Rowland Croucher (with Philip Hughes).

Abstract. 'As goes the seminary today, so goes the church tomorrow!'

We have examined what Australian 250 ex-pastors have said about seminary training - both in their spiritual formation and relevance in terms of vocational formation.

Rowland Croucher, who counsels clergy-in-transition and their spouses will offer some insights from an extensive body of anecdotal material. Philip Hughes, Director of the Christian Research Association, will summarize findings from John Mark Ministries' ongoing research into 'Why pastors leave parish ministry' - particularly the sections on these pastors' appraisal of their seminary experiences.

Many ex-pastors offer a negative/critical appraisal of their seminary experiences, which may be summarized as: 'My seminary training left me no closer to God at the end than at the beginning...' 'Whilst seminary was helpful for studying the Bible, Church history, biblical languages etc., I was offered few conceptual tools for handling many difficult parish situations...'

An important rider here: Most ex-pastors are somewhat-to- seriously disillusioned about Christian ministry - and many about the Christian faith. Their 'transference' of such negativity back to their seminary training may be understood in terms of 'scapegoating'. Other features of our self-selected sample may be relevant as well.

Nevertheless, this group has offered some important insights/ suggestions re effective training for parish ministry.

Note 1: the following is in undigested form. It contains more questions than answers. Following half a dozen seminars a paper on the subject will probably be published.

Note 2: When not citing others, I prefer to use the word 'pastor' rather than 'minister' to describe, generically, the office of the 'clergyperson' - for biblical and 'anticlericalist' reasons...

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POT POURRI (1)

Here are some statements/questions/issues I have heard in my counseling/consulting work with pastors and churches, during the last month:

# Uni graduate student: 'Pastor, in your sermon this morning you quoted Jesus' words about... I've been reading John Dominic Crossan, and he would not attribute those words to Jesus at all...'

# High schooler: 'Pastor, our Bib. Studs. class was debating the topic "Is Ghandi in heaven?" and we're divided three ways on the issue (yes, no, don't know). What do you think?'

# Middle-aged pastor: 'My seminary education in the 1970s did a marvelous job of preparing me for the church... of the fifties.'

# Female parish visitor: 'When is it appropriate or not appropriate to visit or counsel with someone of the opposite sex? Pastor, do you have some printed guidelines on all this?'

# Business executive: 'Throughout the business world these days we're discussing mission/vision/purpose/goals statements. Why isn't the church thinking along those lines too?'

# Christian University student to pastor: 'This postmodernism stuff - how does it relate to the way we are supposed to communicate the gospel these days?'

# Ex-associate pastor: 'How exactly would you define "spiritual abuse"? I think I was abused by the strong senior pastor I recently worked with.'

# A divorcee: 'My marriage fell apart, but if our minister had more skill, I think it could have been saved. Sure we were angry with each other, and said some awful things...'

# An elder: 'I think we should look carefully at Tom's nomination as elder. We know he's a declared homosexual, and is committed to celibacy, but he also admits to genital homosexual activity with various partners from time to time...'

# A human resources manager: 'At our work, we are constantly monitoring each other's performances. In the church, in my experience, no one's ever done that conscientiously. All the pastor needs to do is ask 20 perceptive people to list (anonymously if preferred) the pluses and minuses, the strengths and weakness of his/her ministry... I wonder why they never do that?'

# Well-read layperson: 'I heard that denominations which have better trained clergy (in a formal sense) are declining, numerically at least... and the denominations whose churches are growing have less well trained pastors. Why is that?'

# Frustrated pastor, in transition out of parish ministry: 'I've really blown it! The conflict in our congregation got out of hand, but I think if I'd had some conciliation training I could have managed it much better. Why did I study Greek for four years and Hebrew for one year - and never used them, except for an occasional peek into a lexicon? I could have learned how to use a lexicon and basic grammar in a three-week crash course. But I received nothing, nothing, on conflict management at seminary!'

.....

POT POURRI (2)

* What Scripture says about theological education: 'What you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others as well' (2 Timothy 2:2).

* A senior Catholic priest who has heard hundreds of confessions from clergy said: 'Why do clergy leave their vocations? Because they've stopped saying their prayers.'

* 'God takes 100 years to make an oak; three months to make a melon!'

* In Spain, a door-to-door evangelist was sent to seminary. He did not do any more door-to-door evangelism, and indeed ceased to do any evangelism...

* 'A survey made at Wake Forest College in North Carolina showed that clergymen are having nervous breakdowns more frequently than any other professional group, according to Time magazine. Why? I think I know. We are doing so much committee work and organizational work that we don't have time for God. We are suffering the same neuroses, facing the same emotional problems, using the same sedatives that the world is, when we ought to be setting an example of holy living' (Billy Graham, 'Training for Christ: a message to young workers' Decision, February 1962, p.15).

* 'Precise Taylor bought a Bible of the new translation, And in his life, he shew'd great reformation, He walked mannerly and talked meekly, He heard three Lectures and two Sermons weekly.'

And John Wesley demanded of his preachers that they do no less than five hours of study every day on Scripture and in the Christian classics.

* Rev. W.P.Nicholson, an Irish evangelist who preached to large crowds in pre-war Sydney, once said: 'Many of our theological colleges take our red-hot young men, place them in theological moulds, and when they are cold they turn them out.'

* 'Every mention of 'ministry' in the N.T. is associated with suffering'. (Indian missionary)

* A layman's letter to John Mark Ministries: 'In your para "Why?" I believe you have hit the nail on the head without intending to: "seminary training." I believe that requiring pastoral candidates to spend three or more years isolated in the artificial environment of a seminary cripples them for life and robs the ministry of its relevance and power. In order to promote a pastoral lifestyle which is both more powerful and relevant, as well as more enduring, I suggest you carefully look at alternative strategies to equip and release people for pastoral care.'

* Letter from a Catholic priest to The Bulletin, (February 12, 1991): 'Preaching, like celibacy, was a taboo subject in the eight years of Catholic seminary formation in the '60s and '70s: I can never remember one talk, lecture or training session on the subject of preaching... Rather, Catholic seminarians were given a few lessons just prior to ordination on how to pronounce vowels and consonants.' (A Griffith, Parkville, Vic.)

.....

INTRODUCTION: Much of the following has been moulded in discussion with pastors and ex-pastors as they have reflected about their seminary experiences. Most ex-pastors left parish ministry in the context of conflict. Many of them are disillusioned. Most of this is anecdotal. And it's by no means the last word.

Rowland Croucher in Melbourne (and elsewhere) and Les Scarborough in Sydney (and elsewhere) are talking to a pastor or pastor's spouse each day. They are also speaking to groups of pastors/leaders most weeks.

Rowland does more seminars than Les. Les is involved in more small groups work than Rowland. They both do a lot of one-to-one mentoring and counseling. Rowland talks in-depth to pastors and others over three- or four-day periods, as part of a residential program sometimes dubbed 'This is your life'. During these 6-8 session encounters, most would draw a thorough 'time-line' of their life, and write pages in their journal under such headings as fear/anxiety, guilt/shame, grief/anger, lifestyle/habits etc.

Here is a typical (abridged) conversation between Rowland, and a pastor (Bill) who has tendered his resignation from parish ministry, then had it withdrawn...

Bill: I've had it. I have no energy. I'm burned out...

Rowland: You're feeling emotionally drained?

B: Yes, it's like 'running on empty.' I'm fearful of the anger of my leaders, I wake up in the night and can't get back to sleep. My sex life's 'shot', and I'm generally at the end of my tether.

R. It's been a gradual decline - or did something precipitate these feelings?

B: No, gradual... [more discussion of symptoms]...

B: You know, I could never please my father. And I went into ministry wanting to grow a church and impress him that I could succeed at something. But the church starts to grow and something will blow up, families leave, and we're back to where we started. Actually, we're behind where we started, and I feel like I'm backing a loser...

[more discussion of family/personal history]

B: And I don't take a day off, I've never talked to anyone before about myself in this depth (I don't trust my denominational colleagues, I'm afraid)... I don't have a spiritual director - or even a close friend... Rowland, I'm a 'wounded healer', but who 'heals the healer'?

[and you can guess the rest...]

.....

You'll remember G.K. Chesterton's astonishment that many criticisms of the church of his day were diametrically opposed: the church was too warlike/ too passive; too optimistic or too pessimistic; too dominated by men or by women. His conclusion: the church is 'normal', but thin people said it was too fat, short people said it was too tall. Perhaps the critics were 'abnormal', not the church. (G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, Bodley Head 1908).

Is it also so with seminaries?

.....

Seminary rationales, curricula, pedagogical methods and clienteles are changing. With increasing accountabilities in modern organizations, seminaries are beginning to consult more with denominations and churches. More women and laypeople are pursuing theological degrees - as are many who are possibly pursuing a second vocation, and some are post-high school students doing a BTheol on Austudy. And these degrees include a more varied subject-spread (eg. the social sciences), more are getting cross-credits from religious subjects into other degrees, and more are studying part-time. More pentecostal/evangelical students are doing courses towards degrees conferred by American colleges/seminaries. More people are accountable to mentors in Supervised Field Education programs. More are doing post-seminary continuing education courses.

However, most seminary professors are male, and most church members are female. Most are Western, or Western-educated: more church-members are now non-Western. Most are oriented towards an academic, propositional way of viewing reality; most Christians have a narrational mode of discussing their reality.

A questionnaire sent to all practising Uniting Church of Australia (UCA) Ministers of the Word (223; 61% responded) and UCA Councils of Elders in South Australia (253; 65% responded) found that elders and ministers had different perceptions of the skills required by a parish minister:

Rank ordering of elders' perceptions of the skills required by a parish minister:

1. A person able to relate to people 2. A person who is spiritually mature 3. A person who can make the UCA work at parish level 4. A person who is pastorally skilled 5. A person who can and will preach the gospel 6. A person who can enable laity 7. A person who has the ability to teach and lead 8. A person who can administer and manage a parish.

Ministers' perceptions of skills needed for parish ministry:

1. The ability to nurture Christians through preaching, teaching and pastoring 2. The skill to establish the UCA at parish level 3. The ability to lead and facilitate lay leadership 4. The capacity to develop a church with a sense of future.

Footnote: 'The study revealed that 25% of ministers believed their training had been adequate; conversely only 11% said it was adequate. The remaining 64% responded that their training was only partially adequate'. (Jennifer Teasdale, 'Profile of a parish minister: Does theological education prepare a person for parish ministry?', Australian Ministry, November 1990, pp. 15-17).

WHY SEMINARIES?

I remember the first pastors' conference to which I was invited as principal speaker, back in the early 1970s. I didn't know these people or their denomination very well. So I asked these pastors to write down their two or three greatest frustrations in the practice of ministry, and collated the responses during the first morning coffee break. Two problem-areas emerged, way ahead of the others: the management of people and the management of time. I asked: 'How much help did any of you receive in your seminary training in these two areas?' None had received any help at all! No one could remember one single hour in their four-year course which addressed these two subjects! Which fuelled my wondering: Are seminaries there simply to help clergy-to-be and laypeople think better about theology, bible, history etc.? Or prepare candidates for parish and other ministries? 'Academy' or 'seminary'? Who decides? Is it fair to accuse seminaries of paternalism/elitism ('we professional theologians know what's best for you...')?

SEMINARY AND DENOMINATION

There is a general perception in many/most denominations that what is taught in theological seminaries equips poorly for parish experience (cf. Kenneth Dempsey: Conflict and Decline: Ministers and Laymen in an Australian country town, Sydney: Methuen, 1983). Should there be more involvement by and accountability back to the churches re curriculum matters? Has any theological college in Australia done a survey among their denomination's churches to ask what those churches thought the college should be doing? Many theological professors get somewhat defensive at that point ('We are always open to suggestions etc. - but usually do not operate proactively on this issue). On the other hand, the seminary should enjoy some 'prophetic autonomy' so that they can help the churches define a 'faith for today'.

SEMINARY AND CONGREGATION: A LOVERS' QUARREL? 'The connection between the faith of the members of the church and the faith of the "doctors of the church" was, up until the last two decades of the nineteenth century, an intimate and trusting one. But the way higher criticism was taught shattered this relationship, as ministers began to be trained in a faith quite different from their peoples'. (Leonard I. Sweet [provost of Colgate Rochester Divinity School, New York], 'Seminary and Congregation: A Lovers' Quarrel?', Leadership, Christianity Today, summer quarter 1984, p.105. [Reprinted from Theology Today, January 1984]).

Need for academic rigour vs. 'razzmatazz courses that will solve denominational difficulties' (Sweet, ibid. p.107). Academics do not suffer fools gladly: people in the pew often intimidated.

Establishment of D.Min programs is one attempt to connect seminary and congregation.

ACADEMY VS SEMINARY

To caricature the academy: it's a place that honours the search for truth and meaning via a Greek rationality, believe the rational is the most important dimension of life. But every theologian should take philosophy seriously.

Edward Farley has led the debate on the role of theology in seminaries and universities (Theologia, 1983; The Fragility of Knowledge, 1988; and, with Barbara G. Wheeler, eds., Shifting Boundaries: Contextual Approaches to the Structure of Theological Education, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991).

Robert Blaikie, noting that the Reformation insisted that Jesus was the only mediator between God and [humans] says: 'Today, therefore, when exalted claims are made for the critically trained academic clergy as the essential mediators of the truth of God to [us], then talk about the need for a New Reformation seems extremely apt. ...The Church today, if it is faithful to the principles of the Reformation and to the gujidance of the Living God, the Holy Spirit, will not continue to tolerate or approve a self-exalting hierarchy of would-be essential mediators-to-[us] of the truth of God.' ('Secular Christianity' and God Who Acts, Eerdmans, 1970, p.27).

'James Barr has... suggested that although those who have a good grasp of he original languages will always have a more accurate understanding of the biblical text than those who do not, 'it is unlikely that in more than a few special cases this knowledge will lead to a recognition of some Biblical conception which is vital to the understanding of the Bible, but which is invisible to the reader of the English Bible' (Biblical Words for Time, 1962, p.162). (Both quoted by Millard J. Erickson, 'The Church and Stable Motion', Christianity Today, October 12, 1973, p.5).

ARE CLERGY

# 'Learned ministers' (the Puritans)? # 'Masters of the common faith' (Glenn T. Miller)? # 'Pastoral directors' (H. Richard Niebuhr)? # 'Pastoral administrators' (Seward Hiltner)? # 'Sacramental persons' ()? # 'First and foremost, theological scholars' (Peter Berger)?

THE PRACTISING PASTOR'S TEN QUESTIONS:

(Theology) Who is God for me/us ? (Spiritual Direction) How can I really know this God ? (Psychology) Who am I ? (Ecclesiology) What's the church (for) ? (Hermeneutics) What is God saying ? (Call) What is my vocation ? (Mission) What in the world are we doing ? (Ministry) How do my vocation and mission mix? (Formation) How do I best prepare for this vocation? (Transformation) How do I become a Christifidelis (a follower of Christ in faithfulness) ?

'CARRY OUT YOUR MINISTRY FULLY' (2 Timothy 4:5 NRSV)

How is this done? The traditional charge to pastoral ordinands includes variations on the following:

# I solemnly urge you: 'Proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching' (2 Timothy 4:1-2)

# 'Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed' (2 Timothy 2:15)

# 'Rightly explain the word of truth' (2 Timothy 2:15)

# 'Give attention to the public reading of scripture, to exhorting, to teaching' (1 Timothy 4:13)

# 'Set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity' (1 Timothy 4:12)

# 'Be ready for every good work' (Titus 3:1)

# 'Be kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, patient, correcting opponents with gentleness' (2 Timothy 2:24,25)

1. THEOLOGY.

The pastor is Christ's contemporary interpreter, 'showing [people] the Father.' God is ruling over all: but sin disfigures the cosmos. God is still creating: so goodness is still inherent in his image within us and others. God is redeeming us: so God's people are transformed from one degree of glory to another.

Was it H. Richard Neibuhr who observed that theologians are usually right in what they affirm and wrong in what they deny?

If theology is 'faith seeking understanding' (or, 'intentional Christian reflection on important questions', as John B. Cobb Jr puts it) an important issue for seminaries is whether the work of many/most biblical scholars is shaped by the Christian faith of the scholars or by 'the state of the discipline and its new methods.' 'Faith seeking understanding: the renewal of Christian thinking', Christian Century, June 29-July 6, 1994, p. 642).

Elsewhere (Farley and Wheeler, op. cit.) Cobb notes the implications of theology understood as 'all reflection about important matters in which the Christian intends to be faithful' (quoted by Graham Slater, 'Theology and Ministerial Training', The Expository Times, October 1992, p.26).

2. SPIRITUAL DIRECTION.

As Alan Jones asks somewhere, 'Am I anyone when I am not doing anything?'

'The ideal educator,' wrote Arthur Koestler somewhere, 'acts as a catalyst, not as a conditioning influence'.

3. PSYCHOLOGY

4. ECCLESIOLOGY.

5. HERMENEUTICS.

As CSLewis said, 'If you cannot turn learned language into the vernacular, you either don't believe it or you don't understand it.'

In an article entitled 'Ivory Steeples? Are our theological and bible colleges out of this world?' (Third Way, October 1990, Vol. 12, No. 10, pp. 23), Mike Starkey quotes a Baptist minister, Peter Read, who complained that the 'post-Enlightenment Western model of education had profoundly affected the art of preaching: "The grammatico-historical approach is steeped in Hegelian principles. It results in the fact that most British ministers think in straight lines. It also means that most theological statements are sermons will bear this logcial stamp, crammed with concepts and ideas".'

Hermeneutics ought to be 'synchronic' as well as 'diachronic' - bridging gaps between contemporary groups and cultures as well as those between past and present (Mark K. Taylor, cited by Graham Slater, 'Theology and Ministerial Training', review of Edward Farley and Barbara G. Wheeler, eds., Shifting Boundaries: Contextual Approaches to the Structure of Theological Education, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991, in The Expository Times, October 1992, p.26).

6. VOCATION.

'Pastors commonly give lip service to the vocabulary of a holy vocation, but in our working lives we more commonly pursue careers' (Eugene Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1992, p.5)

One aspect of vocation: the pursuit of excellence (cf. the Family medicine program for General medical practitioners).

7. MISSION.

# One hundred years ago, New College Edinburgh, in one of its inaugural statements, solemnly affirmed its goals in the following terms: 'We leave to others the passions of this world, and nothing will ever be taught... in any of our Halls, which shall have the remotest tendency to disturb the existing order of things, or to confound the ranks and distinctions which now obtain in society' (Cited in Ralph D. Winter, ed., Theological Education by Extension, South Pasadena, California: William Carey Library, 1969, p. 39).

# The missio Dei: what is it? 'Preach the gospel and grow churches'? 'Empower the people of God to serve God in the church and in the world?'

# 'At a meeting [sociologist Peter Berger] and I were both attending, I made the statement that every Christian is called to engage in radical obedience to God's program of justice, righteousness, and peace. Berger responded with the observation that I was operating with a rather grandiose notion of radical obedience. Somewhere in a retirement home, he said, there is a Christian woman whose greatest fear in life is that she will make a fool of herself because she will not be able to control her bladder in the cafeteria line. For this woman, the greatest act of radical obedience to Jesus Christ is to place herself in the hands of a loving God every time she goes off to dinner.' (Richard Mouw, 'A Kinder, Gentler Calvinism', The Reformed Journal, October 1990, p.13)

# The sin of the middle class, as Martin Marty used to say to his congregation, 'is not in being middle class; their sin is not seeing through the limits of their class.'

8. MINISTRY.

'No chloroform can equal the sleep-giving properties of some ministers' discourses... If some were sentenced to hear their own sermons, they would cry out like Cain "My punishment is greater than I can bear"!' (C.H.Spurgeon, quoted in David Field, Approach to Theology, London: IVP, 1969, p.17).

9. FORMATION.

The question isn't 'Will we be morally/spiritually formed?' but 'Which community will form us?' Duke University's Stanley Hauerwas commented at a convocation on 'moral formation in theological education: 'We faculty don't dare to challenge the moral formation of our students out of fear that, if we challenge them, they might turn and challenge us' (Cited by William H. Willimon, 'Theological Education and Moral Formation, Christian Century, November 1988, p. 1088).

10. TRANSFORMATION.

Supervised curacy/residency in a local church.

ACADEMIC. Job of the seminary: teach people how to think Christianly. Are seminaries too tied in with the academic establishment? Who should be the primary credentialing agency for seminary teachers - the academy or the denomination? Academic fussiness (Freud called it 'the narcissism of small differences'). (A theologian talks about the God we all know in language no one can understand). Important that theological professors more intimate knowledge of the parish: always associated with a parish church in some capacity - even if a 'theologian in residence': run courses for church members.

DEVOTION. Seminaries, denominations and congregations have a common confession: 'Jesus is Lord!' 'They have taken away my Lord, and I don't know where to find him.' 'If the study of God does not bring one closer to God, what good is it?' (Sweet, ibid., p.106).

BIBLICAL CRITICISM. Divisive influence of biblical criticism hit more liberal/mainline denominations hardest. We must not let critical perspectives obscure the text itself. We read the Bible to meet the Word, not redactors or commentators. Over the text / under the text. Lectio divina. Some liberal scholarship has gone too far one way, the fundamentalists too far the other way...

'The fundamentalist would not subscribe to the principle enunciated by Vatican II that "truth is proposed and expressed in a variety of ways, depending on whether a text is history of one kind or another, or whether its form is that of prophecy, poetry, or some other typoe of speech"....' [But some educators and biblical scholars] 'have ignored the principle of Pope Pius XII that "the sacred books were not given by God to satisfy people's curiosity or to provide them with an object of study and research" (Divino Afflante Spiritu 51). An antidote to fundamentalism lies in better education so that people will not have an unreasonable fear of scholarship and critical approaches.' (Charles Hill, The Scriptures Jesus Knew: A Guide to the Old Testament, Newtown, NSW: E J Dwyer, 1994, p. 139).

Cognitive Dissonance: gap between what they once believed and what they are now challenged to believe (philosophical pressures); compounded by gap between what they believe and what their laypeople believe (pastoral pressures); gap between 'devotion' and 'criticism' (devotional pressures); gap between the general position of denomination / significant others and their own;

Lead very gentle into understandings of biblical criticism, and balance with devotion...

CONCLUSIONS:

'First, we need to shape the spiritual formation which takes place in seminaries and in ministerial training programs so that growth in the life of prayer and spiritual theology are placed at the centre...

'[Second], we need to recover a view of ministry which stresses the sacramental, charismatic, theological and prophetic roles more than the professional, managerial and organizational ones...

'Thirdly, we need to concentrate on building and nourishing a remnant, and to reject "multitudinism" and statistical notions of church growth...

'Fourthly, we need to build links between neighbourhood churches and places of spiritual leadership and nourishment (retreat houses etc.)

'Fifthly, we need to establish a framework of ascetical discipline, an ecology of the spirit... If the ministry of spiritual direction is to assume a central place in the life of the church, the changes involved will be major ones.'

- Kenneth Leech, Spirituality and Pastoral Care, London: SPCK, 1986, pp. 78-81.

Dag Hammerskjold: 'For all that has been, thanks! For all that will be, Yes!'