly reject all criticism (i.e.”How dare they say that!)

A second way to guard against the pitfalls of insecurity for the pastor is to remember that not every crticism deserves a response. Not every complaint is personal. And not every issue is a hill to die on. Sometimes you grin and bear the crticisms, sometimes you accept the criticism and work for change and other times you confront the critic. But you can only die on a hill one time. Choose which one you’d like to die on.

I Didn’t Learn How Important It Is To Avoid pragmatism at Seminary.

There are LOTS of ways to grow a church or ministry pragmatically. You could give stuff away, host a big event each month or even cater to the public opinion of the masses. A professor once told me (in a mocking/joking/not serious kind of way) that the quickest way to achieve a high-attendance Sunday is to give every person attending $100. Yup, that’ll do it! We can burn through $50,000 real quick only to see empty pews the following Sunday.

We dare not seek to grow the Lord’s Church in a quick-fix, pragmatic way. And we dare not use numbers alone to define success. Numbers are a part of the story, but they are not THE story. Instead, we approach the Lord through His Word and discover HOW to function as a church in a systematic and simple way: How do we do this? We Worship Together, Fellowship Together, Study the Word Together, Go On Mission Together, Serve Together and Pray Together. And Sunday after Sunday do three things: Preach the Word, Pray to the Lord, Worship the King. In other words, make Jesus the Star of the show and do what He says in the Word.

To be successful in ministry requires only one thing: Obedience to the Lord. I believe the seminary tries to teach this, but it’s something pastors must learn in the struggle with pragmatism.

When attendance surges, we do not claim success.  
When attendance falters, we do not claim failure. 

When offerings exceed budgets, we do not claim success
When offering fall short of budgets, we do not claim failure.

When someone pays a compliment, we do not claim success.
When someone offers criticism, we do not claim failure.

We only use one variable to determine success: OBEDIENCE

Are we obedient to the Lord?
Are we obedient to His Word?
Are we obedient to do what He has asked us to do?
If we answer yes, we succeed. 
If not, we evaluate how we left our first love (Rev. 2:4), repent and get back to Him quickly.

To this end, I’ll grab all of my insecurities, throw them in my ministry bucket and carry on in ministry.
To the bucket I’ll add all the compliments and complaints; Busy days and less busy days; Hard days and easy days, seminary degrees and lessons from the front lines, and I’ll keep walking on the path the Lord blazes for me, wherever He leads. As the old hymn says, “Wherever He leads I’ll go. (with my bucket in hand) Is that how that hymn ends? 😉