#m.div

[aelstudies]

I scheduled my M.Div inquiry appointment!

It’s this coming Tuesday!! I am so excited and also nervous! This is the first step to getting my masters degree! Aaaayyy!

[cafn]

Seminary Scholarship

Just as the SeminaryScholarship says that “Going to Seminary is expensive,” indeed, it is very expensive. If you enroll for M.Div, it’s going to be even more costly due to its credit hours that is between 92-96. For a normal full-time student would take 4 years to complete the degree. There are certain things like housing and fooding are going to become a straw that breaks a camel’s back when you…

View On WordPress

[deepestpop]

Thoughts on Seminary

My personal views on seminary have changed a few times over the last 15 years. Most seminarians I knew were not relatable people. A 23 year old with loads of informations, little practical life experience, and a degree can be an obnoxious thing. Even more, they can be dangerous. My exclusive experience with seminarians was negative. They were obsessively embittered toward ideas that diverged from their own. They were Incredible egotistical in their certainty of things scripture is silent about. They believed themselves to more capable than those who came before them. It didn't matter whether these people were conservative or liberal in their theology. Either way they were rude, arrogant, and puffed up. Not unlike most other college kids or even myself at that age. However, their ego was wrapped in the language of God rather than soft sciences. 

I know it isn't fair to judge the seminary system based on a few dozen people. However, I did. I saw it as an intellectual pit where you learned systems and formulas and neglected the Spirit and the scripture. To me a seminary was nothing more than a way to mass produce intellectuals who dismissed the power of God and turned whole denominations into cemeteries.

I don't see it like that as much anymore. I think there are a number of reasons why seminaries aren't known for producing fiery men and women of great fruitfulness. I'll list some of my thoughts now.

Either a system is defunct or the expectations placed on that system are inaccurate. For instance, a seminary may be an excellent place in training the mind but not the right system to stoke fire in the heart. A seminary may succeed in training students in good exegesis but fail in making them men and women of the Spirit. You don't expect a manufacturing plant that produces cars to spit out iPads do you? Maybe we are expecting the wrong results. Here is what seminaries can not do.

1. Seminaries Don't Make Converts

 A personal conversion/experience/relationship with Christ is not necessary to perform academic functions. If you have the brains, the will, and the money you can get any degree in any field you want. You don't need a born again heart to graduate with honors from a seminary. You can be in a pastorate and not know Christ personally. If someone isn't spiritually alive in Christ and receives formal education only, how can we expect them to be passionate prophetic leaders?

2. Seminary Education Does Not Equate Discipleship

Jesus made disciples to whom He entrusted the mission of making disciples. He did not establish a school of religious thought. Which was in vogue at the time. He could of but he did not. Spiritual formation and Christian maturation occur in the whole of life. Seminaries can feed the mind but they do nothing to grow the spirit, emotional maturity, or character of their students. Discipleship is primarily learning to live a new life in and by the Spirit. One can be a convert and an M.Div or Th.D but not know how to walk in the Spirit. Browse the epistles and find how many commands are given to the saints. Then find how many of those commands are directly or indirectly connected by the apostles to the Holy Spirit and cooperation with Him. The whole of life in Christ is found in the Spirit. An educated leader isn't a spiritually sensitive one by proxy. It take sensitivity to the Spirit to lead, preach, disciple, pray, and it is this lifestyle that we are to model and impart to the next generation. Disciples can get degrees but a degree will never make a disciple.

3. Seminary Doesn't Require a Calling

Ministry is extremely difficult. Many are called but few are chosen. Many believers feel a call to ministry and many see seminary as a way of getting into their calling. Churches that decentralize their ministry and redistribute responsibilities to the congregation tend to see a decline in the number of people who feel called to vocational ministry. The bottom line is: If ministry is seen and done as part of ordinary lay life, the laity will not seek to become clergy. If leaders equip and release their own churches to function, laity is more likely to function at the level they are called to. If clergy is the only route to important ministry than more people will see vocational ministry as their calling. We have people who are ordained simply because ordination is required to do any and all ministry in the body. Ergo, you have a glut of people in official positions who aren't called to that level of ministry. Seminary as a system is not the most effective tool to sort that out. Everyone is educated the same. Call or no call.

4. Seminary Doesn't Negate Personal Choice

One can be taught all the right practices, given all the right tools ,taught all the right doctrine, but if fail to utilize any of it. Esiegesis is easier. Not praying daily and deeply is easier. Copying and pasting sermons, depending on tradition, living carnally, these are all easier than doing the right thing. A degree does not ensure that the student will continue to do the hard work once there is no more grading. Will the congregation confront you lack of prayer and passion? Is it even their place?

Seminary is not a panacea or magic bullet. If core elements of Spiritual formation are not in place, then an education isn't going to make up the slack. Cold hearted intellectualism is more likely to develop within someone who isn't matured in the Spirit. A failure to depend on the Holy Spirit will make it much easier to depend on text books, formularies, and ego.  

[mama-of-demons]

Every Day People Ask What I Am Doing With My Degree...

Things I consider:

Small Church Pastor

Ministry with people with developmental challenges

A denominational position

Campus ministry

ugh At least I've narrowed it down, right?

[eringuz]

Geek Out. Gonna FREAK out.

So I had a conversation with an esteemed religion professor of mine the other day. 

We had a serious talk about my future in regards to graduate schooling after Simpson, specifically topics like:

Taking the GRE (lame)

Geographical locations where I'd like to live (less lame)

Seminary & M.Div programs (ba-zinga!)

I heeded his advice about schools to look into, being mindful of his potential bias, but also taking into account his concern for my future academic success. Schools on this list included (but are not limited to & in no particular order):

Drew Theological Seminary

Boston University

Princeton

Vanderbilt

Duke

Perkins School of Theology

Garret Theological Seminary

Now I've been asked this question of 'What do you want to accomplish with going to seminary?' multiple times. And quite frankly, I don't really know. #honesty101

But what I do know is that I belong in seminary.

So today, I started to get serious......

I've had multiple conversations with the other USCRI interns about our futures, goals and aspirations, and after each candid talk, I always feel a little more uncertain about mine... (even though I'm the least stressed out about it). Today I was talking with Caroline about the GRE and other pointless but 'necessary' entrance requirements for schools, and I decided to actually start looking at some schools. I chose Vanderbilt off my list because they have a dual degree program that holds some interest to me.

Now I've looked into some of the schools on this list before, and what really sold them to me was the flexibility of their M.Div programs, their location and academic rigor/courses. I'm not particularly found of Tennessee, or Nashville for that matter. Too many cowboy boots and accents. But the second I laid eyes on the course catalog for Vanderbilt's Theological Seminary, I fell in love. Literally.

There's classes with titles called:

Christian Political Thought

Seminar in Shame & Guilt

The Economy of Salvation

Preaching in a Postmodern Context

Popular Music & Religious Identity

Faith & Film: The Horror, The Horror

Songwriting from a Theological Perspective

Gods, Rulers, Saints: Portraits in Roman & Christian Art

Race, Religion & Protest Music

Sexuality in the Hebrew Bible & Ancient Near East

Psychology of Ritual & Myth

And that's just to name a few of the ones that jumped out at me, JUST at Vanderbilt. 

Is it bad that I want to take ALL of them??

Does that mean I should go to seminary forever?

Can I actually do that? Please?

Holy, moly. 

I had a massive geek out session in one of the case manager's office, complete with awkward looks from other interns and snickers from the adjacent office.

Haters.

All of this is to say that I'm excited to further my religious/theological education. Why? Because it's interesting shit! Who wouldn't want to take a class on exploring popular religious horror films? Or understanding the psychodynamics of shame & guilt?

Yah, I would....

So when I talk to my mom about these schools and their awesome classes, and she shakes her head because she's wondering what her daughter is going to make of herself with that kind of seemingly useless knowledge, I'm going to have the satisfaction of knowing that I can't get an education like that anywhere else BUT seminary.

And I know it's going to be worth it.