Don't Get Stuck At College

 

From My Mailbag: Don’t Get Stuck at College

 

Currently, on my blog, I am working my way through a long list of unanswered correspondence. Today’s question involves young men entering the ministry:

“I’d love to hear your thoughts on how to create a more effective pathway from Bible college to ministry, particularly the pastorate. A common concern seems to be that students attend Bible college but remain in that college town rather than entering ministry.”

I absolutely agree that this is a problem. It was in my Dad’s day. He graduated from Tennessee Temple University in 1973. It was in my day. I graduated from Hyles-Anderson College in 1995. I have good friends on the faculty and administration of seven different Bible colleges, and they will readily admit it is still a problem. In fact, they contend that the problem is worse now than it was in my father’s generation or in mine. As a society, we are producing young men who are more immature than previous generations. (We could discuss the causes of that in other posts, perhaps.) Nevertheless, it is factual. I believe this significantly contributes to the finish-but-never-begin trap that so many young ministers fall into.

I do not know that I have the solution, but after kicking the question around with some preacher friends, I offer the following nine suggestions to help counter it. I am going to be blunt. If you do not like it, you can be blunt back. I can take it.

 

1) Attend a local church Bible institute or similar type of program.

 

I could name a dozen off the top of my head. There are probably several hundred of these types of ministries in local churches across the country. For most men, especially married men, this is an excellent way to prepare for the ministry.

The old knock on them was two-fold. First, you cannot get a good theological education in such institutes. I disagree. I personally know many men who came out of such local church institutes. They know as much theology as I do. The internet has leveled the playing field here. Second, you cannot catch a vision for what God can do in a big way if you attend a small church. Curiously enough, the Apostles managed to catch a large vision without being schooled in a large ministry, did they not? If you get around Jesus, He will be all the vision you need.

Not every pastor is willing to undertake the enormous work required to prepare other men to pastor, nor should every pastor. Frankly, not all pastors are capable of it, in my opinion. But hundreds and hundreds of them are. Find one that is willing to take you under his wing, do your homework to make sure he will train you well, and then soak it up.

 

2) Attend a college that allows students to choose local churches.

 

Every institutional design, like every person, has strengths and weaknesses. The old Bible Baptist College (Springfield) model excelled in this area specifically. Yes, it was an independent Baptist college. No, it was not based out of one particular local church. Instead, it was governed by a board composed of pastors from several local churches. Because of this, when the student enrolled in college, he had to choose an approved independent Baptist church within driving distance of the school to attend and serve in. There are several independent Baptist colleges currently that are structured this way, including the one I will join this summer. 

This method of operation serves up two advantages, one negative and the other positive.

Negatively speaking, the student does not become entangled in the mesh of a big/successful/attractive church. Such large churches are enormously sticky. They retain drop-out college students like the Shamwow retains water. Instead, he serves in a typically sized church. In fact, he can change churches from year to year if he so chooses. The available churches are usually similar to the one he attended back home. He does not see his college church as better, let alone as the gold standard. Consequently, he never comes to look down on the church he came from.

On the positive side, the student usually retains a closer relationship with his home church as a result. He is not pressured to remain at the big college church over the holidays or the summer to maintain his ministry. (I could tell you some stories there, but I digress.) If he does not finish college, or if he finishes and cannot find an immediate place of service, it is natural for him to go back home to discover what is next. The only thing holding him in place geographically was college. College is done. Now it is time to move on.

 

3) Attend a college that does not hire its own graduates immediately.

 

One of the benefits to the large local church that hosts a Bible college is the feeder churches – I do not like that term, but it fits in this context – send their best young people to it. The leadership of the college church gets to watch as these young people develop. Such churches are always hiring staff. They often literally choose the best of the best and immediately plug them into leadership positions within the college church’s ministries.

Elsewhere, I have argued that this is a highly damaging strategy in the long term. Young men should not be trained for ministry by men who have precious little real church experience. It took me years to overcome the weaknesses aggravated in me via such training. Young men should be trained by men of deep experience in the Lord’s work. But my point here is that the potential Bible college student can choose to avoid colleges that go the route of hiring their own graduates immediately. This prevents him from even having to deal with the temptation to stick around, hoping to land the big church or college staff job. His college does not function that way; he has to move on if he wants to enter ministry.

 

4)Attend a college that prioritizes pioneering a work.

 

I am a big believer in drinking from good wells dug in previous generations, but every generation of Christians needs to dig its own wells. Every generation needs to write hymns, plant churches, pen commentaries, and birth ministries. The colleges that train our young men need to embrace this. If all we do is furnish the equivalent of replacement troops, we will never advance the cause of Christ.

Inculcating a pioneering spirit helps to inoculate young men from sitting around waiting for someone to hand them a position. Young men have energy and enthusiasm. Throw a dart on the map and go plant a work there. Okay, not really, but you get my drift, I think.

 

5) Attend a college that embraces bivocational ministry.

 

I am mystified at this, utterly mystified. Bivocational, covocational, part-time – call them whatever you will, such pastors and staff men are not second-class citizens. Paul was a tentmaker, for crying out loud.

Saint Paul Working As A Tentmaker
by Pietro Santi Bertoli, c 1550

Bivocational ministry does not hold a man back from reaching his potential. I would argue it can develop him spiritually in necessary though unseen ways. Bivocational ministry cures you of big-shot-itis. It humbles you. It teaches you to learn to deal with people carefully because you cannot afford to lose them. It forces you to learn to build well rather than quickly. And it allows the growing/struggling church to use its money to purchase property and erect buildings faster than could be done otherwise.

In my first five years in the pastorate I was bivocational. I do not look down on such men. I respect them whole cloth. When we teach young men that, we signal that it is okay for them to take that route, too.

 

6) Attend a college that highlights faithful pastors.

 

I confess I can be a bit jaded at times. I am conscious of that, and conscious that I might become one of those old, cynical men if I am not careful. Having said that, the older I get, the less I care about a pastor’s accomplishments in ministry and the more I care about his life and how well he handles the Word of God.

That last sentence may be where I am at, but it certainly is not where most of the independent Baptist movement has been for most of my life. I well remember being 17 and hearing a well-known preacher say, “In fundamentealism, if you reach 500, you have a voice; if you reach 1000, you must be platformed; if you reach 2000, you cannot do any wrong.” In entirely too many places, that mindset still exists, even if it is not expressed so crassly anymore.

Find a college that believes in bringing in men as a result of their decades of faithful service rather than the number they are running in Sunday School. The latter is hollow over time, feeds the minister's vanity, and so often brings him to destruction. It also sets before the young minister a mostly unattainable and always unbiblical model of ministry to emulate.

Young men preparing for ministry need to hear regularly from and be around veterans of such service, regardless of whether they are well-known in their circle or not. This constant stream of men who are unknown yet well known in Heaven will set before their eyes both a realistic philosophy of ministry and a biblical goal of what they ought to strive to be.

 

7) Keep your home pastor deeply involved.

 

For myself and too many of my contemporaries, when we left for Bible college, we left our home church behind. We went back only rarely to visit. When we did, we found our church had moved on without us. At the same time, we were building our own life elsewhere. Also, at the same time, our home church pastor, having more than enough irons in the fire, often lost sight of us.

The pastor and the Bible college student need to each do their part in this relationship to ensure this does not happen. The pastor needs to regularly reach out to the Bible college student while he is away and continue to prioritize spending time with him when he is back home. The student needs to continue to view his home church pastor as his pastor and consequently involve him in every decision of consequence. This prevents the student from falling through the cracks when he is struggling. His pastor knows him and knows how and when to call him on it. In addition, the pastor is invested, literally, and he wants to see a return on his investment. It is also good for the home church to see as well.

I accept that there are cases, too many of them, where the home church pastor changes while the student is away at college. But even in those situations, the incoming pastor and student can work together to build a relationship to replace the one lost. My assistant pastor is the fruit of such intentional relationship building. I am glad I took the initiative and the time to build that relationship. I am glad he reciprocated. He and I and our church are all the stronger for it.

 

8) Take as many mission trips or internships as you can.

 

Bible college students are infamous for getting tunnel vision. They often can only see what is directly in front of them. Class, class, class, chapel, class, work, sleep, repeat. Finish the projects. Find a way to pay for it. Give your heart away in a ministry on the weekend. Find a life partner. Get a diploma, by hook or by crook.

Several problems result from such tunnel vision. For one, when a student experiences a serious setback or failure in this process, he often thinks of himself as a failure en toto. Ergo, the only reasonable choice is to quit. For another, his mind and heart can be so captured by the big church ministry he is in that he fails to structure his relationship with that church as temporary. It becomes semi-permanent. Then permanent. Then concrete.

When you tear yourself away from that life for a mission trip or a summer internship, you put your college career into the proper perspective. You see it for what it is: training. You remind yourself of what motivated you to surrender to the ministry in the first place, the need of the world for Christ, and of each neighborhood and town to have a good church. You insert yourself into some such mission field or church for a period, and you return to your college life inspired to finish so you can move on to the next step.

Such things are not as easy as they sound. The student’s checking account may make this seem utterly impossible. The church’s previous experience with interns who made some serious mistakes may make them gunshy. But like the rest of the Bible college student’s preparation, though it is difficult, ‘tis eminently worthwhile.

If I had interned in a normal church post-college or even during college, it would have helped me immensely. It would have spared me some of the struggle, failure, and frustration of my early years in the pastorate. I encourage every young person preparing for ministry to do it, or something similar.

 

9) Remain nimble.

 

I could not think of a better, more succinct phrase. What I mean here is that the Bible college student’s life is usually relatively simple when he begins his preparation. He or she is single. They have no debt. They are in good health. They have support from the home front. They are set up for success. Fast forward a few years, and what do we often find? Premature serious romantic relationships that complicate everything, especially if they get married too soon. Debt from “necessary” car repairs and school bills. A stressed and insolvent emotional bank. A support system that has largely forgotten the student just when he needs them the most.

The Calling of Samuel
by Joshua Reynolds, c 1776

Every spiritual casualty is unique, but many share common traits. The largest of those similarities falls along these lines. The student struggled financially. The student married too soon. No one back home notices the impending crisis. He drops out, or “takes a year or two to get things settled”, a year or two that becomes decades.

Structure life in such a way that if God called you to the ends of the Earth, you could go almost immediately. Keep it that way.

 

In closing, I want to add that I expect your list of suggestions, if you made one, would look somewhat different than mine. I welcome hearing your thoughts on the subject, whether on the blog site, via email, or on a social media post. The conversation is bigger than me, and worth having. So speak up if you have something worthwhile to say. It will help