A Proposal for Better Ministerial Education
by James J. Londis | 19 March 2024 |
Decades ago, my son in his graduate business program, his good friend Dave in law school, and another friend of mine studying ethics had in common a special feature in their education: along with grasping theory and information, all mastered their discipline by analyzing real world cases.
Cases possess the complexity, nuance, and richness of actual life. They demand not memorization, but thoughtfulness, analysis, and even following hunches. Because they are often drawn from actual events, the consequences of whatever decision was actually made can, after thorough analysis, be evaluated as well.
Take business, for example. If a class is tackling a management or manufacturing problem that confronted the Chrysler Corporation, after the students have done their own analyses and made their recommendations, the professor can reveal what the corporation did and how it turned out.
The cases studied become paradigms, or models, of how to handle a similar challenge. The students learn to rely on the cases, not as hard-and-fast rules for future decision-making, but as guides providing insight and wisdom that allow them to face whatever challenge arises.
Case study does not mean there are no sound business principles that need to be learned. It does mean that the business principles by themselves cannot sufficiently sensitize and educate the student’s experience. Case study is one way for the student to gain experience without making decisions that could affect people and dollars. Ideas are given flesh in stories.
Or take law. Our judicial system lives and dies by decisions that attempt to apply the law to actual cases. Law students analyze those cases in relation to the established case law in order to know how to advise their clients. The students study principles, but they spend a lot of their time practicing how those principles were applied to living situations.
Ministerial education
Education for the ministry is also a professional education that seeks to prepare students not just to do research, but to actually pastor churches and practice ministry in a variety of settings. For that reason, it seems to me, ministerial education ought to make larger use of the case study approach. More courses structured to anticipate congregational and member issues added to more academic courses would yield enormous benefits to fledgling pastors.
When Dr. Fritz Guy was professor of theology at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University, he told me that such a recommendation had been seriously considered at one time. As we brainstormed about what such an approach would look like, we came up with a number of suggestions.
If we want seminary students to experience ministry as much as possible while in the classroom, there is no better way to do it than through actual (or even realistic but fictitious) cases.
For example, when a pastor is asked to exegete, or interpret, a specific Bible passage, more often than not he will choose to preach a sermon on the passage. What would happen if, in classes studying biblical books, student exams not only unpacked passages like Jeremiah 31, but students were also required to address a congregational situation like the one described in the passage by writing a sermon based on it?
Students would have to do sound exegesis, but this would be only part of the assignment. In addition, they would have to reflect theologically on the text and integrate that reflection with insights from management, psychology, and public relations. Or the professor might give students a specific case problem and challenge them to make the chapter relevant to that congregation.
My first class in pastoral counseling at the seminary included this opening comment by our professor: “No one in your congregation will call you in the middle of the night to explain the vision in Daniel 2!” When I got that middle-of-the-night call years later, it was from a distraught man whose son-in-law had just died by suicide.
Another possibility might be for a professor to ask students to write an essay detailing how they would handle a situation such as this one:
A young woman looking for pastoral help has picked your name at random out of the yellow pages of the phone book. She is about to attempt suicide, but tells you that she is giving you one last chance to persuade her that life is worth keeping. She is not a Christian, she has a poor marriage in which both she and her husband cheat on each other, and they have two daughters who are drug-dependent and failing in school. Using all you have learned in your seminar training in pastoral counseling, theology, biblical studies, etc., what would you say to this woman?
Theory and practice
This pedagogical approach can be augmented by small discussion groups given a case to tackle, or clusters of three students might work on a semester-long project that involves analyzing the operation of a local church that seemed to be in trouble, and making recommendations for its revival and growth. Or those students interested in church administration might tackle the cases/problems of a conference or union and make recommendations. The possibilities are literally endless.
Competent ministry requires the integration of theory with practice, not the mastery of theory or the repetition of practice alone. Seminaries may be staffed by teachers with academic credentials but little pastoral experience. In such situations, seminaries may turn into graduate schools in which each department prepares its students for further graduate work in that discipline rather than for pastoral ministry.
While fieldwork and practicums are important and helpful, the plan I envision calls for more than that. What we need is a reconceptualizing of the ways in which seminary curricula and courses themselves are structured. A different approach is proposed. This concept, as much as possible, puts a premium on replicating the very situations the graduates will face after school. One can only hope that, if implemented, teachers, students, and the church at large will be blessed by more insightful pastors, regardless of their inexperience in the field.
Dr. James Londis is a Bible scholar and theologian who served the denomination as a professor of theology, president of Atlantic Union College, senior pastor of Sligo Church in Takoma Park, Maryland, and a faculty member at Kettering College. He and his wife are retired in the Chattanooga area.
