New Warhorn Media post by Tim Bayly:
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I’m looking forward to the rest of this series.
It may seem weird to many here who come from a presbyterian background, but most of my Christian life has been spent among non-denominational, baptist churches where the notion of formal training for pastoral ministry has been notably absent. Years ago, I would have thought nothing of it. I had a simple trust in the notion that God appoints and prepares men as he chooses. And really, I still do.
Over time though, I’ve come to realize that there are simply many men who lead churches who never had any business coming into that position. I’m thinking about young men in their early thirties who get it in their head that they feel called to start their own church. They appoint themselves to be elders, and invite some of their friends to come join them – perhaps folks they knew from a previous church, who shared their disgruntlement abut this, that, or the other thing. They are convinced they can “do it better” than the established churches in their city. So they sprout a new church with the seeds of divisiveness.
Surely, God has and does use churches like this. Sometimes they bear fruit, I suppose. Sometimes they crash and burn. But what I’m certain of is that I cannot bring myself to believe that this is the way that God would have men enter into ministry.
It seems to me that the model laid out in Scripture is that there would be older men training up younger men for this task. Paul instructed Timothy to seek out faithful men to whom he could entrust sound doctrine and the work of teaching (2 Timothy 2:2). Timothy was then to actually model for them what the conduct of a pastor was to look like (i.e. actually disciple them into that calling).
Sadly, it seems to me – at least in most of the circles I’ve known – that this work of raising up the next generation of pastors is left pretty ambiguous. A man may express an earnest desire to become a pastor/elder (1 Timothy 3:1), but there isn’t really anything to do with that desire, other than to try to be a good churchman, and sorta see if maybe anything sorta kinda materializes one day. The existing elders don’t really have any experience in what it is to raise up new elders. After all, they came into their own eldership position through self-appointment, or something very near to it. Their church has no formal affiliation with any sister churches, or any vision beyond its own local congregation. The elders have no idea what to do with such a man, or how to affirm his calling. There is no framework in their ecclesiology for how to minister to a young man desiring to pursue ministry.
Anyway, you rascally presbyterians and your pastor’s colleges. Keep on charming me with your snake oil. 
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I’ve also enjoyed this article series. If I can make use of some sanctified snark—it’s almost like Paul understood that emulation is essential to vocation. among many other things.
Although we are very different, I am amazed at the similarities between my dad and me, in mannerisms, the way I sit, the things I say. When I was younger, I spent a week among an amish family that we knew, particularly their two sons who were just a few years older. They had a unique cadence to the way they spoke english. Without intending it, I started to talk like them, recognizing it as it came out, like some sort of subconscious saturation that eventuated in emulation.
I think Pastor Tim has noted in one of his books the important point of Jesus as the Son imaging forth His Father in all His words and works. I think that’s significant and is related to, if not the origin of, this idea of emulation or imitation. 2 Corinthians 3:18, 1 Corinthians 4:16; 11:1; 15:33, Philippians 3:17; 4:9, and Proverbs 13:20 also get at this same idea in different ways. With all this in mind one must ask: does the typical seminary environment help or handicap the elder aspirant? I hope to see this teased out in future posts.
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I’m totally going to use this. Thanks. 
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Very often I think the answer is, “Send him to seminary!” Then he’s someone else’s problem. The seminary can then slot him into the pastoral internship program where he can go “assistant pastor” a group of strangers for a year, irrespective of his Biblical qualifications, until he can convince a pastors search committee composed of a different group of strangers to hire him for a senior pastor or youth pastor job, where he can go pastor yet another group of strangers.
This hired gun model of pastoral training and selection all seems very weird to me.
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Maybe this question is premature, and I should wait to read the remainder of the series, but I’ll fire it off anyway.
I understand the concept of pastor’s college (or seminary, I guess) for the young, single or newly-married men. Men in their early twenties, perhaps. Maybe expecting their first child; no established career, no major financial obligations, etc. Such men, it would seem to me, have the flexibility to go away to a place where they might commit themselves to pastoral training.
But what of those men who perceived a call to eldership or pastoral ministry later in life? Men who already have the van full of kids, and who perhaps – Lord-willing – have gained some of that kind of maturity that Paul speaks of as being prerequisite to eldership in the first place (1 Timothy 3:4-6)?
Obviously, it can’t be that pastoral ministry is available only to the young men. What counsel would you give to the more middle-aged man who desires to pursue pastoral ministry? What might pastor’s college look like for a man like that? Or would his pursuit likely be limited (and I don’t mean that negatively) to the kind of informal training afforded him by his own local elders?
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@Jason
It may seem weird to many here who come from a presbyterian background, but most of my Christian life has been spent among non-denominational, baptist churches where the notion of formal training for pastoral ministry has been notably absent. Years ago, I would have thought nothing of it. I had a simple trust in the notion that God appoints and prepares men as he chooses. And really, I still do.
Yes, I grew up in a Pentecostal background where much the same was true. Two years’ Bible college training is now a lot more common, though, and there is more acknowledgement of the need for at least some people to have specific academic training (the opposite of the issue Tim is dealing with?)
Jason, our pastors college is currently being restructured in order to address the issue you bring up. What we will have, in the end, is an institution that allows and encourages men to remain active in their local church, being mentored by their current pastors and elders, while receiving live and recorded classes via videoconference. No moving, no separation from the local body. The modern seminary system leaves a man in debt and, more importantly, detached from his church and the very men who know him best (his elders and pastors). Our program will be a way to overcome that problem…and, by a robust mentoring program and partnership, a source of encouragement and education for the pastors and elders of churches with men training for the ministry. Stay tuned…
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Thanks Andrew. That’s really exciting.
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