Do Seminaries Ruin Young Men?

Seminaries and Bible colleges are dangerous places, they ruin potentially good ministers!

This isn’t the time to hole up in a classroom listening to long lectures while pouring over tomes written by men with long beards who lived in a previous age and have no idea how to deal with the problems of contemporary society.

Take a young man who has potential, who wants to serve in the church, who has started to preach, even if his sermons are poor, send him off to study theology and he’ll come back spouting off quotes from all kinds of obscure authors. He’ll lose his desire to do any real ministry and instead waste his time arguing about things like dispensationalism, sacerdotalism, and supralapsarianism.

It’s true some people go off to seminary and never really come back. They read volumes of books, write papers and return with a head full of knowledge but they’re still unprepared for ministry. While it’s tempting to blame the seminary or the Bible College for this problem there are a lot more factors at play here.

We Expect too Much

Part of the problem is that we expect seminaries to do far too much. Yes, we understand that seminaries are supposed to give their students theological training. But we want them also to come back fully mature and with enough experience to enter ministry without additional help from us.

This just isn’t the case! You see there’s something called spiritual growth and seminary can’t give you that. Yes, when I was in seminary I took a class on spiritual growth, it was helpful but it didn’t result in complete spiritual maturity and I don’t think it was supposed to.

Spiritual growth is much more the responsibility of the local church than it is the responsibility of a theological institute.

Theology Divorced from Practice

One of the biggest dangers for a young minister is to divorce his theology from his practice and life experience.

Speaking of on this problem Spurgeon writes:

“To many men it might well seem that the Word of God had become petrified, for they receive it as a hard, lifeless creed, a stone upon which to sharpen the daggers of controversy, a stumbling-block for young beginners, a millstone with which to break opponents’ heads, after the manner experienced by Abimelech at Thebez. A man must have a stout digestion to feed upon some men’s theology; no sap, no sweetness, no life, but all stern accuracy, and fleshless definition. Proclaimed without tenderness, and argued without affection, the gospel from such men rather resembles a missile from a catapult than bread from a Father’s table. Teeth are needlessly broken over the grit of systematic theology, while souls are famishing.”

Where does the tenderness and affection come from? It comes from real life experience and practical application of the truths being taught.

Seminaries usually do a good job of teaching theology and sometimes they do an OK job of giving practical experience to their students but it’s really not their forte.

Where can a student get this practical life application and experience?

Once again I think the responsibility comes back to the local church. Churches must be ready and willing to let these young men and women serve as outlets of what they are learning in the classroom.

Some Aren’t Called to the Ministry

Could it be that some of these men and women who go off to seminary are not called to full time ministry? A love for studying theology or reading books or even preaching does not automatically mean a person has been called by God into full time ministry.

Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that a seminary education equals a call to ministry. I can think of many occasions in ministry where someone has told me “So-and-so over here went to the seminary so they can preach or they teach that class.” Going to seminary doesn’t automatically qualify you or mean you have a gift for teaching or preaching.

And Then There’s Sin

Sometimes sin just gets in the way. It’s not always a big moral failing, sometimes it can be as simple as the sin of laziness, the sin of pride, the sin of a lack of faith.

Often it is family issues like problems with a spouse or difficulties with the children that can keep a person away from the ministry. Despite the best seminary education those sins can easily make their way into the life of a young minister.

What Can the Church Do?

I’m not saying that seminaries are never at fault, unfortunately, there are some schools out there that could do more damage than good. So, yes, we have to carefully look at the schools, however, I think the church can and should do a lot more to ensure that our young people are prepared for ministry.

One of the best things that a church can do is to establish a mentoring program. Both when I was in Bible College and when I was in seminary I was involved in a mentoring program in the local church.

In Bible College the program was called PiT (Pastors in Training). I’m so thankful for how my pastor took a group of about half a dozen young people who are preparing for the ministry. He had us over to his house often, where we would just talk about ministry, about the problems, and the struggles. I found lots of nuggets of wisdom during those meetings. He also made sure that each of us got practical experience in various ministries.

When I began seminary I also found myself in a church where the pastor (who happened to be my father also)  took the time to focus on making sure that those who are studying in seminary could also receive practical training within the local church.

Again we regularly met together for fellowship and for advice in life and ministry. In addition to this he also gave us ministry responsibilities and carefully oversaw our progress. This was of immeasurable value. By the time I graduated from seminary I had already well over half a dozen years of pastoral experience under my belt.

Looking back I can’t imagine how I could have been prepared for ministry without this hands-on experience in the local church.

Question: What do you think churches can do to ensure that their young people are not ruined by theological institutions?