I'm glad I attended Denver Seminary. I feel like I am a much better pastor today than I would be without my education there. I was a part-time youth director while I attended seminary, and I think that practical experience mixed with my coursework helped me to learn a ton and put it into practice.
If I had to do it over again, I probably would--but a bit differently. I did the "Get it all done as fast as possible" track, and as you can guess, my family is still paying off those student loans. Of course, my wife and I (she also attended Denver Seminary, and we married about two and a half years into our studies) had a plan to pay those loans off quickly after graduation with two incomes--a plan that God seemed to think funny as he brought our first daughter into the world barely a year after we had been married and with still a semester to go before Jennifer and I graduated. However, God has provided through it all, and I'm thankful for where we are in life and the church we are blessed to serve at. Still, I'm quick to advise potential seminarians to consider how to take a little longer to go through school while working if loans are a must for attending.
Of course, a seminary degree is not a biblical pre-requisite to being a pastor, and that needs to be said. There are other ways to become equipped for pastoral ministry. But in our culture, a seminary education is a common way to build a theological background. Here's what I got out of seminary:
I love learning. Okay, this is not true of everyone. Some people learn something and want to figure out how to use it immediately. I learn something and head to the library to find eight other books on the topic. Certainly my classmates and I came from a variety of backgrounds. Some people naturally love school, and some detest it and never want to go back. Still, part of being a pastor is to always be learning. This doesn't mean that a pastor always has to be studying in the library. But we should at least be reading a few good dead guys on occasion, and seminary taught me to love learning and reading.
Great professors. Our classes were more than just information dumps. Most of the professors I had were genuinely interested in seeing their students glorify God by using their gifts and education to serve Jesus and his kingdom. Yes, I learned a lot of information, but more importantly, I learned what it means to follow Jesus from several godly mentors and examples.
Relationships. I loved the people I learned and lived with. My experience may not be the same as those who lived off campus, but I love the people who were my roommates and neighbors. It was probably good that this experience lasted only a short time, because it made it more difficult to cultivate relationships with those outside the Body, all our neighbors being seminary students or spouses of seminary students. Some of my fondest memories from seminary involve sharing meals (using only ingredients we were given from a local church's food bank and the free just-expired food from a local grocery store), celebrating births and marriages (including my own), or lamenting difficult times with my neighbors in our seminary apartment complex.
Learning how to think biblically. Last week, my wife and I had two couples over for dinner, and both of the husbands were engineers by trade. They had something interesting to say about their engineering education: they cannot recall using knowledge (facts) they learned in engineering school in any job they've ever had. The value of their education was that they learned how to think like an engineer. Every job presents a new challenge, and as technology develops, what they learned in school becomes obsolete, but how they learned and worked through problems does not. The same is true of most of my seminary classes. Sure, there were some facts I learned that have come in handy, but most of all, I learned how to think biblically. I learned how to discern what to do in situations as a leader I never thought I'd face, and I learned how to study if I didn't know the answer to a question. For instance, we spent an entire semester going through James' letter in Greek class and picking it apart. I've only preached one sermon on James since seminary, but I sure learned how to study for a sermon from that class.
What are your thoughts on seminary education, especially as it relates to youth ministry?
