Who should train pastors?

M.D.s certainly have hospital training, but medical school (not to mention the pre-med undergraduate work) is largely academic.

Again, same as medical training, there is an enormous amount of academic training long before the student interns/clerks at a law firm.

In my experience, there was an intensive amount of academic work in my undergraduate degree program (a theological program) with an emphasis on serving in local churches. In my graduate program in seminary (SBC-Southwestern Seminary [the Dilday/Hemphill years]), there was a strong academic program with the expectation that students were serving in local churches.

I think that the person who invented that saying doesn't know much about medical school or law school.

I will concede that I ran into a few "ivory tower" academians in both my undergraduate and graduate theology programs, but I (and most other students) had enough sense to know how to take the good and discard the bad.

 

Most of my profs at SBTS had been pastors and/or missionaries and some were pastors while teaching. They were also academically well trained.

Bill

 

Being a DMin student at Southern has been a very rewarding experience because every professor we have had is either a pastor at the present time or has pastored in the past. This helps the academic experience greatly for those who desire to pastor.

 

In my mind those statements were probably spoken by a local church pastor who had some bone to pick with some Bible colleges.

We have a Bible Institute here in Mexico and all of the male professors save the music man and head director are pastors. However, the music man is a music director in one of our local churches and the director was church planter here in MX before becoming director.

 

Okay… They probably do medical and legal training differently there.

I can’t say I disagree. One of the problems in professional ministry today is that people equate book knowledge with spiritual authority and God’s sanction. What is most important is that a person is an apprentice (disciple) of Jesus and has his character transformed through participating in the Kingdom of God.

But by no means am I suggesting that seminary training is unimportant. God wants us to grow in wisdom and in knowledge so that we can be more effective witnesses in our culture.

My undergraduate program in theology had some training in these areas (there’s not much to it), but my seminary education did not even mention it.

Frankly, my undergraduate education was stronger than my seminary education.

That’s not a bad idea, but American churches don’t take kindly to the local seminary assigning students to them. Furthermore, in some areas like Fort Worth/Dallas, there are four seminaries which routinely train Baptist students and it is difficult to find “leadership” roles at local churches. Too many seminary students was to lead, but few want to serve in roles that may not get them noticed by pulpit committees of large churches.

A nit to pick…

If he’s preaching for “Paige Patterson”, then I suppose that could happen in Dallas. If he’s preaching at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary where Patterson is president, then he’s going to be in Fort Worth – a major city 40 miles to the west of Dallas.

 

My first Bible college was exclusively fresh seminary graduates, save one missionary that had to return due to health problems in the family. No experience of any sort.

Back then is was kind of a running joke that if you couldn't make it in the pastorate, you could always teach

I'm sure neither was true in bigger schools, but in the ones I was associated with it seemed to be.

 

A pastor works with various tools. Some of them are "practical" and no academician can teach those things the way someone can who's been in the trenches. But some of the tools are academic, and practical pastoral experience would help that teacher very little.

There is room for both kinds of teachers: those with pastoral experience and those without it.

 

Would several years of class room teaching with "academics" combined with a couple of years practical training with pastors be the key?

One could follow the other or they can occur alongside.

Of course the luxery of practical training before taking your own pastorate will not always be there, but I believe it is a benefit.

 

That's what a number of schools encourage.

My undergraduate theology program at a Texas Baptist university emphasized working in local churches, preferably in partnership with experienced pastors, in order to gain practical experience that would inform our studies.