Leaving Seminary?

[jjraby]

How do most people view people who leave Seminary because they have examined themselves and prayed and do not or no longer feel called to professional ministry? I would guess that's preferable than having a Pastor who's unsure about whether or not he wants to be there. Thoughts?

 

[athanatos]

I think most people would view someone as realizing he is less spiritual or less religious. I am reminded of thinking about something similar when reading the thread "What Are You Reading?" someone was reading a book called Waiter Rant, and it was originally written anonymously by a waiter who dropped out of priesthood.

 

[jjraby]

That's what i'm worried about. I am more than likely leaving seminary after this semester. I have just been examining myself and realize I am not cut out for professional Ministry. As in, I'm do not think i'm called to being a pastor. One of the professors here is very gracious when he talks about people leaving seminary because he realizes its a huge deal, and doing it when you have reservations is probably a recipe for a disaster down the line. I am worried that Unbelieving friends and Family members will view it negatively. For example, They will think i'm somehow not as Christian as i used to be or I'm not a spiritual or something. Just some thoughts...

 

[Jack K]

If all I heard was that a guy dropped out, there are so many possible reasons that I don't think I'd assume anything.

If I heard he'd decided, prayerfully, that he was not called to professional ministry... I would think it's a good thing that examining his call was important to him and probably a wise and God-honoring move to drop out. I would also think the seminary education he'd received to that point would still be a benefit to him and his church going forward. Personally, I would NOT assume anything bad about him or that he was going through any scandalous spiritual struggle or something. I guess he might be. But I wouldn't assume it.

---------- Post added at 01:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:54 PM ----------

I am worried that Unbelieving friends and Family members will view it negatively. For example, They will think i'm somehow not as Christian as i used to be or I'm not a spiritual or something.

At first, some might misunderstand it this way. But eventually most will come to see your decision as stemming from spiritual humility, and as a sign that you put God's call on your life ahead of personal reputation and achievement. In this, your life would witness well to the power of the gospel.

 

[torstar]

Try to finish what you started, it speaks well of you to do so, more than you can imagine.

Unless it is really really really intolerable or impossible to complete.

Or have a solid Plan B in the works.

 

[jjraby]

Thanks for the wise answer Jack

---------- Post added at 02:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:11 PM ----------

Try to finish what you started, it speaks well of you to do so, more than you can imagine.

Unless it is really really really intolerable or impossible to complete.

Or have a solid Plan B in the works.

THe problem with that is, It costs money. I do not want to spend the next 2 years spending money for something that I do not enjoy or that i don't want to do as a career. Also, I have a wife who's supporting me because I cannot work full time. I do not want my wife supporting me for a degree that i don't want to use or do not enjoy. I already have a Plan B also..

 

[torstar]

Thanks for the wise answer Jack

---------- Post added at 02:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:11 PM ----------

Try to finish what you started, it speaks well of you to do so, more than you can imagine.

Unless it is really really really intolerable or impossible to complete.

Or have a solid Plan B in the works.

THe problem with that is, It costs money. I do not want to spend the next 2 years spending money for something that I do not enjoy or that i don't want to do as a career. Also, I have a wife who's supporting me because I cannot work full time. I do not want my wife supporting me for a degree that i don't want to use or do not enjoy. I already have a Plan B also..

Fair enough, ponder and pray and then make the wise move.

 

[py3ak]

I wouldn't let how other people might perceive it be a determining influence in what you decide to do.

If you are convinced God hasn't called you into the ministry, why pursue it? If someone has a problem with that, they must think everyone is called; and if they think everyone is called, they probably don't think seminary is a necessity anyway.

 

[fredtgreco]

Thanks for the wise answer Jack

---------- Post added at 02:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:11 PM ----------

Try to finish what you started, it speaks well of you to do so, more than you can imagine.

Unless it is really really really intolerable or impossible to complete.

Or have a solid Plan B in the works.

THe problem with that is, It costs money. I do not want to spend the next 2 years spending money for something that I do not enjoy or that i don't want to do as a career. Also, I have a wife who's supporting me because I cannot work full time. I do not want my wife supporting me for a degree that i don't want to use or do not enjoy. I already have a Plan B also..

I would give serious consideration to getting an M.A. as a terminal degree if you don't want to get an M.Div (which is a pastoral degree). You could even finish up over some time via distance.

 

[jjraby]

Thanks for the wise answer Jack

---------- Post added at 02:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:11 PM ----------

Try to finish what you started, it speaks well of you to do so, more than you can imagine.

Unless it is really really really intolerable or impossible to complete.

Or have a solid Plan B in the works.

THe problem with that is, It costs money. I do not want to spend the next 2 years spending money for something that I do not enjoy or that i don't want to do as a career. Also, I have a wife who's supporting me because I cannot work full time. I do not want my wife supporting me for a degree that i don't want to use or do not enjoy. I already have a Plan B also..

I would give serious consideration to getting an M.A. as a terminal degree if you don't want to get an M.Div (which is a pastoral degree). You could even finish up over some time via distance.

Thats a good idea, I might do that. However, My plan is to get another masters at a University. That will take me a year so i might finish after that year

 

[Dwimble]

I started seminary a few years ago a little before adopting our first child, and I quickly realized that I simply let my heart get ahead of my head, so to speak. My desire was to help children and orphans, maybe go to China, do missions work, or the like. I leaped into that thinking that of course I should first be trained (which means go to seminary, doesn't it?). Shortly before getting our daughter I began to realize it wasn't for me...and after getting her I KNEW it wasn't. As I said, I had let my heart get ahead of my head. Seminary was completely unnecessary for me. I wasn't called to be a pastor, or anything like that...I never thought I was. And I was already helping children and orphans, sponsoring missionaries, sponsoring lots of children, participating in a mentorship program for at-risk kids, advocating for others, adopting two children, and the like.

I've never looked back and never been overly concerned about what people will think of me for leaving seminary. A few times I've wondered if a specific person or two might view me as being unreliable or that I don't follow through with my commitments, but down deep I know that's actually just my own pride talking. What's important is whether or not I am honoring God and doing what he would have me do, and I firmly believe that I am now.

 

[FenderPriest]

I left seminary work at Westminster here in Philly, not so much because I didn't feel I was called, but because in my own soul I felt that there were character issues God was drawing attention to that demanded my time instead of honing my academic skills. Moreover, WTS isn't set up to accommodated part-time students, and has a very particular view of the type of person they want to produce. I still get questions about it, but I never really gave any thought to how people would view me leaving seminary since they weren't the one's footing the bill!

 

[Grimmson]

If someone was leaving the seminary because they thought that that person was not called to professional ministry, I would ask and think it would be a fair question on “why that person thinks so”? Is it because of a lack of church support? Is it due to finances? Being uncomfortable at the pulpit? Current family problems? Is it a struggle with the academics involved? Whatever the reason I think it would be fruitful to discuss the issue with your pastor and leaders of the church that sent you to seminary. To much of the time the focus in ministry is towards the individual and that includes the person’s emotions on a particular issue, and we forget that we are to serve the body of Christ one way or another sacrificially; regardless if the one is in pastoral ministry. The problems of ministry must be dealt with together in the church, and if that support is not there then that opens another series of questions. Your pastor should know you, your strengths and weaknesses, and those you know within the church structure. Therefore, talk to them why you think your not called for ministry and provide clear definite reasons, then listen to their counsel. If they are in agreement then search out another way in which you can serve your church. Leaving seminary will not make you less spiritual, nor will it make you more spiritual; the main concern I would have is you not using the gifts in which God has graciously given to you for the service towards your brothers in Christ.

 

[athanatos]

Just because you are not called to full-time pastoral ministry doesn't mean you are not called to ministry. God may use what he has taught you and shaped you at seminary thus far, and that's okay. Meanwhile, do you think that grades or some other factor in particular is leading you to think this? Because many, I would imagine, would not find seminary very pleasurable, since they just want to shepherd and care for their flock, and not worry about the minute details and rigor of the academic aspect. Does this sound more like you? Or what is it?

If you're worried about how this will make you look, I would encourage you to remember that many of your decisions you've already made may not reflect you accurately either; e.g. that you're hyper-spiritual or that you're self-righteous, since you are at seminary. Focus on obedience, not appearance

 

[jjraby]

My reasons are many, but pretty much all of reasons listed in the various posts are somewhat a reflection of how i feel...

 

[Bill The Baptist]

I think if you geniunely feel that you are not called, then it is the right thing to do, but don't do it just because seminary is so hard. Believe me I know because I am right there with you. I see things all around me that make me question my decision to come to seminary. Churches that don't support you, tuition and books that keep getting higher, students on food stamps, students who don't even go to church on Sunday because they have to work. Yes the seminary system is broken, but it is never going to get any better because there just isn't any money. Just remember that the devil never put it on anyone's heart to preach the gospel, so if you are really called, then you are called to persevere no matter what. One day churches will wise up and realize that a seminary education is just not neccesary for a man to preach the gospel, and then we can end all of this. Until that day, a seminary degree is all but required. I know many men who have MDiv degrees who are selling insurance. Don't feel bad about leaving seminary if you are sure you are not called, to stay under those circumstances would be a true waste of time and money. May God bless you in whatever path you ultimately take.

 

[jjraby]

I don't want to spend two more years and thousands of dollars for a theology degree to end up selling insurance...

 

[Bill The Baptist]

I don't want to spend two more years and thousands of dollars for a theology degree to end up selling insurance...

I don't know, I once saw a cartoon where two men were stuck in an elevator. One man was speaking, and the other looked like he would rather be anywhere else than stuck in that elevator. Underneath the cartoon were the words the man was speaking,.."oh no, I'm not just a Jehovah's Witness, I also sell insurance."

 

[jjraby]

nice

 

[Edward]

My suggestion would be to finish out the semester, and then take a break from seminary, perhaps for a brief time, perhaps for the rest of your life.

 

[SCharles]

I don't want to spend two more years and thousands of dollars for a theology degree to end up selling insurance...

Here, here. I earned a B.A. in Ministry then went off to seminary. I dropped out after one semester because I realized that I was in ministry for the wrong reasons, not for a genuine calling.

In the marketplace, a seminary degree is not valued very much. It is great for personal enrichment or work in a church/parachurch ministry. It doesn't open that many doors otherwise. I would not put a seminary degree ahead of my family needs, especially without a clear calling.

 

[Wayne]

I would think very well of you for praying the matter through and having the objectivity to come to the conclusion that you are not called to ministry.
That is, IF things are as you have described them. You will use your education in years to come in ways you can't yet see. You will be of greater use in your church.
But one question that I haven't seen you answer is, what do you feel called to do? Do you have a sense of that yet, or are you still unsettled in your life's work? If that latter, then pray about staying right where you are.

Fred is quite right, however -- make the most of what work you have accomplished. Get over to the registrar and find out what it would take to graduate at the MA level.
I assume you have close to 60 hours behind you by year's end?

On the matter of calling, here is something by James H. Thornwell:

It is the prerogative of God and of God alone to select the men who shall be invested with authority in His church, and the validity of this Divine call is evinced to others and rendered satisfactory to ourselves by the testimony of our own consciences,— the approbation of God’s people, and the concurrence of God’s earthly courts. Conscience, the Church, the Presbytery — these do not call into the ministry, but only declare God’s call — they are the forms in which the Divine designation is indicated — the scriptural evidences that he who possesses them is no intruder into the sacred ministry. Dr. Breckinridge shows that “ at every period and under every dispensation God has been pleased to reserve to Himself a great and a direct agency in designating those who should minister to His people in holy things.” Under the Levitical economy none could be invested with the Priesthood without the appointment of God, and under the Christian economy, the sanction of Christ the Lord is equally indispensable to any who would become stewards of His mysteries. “ The analogy between the methods by which persons were admitted into the visible church and called of God to the service of religious functions, as compared with each other, under the Old Testament Dispensation, and the methods adopted for the same ends, is compared with “each other, under the New Testament Dispensation,” is very strikingly exhibited on the fifteenth page of the sermon. If this great truth be admitted, and we do not see how it can be questioned, that it is God, and God alone, who can either call or qualify for the sacred office, the consequences which flow from it are absolutely incompatible with many prevailing principles and practices. The doctrine of the American Education Society, a doctrine, we are sorry to say, which has found favour in quarters where it ought to have been rebuked, that every young man of talents and attainments should devote himself to the ministry without some special reason to the contrary is exactly reversed, and the true doctrine is that no man, whether young or old, rich or poor, learned or unlearned, should presume to dispense the mysteries of Christ without, the strongest of all possible reasons for doing so — the imperative, invincible call of God. No one is to show cause why he ought not to be a minister, he is to show cause why he should be a minister — his call to the sacred Profession is not the absence of a call to any other pursuit — it is direct, immediate, powerful to this very department of labour. He is not here because he can be no where else, but he is no where else, because he must be here.

[read the whole thing here: http://www.pcahistory.org/HCLibrary/periodicals/spr/v01/1-3-6.pdf]

 

[littlepeople]

Praying for you brother

 

[Tripel]

If I were you, I'd get out after this semester. Yes, a M.A. may come in handy at some point, but you can always finish that up long distance.

If you know what you'd like to do instead of seminary, get going.

 

[Gloria]

That's what i'm worried about. I am more than likely leaving seminary after this semester. I have just been examining myself and realize I am not cut out for professional Ministry. As in, I'm do not think i'm called to being a pastor. One of the professors here is very gracious when he talks about people leaving seminary because he realizes its a huge deal, and doing it when you have reservations is probably a recipe for a disaster down the line. I am worried that Unbelieving friends and Family members will view it negatively. For example, They will think i'm somehow not as Christian as i used to be or I'm not a spiritual or something. Just some thoughts...

Believers who know you personally will probably view it as a wise rather than a sign of spiritual immaturity. It's mature to be honest with yourself and stand before God with a clear conscience, rather than to trying to keep up appearances due to the fear of man. You can tell unbelievers who know you that your love for God has not changed, but that you realized that full time ministry is not your calling.