I just read an article from R. Scott Clark called "Why Pastors Need a Seminary Education" where he argues against distance learning options. I find his tone to be rather frustrating, but I would love to hear some thoughts from people who have spent some time considering this.

Why Pastors Need a Seminary Education

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Brandon
Portico Church (LBC 1689)
Los Angeles, CA

It seems that he is addressing those that are already Pastors and not those who are considering the pastoral field. I agree and disagree with him.

I think pastors should 'go off to seminary.' This allows them to focus on the work at hand. Being a Pastor is busy and is not just a 9-5 job. Seminary would provide the proper environment for learning and fellowship for the further study of God's word.

I disagree with him where those not already pastor's are concerned. I believe part of the role of the local church is to prepare ministers. Internet seminary would be very useful for this. Men who wish to receive ministerial training could do so through the auspices of their local church. The local church could set up class schedules and help provide the seminary materials. The individuals do the work and it is turned in collectively by the church to the seminary. This allows for men who due to other obligations do not have the freedom to go off to seminary, to stay at home and under their local church receive quality training. Of course I may disagree with him simply because I am setting up a program like this at my church.

Just my

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Brandon, here are some relevant discussions (including back and forth between Rev. Lewis and Dr. Clark.

Thoughts on Distance Education & The Ministry

Distance Reformed Colleges (not Seminaries)

Distance Ed and Accreditation

My Responce to Dr. R. Scott Clark

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Josh Hicks, Chloë's Daddy
Member of TRBC. My Blog
The Puritan Pub (Team Blog)
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I disagree with Dr. Clark's ideas regarding online schools.
There is no biblical warrant to pull someone away from his family and local church in order to study for the ministry.

I believe that seminaries have taken over a function that rightly belongs to the Church, training its members to minister in Christ's name. In my estimation the Church is the God-ordained tool that God uses for education, not the seminary.

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Larry Bray
Training for Elder - Reformed Presbyterian Church of Boothwyn, PCA
Boothwyn, PA - http://www.rpcb.org/

Free Online Reformed Seminary - http://www.tnars.net

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"The best Christian is still a poor Christian" - R.B. Kuiper

Found this quote in the first article:

Concerning pastor's going off to seminary, if they haven't before they are pastors will they have the time while serving as pastors? Or would it be better for him to step down from the pastorate and continue serving in the church? This way he would have time and still be a part of the church. Or maybe some other compromise?

Also, can Dr Clark generalize his views to apply to the whole world or are his opinions merely "Western?" To "go off" to seminary in some places without online training is to totally kill all Gospel witness in some areas when the pastor leaves the country in some cases to add largely useless credentials to his wall - in order to come back and do the same things he was doing before (which, in many cases, he never comes back). For the 3rd world pastor, first world education often wrecks their effective ministries in poor corners of the world.

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Pergamum


"If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?"
-- David Livingstone

With all due respect to Professor Clark, I would like to see the argument made from Scripture.

I think a more Biblical argument would be to say that future pastors need godly pastors/elders to sit under and learn the faith which accords with godliness.

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Taylor Otwell
Member -- Oak Cliff Baptist Church
Fort Smith, Arkansas, USA

Did we ever hear any cry out on their deathbed that they have been too holy, that they have prayed too much, or walked with God too much? – Thomas Watson, The Godly Man’s Picture

An historical problem with Prof. Clark's argument can be seen in the hundreds of Methodist churches in the South that began as 19th Century Presbyterian Church plants but quickly turned Methodist when supply could not be found.

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Benjamin P. Glaser
Pittsburgh, PA
Fairmount ARP Church
Student of Theology
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary
My Blog

"Nothing is sweet to me without the enjoyment of Christ in it." -- Thomas Brooks

Yes, his view would basically slow the spread of Christianity in parts of SE Asia and China where groups are popping up quicker than the supply of educated men to lead them.

A slower sustained growth with more depth would be the desired approach I guess, but God's movements cannot be counted on to last the 4-5 years of lapse when the most effective workers are removed from the field and placed in an ivory tower.

There are good ways for workers to continue ministry, even while feeding their educational needs. Distance learning is one of those as well as modular courses and TEE.

I incline toward RSC's position, although I allow for some room in my views for "distance" or "parish" training where these seem fit to the circumstances. But the question seems to be "what is the best way to do things?"

I am convinced that missionary work and church-planting is inseparable from pastor/elder training, and I think this pattern (along with the institution of "seminary") is biblical.

BTW, I see comments along the line that "Dr. Clark needs to offer a Scriptural argument," but no one has put forward their own "Scriptural" argument in favor of something else, and why it might be superior in one, or in many cases. Appealing to anecdote or pragmatism is insufficient.

As for the amount of time it takes to train pastors well, if the materials are weak, they much be improved, and if the foundation is built on weak materials, and the building falls over, what has been gained? Paul started his "Ephesian Seminary" in the context of a literate, Greek culture. And he trained a class of students for 2 solid years without a break. If it takes an illiterate culture 4-5 years, because their beginning students have to be raised first to be able to handle the material, so be it. Will not God provide?

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Rev. Bruce G. Buchanan
ChainOLakes Presbyterian Church, CentralLake, MI


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Ideally every pastor would have 5 years of solid education and a masters or a doctorate even. But these ideals compete with many other factors.

The "best" way under ideal circumstances often gets in the way of the best feasible option, all other things considered, when engaged in many other things.

Just a thought, what about the Apostle Paul's model where he went to the churches to train them, not the other way around?

I will not argue against seminary, nor will I argue against alternative pastoral preparation. I believe there is room for both. I am very wary of elitism within the church. It exists and is to be opposed at every opportunity. Seminaries are not a function of the local church, even if a particular seminary is supported by a church or churches. That said, not every local church is capable of training qualified men. We have to be careful about throwing the baby out with the bathwater on either end of the discussion.

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Bill Brown
Elder
Grace Baptist Church
Anne Arundel County, Maryland

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I'm curious to know where Paul did this?

I know he planted churches in many places, and most often he established them in places where he preached the gospel first in Synagogues, and out of them came the ready-made (already biblically knowledgable) eldership for the infant church.

I know he set himself up in Ephesus in the hall of Tyrannus, and for two solid years (besides regular worships, and church duties where he taught publicly and from house to house) he trained future ministers for the Asia territory--like Epaphras, who apparently later went to Colosse. We're told that "all Asia" heard the gospel message because Paul taught daily in one place for 2 years.

But I'm just wondering what texts specifically one would appeal to to demonstrate that Paul "went to churches" (didn't he like to go where no one else had laid a foundation?) to train men to be future ministers? Can you lay out the argument?

I would suggest that since the Scriptures tell us that the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim 3:15) that would be a good place to learn the truth.

I would further suggest that since the Bible prescribes the office of Elder for teaching the Church, there is sufficient evidence that God's way is to have the Church through its Elders educate its people.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not against seminaries per say. I simply think that they need to work alongside the local church since I believe that's scriptural.

Just look at my signature and you will see that i'm actually involved with a seminary (it's an online one). But we have constant contact with the student's local church while he goes through the program because we believe it's their role to have spiritual oversight of their members.

Bruce,

My comment was a general statement without any in depth study behind it. It just seems to me that the second generation of church leaders did not all go to specified places to learn from Paul, rather, he went to them. Your explanation of his methods in Ephesus appears to be a good counter to that idea. Thanks.

I don't this this is a fair assessment:

1. Paul took some of his students with him on tour, such as Timothy, Luke, John-Mark, etc.

2. Jesus ripped 12 men from their local lives for a three-year seminary education; was He disrupting the church?

3. Samuel established a "school of the prophets" also called a "college" in Isaiah; if prophets needed to be trained, how much more pastors?


Ignorant ministers lead to ignorant congregations. Ignorant congregations lead to a powerless church: my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, and so forth.

Cheers,

Adam

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Adam Brink, Grace Church of Pleasanton, PCA, Pleasanton, California

"Mark you this, Bassanio, The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart: O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!"

Antonio - The Merchant of Venice (Act 1, Scene 3)

Brandon,
I don't mind the comment. I just want us to conduct the discussion with appeals to the biblical data. There is a tendency today to blame seminaries for modern church troubles, and a facile assumption that the NT church is both radically different from us, and even opposed to many of our methods. E.g. some say we should "go back" to the house-church, as if it were the way the church is supposed to meet in every age. The way I read the NT, frequently there were meeting places patterned after the synagogue, not just home gatherings. And the homes would have to be the commodious dwellings of a few fairly wealthy, and not the average tenement. I mention this because the "new wisdom" challenging the "received wisdom" isn't always as full of brilliant new insight as is claimed for it.

I do agree that there is progression in means and methodology even in the early church. I think different situations call for sober assessment. The Mediterranean milieu of the 1st century was a part of the "fullness of time" and the scattered Jewish people served as the ideal "starter dough" for the new lump to get rising all over the place in a short period of time. The basic biblical literacy was there already, it only needed apostolic improvement. Apollos is just one example that we know of.

What Paul's time spent in Ephesus shows us is how the mature missionary Paul used even what he had probably learned in his first two missionary journeys when he instituted a "program" for minister training and church planting. The Apostles weren't going to live forever, and a new "ordinary" ministry was going to have to take its place. Ultimately, Timothy was given the oversight of the Ephesus work in all its pastoral and educational facets. I would have felt overwhelmed too, given all the responsibility of being "Sr. pastor" in that situation.

The OPC is engaged in various forms of missionary endeavor around the world. In Uganda, a significant part of the labor is focused on pastor-training. This is due to our belief that our work has a goal, and that goal involves leaving a mission field--when the job is done. "Finished" means a church that is self-sustaining and self-propagating and committed to the Reformed Faith.

The important thing, I think, is to stay principially driven. Missions isn't always going to look exactly the same from place to place. No doubt there will be places and occasions where "distance" and "mentorship" training are practically the only options. I'm OK with making those judgments.

But we shouldn't scoff at seminaries, as though they are just a "cultural" thing, a dispensable thing, maybe even a detriment to the church, or to church-planting. The feasibility of creating a pastor-training institute early on in a missionary endeavor should be considered at least as much as any other aspects of the mission. Certainly, if Apostle Paul is any guide.

Thanks for your thoughts Bruce, I appreciate it.