Ephrata
Puritan Board Freshman
Hi everyone! I'm seeking your wisdom on which seminaries might be good to attend in my personal circumstances.
Some background: I am an undergraduate at a secular university whose heart and calling seems to lie with women's ministry, family ministry, and scholastic education. Usually, women who are interested in such fields are led to programs that deal with emotions and psychology only. Tenderheartedness is dear in the Lord's sight, and should be stressed in any ministry program, but it can also be tiresome to be treated as a heart without a soul and a brain. Most women and girls that I've spoken with seem tired of being treated this way, anyway. So I sought a rigorous Reformed seminary to pursue this path.
Generally, seminaries tend to go one of three ways:
1. They have numerous programs for women with excellent funding, yet are based on a terribly liberal theology that probably led the seminary to accept women as pastoral candidates in the first place. Of course, I have absolutely no designs on church pastorship, eldership, or deaconry (as it's clearly un-Biblical).
2. They have fantastic theology and ministry programs designed for men who wish to lead churches, but only accept women into their classes if they are the pastoral candidates' wives (my father recommended The Master's Seminary and PRTS when I first expressed my desire to look at ministerial education, and we ran into this very problem).
As much as I would love to serve a church as a pastor's wife (and maybe you pastor's wives can tell me how naive I am for that), that office is not exactly one that somebody can apply for, and so I won't treat it like an option.
3. A handful of reformed theological seminaries allow women to study languages and doctrine, but they don't have programs for ministry.
Does anyone know of any truly reformed seminaries accept unmarried women for training in both theology and ministry?
Some background: I am an undergraduate at a secular university whose heart and calling seems to lie with women's ministry, family ministry, and scholastic education. Usually, women who are interested in such fields are led to programs that deal with emotions and psychology only. Tenderheartedness is dear in the Lord's sight, and should be stressed in any ministry program, but it can also be tiresome to be treated as a heart without a soul and a brain. Most women and girls that I've spoken with seem tired of being treated this way, anyway. So I sought a rigorous Reformed seminary to pursue this path.
Generally, seminaries tend to go one of three ways:
1. They have numerous programs for women with excellent funding, yet are based on a terribly liberal theology that probably led the seminary to accept women as pastoral candidates in the first place. Of course, I have absolutely no designs on church pastorship, eldership, or deaconry (as it's clearly un-Biblical).
2. They have fantastic theology and ministry programs designed for men who wish to lead churches, but only accept women into their classes if they are the pastoral candidates' wives (my father recommended The Master's Seminary and PRTS when I first expressed my desire to look at ministerial education, and we ran into this very problem).
As much as I would love to serve a church as a pastor's wife (and maybe you pastor's wives can tell me how naive I am for that), that office is not exactly one that somebody can apply for, and so I won't treat it like an option.
3. A handful of reformed theological seminaries allow women to study languages and doctrine, but they don't have programs for ministry.
Does anyone know of any truly reformed seminaries accept unmarried women for training in both theology and ministry?