No Change = No Growth

After about 2 years in ministry, I was wrestling with going back to school. I really felt as if I needed more training if I were going to fulfill the calling God had laid on my heart.

With this thought as the backdrop, I set out to talk with some trusted older pastors to seek their input. Two of these conversations in particular stand out to me. In each case I called a seasoned pastor and asked if I could have some time. One invited me to his office and the other took me out to lunch.

In both cases I outlined my thoughts and shared frankly that I felt I needed more training. As they each asked me probing questions, it became evident that I felt self-conscious and a little bit out of sorts because I did not feel certain enough about my own beliefs. I was worried that I did not have enough knowledge to answers the inevitable nuanced theological questions some church folks would ask their pastor.

Both of these men were gracious in their responses and very affirming of my gifts and calling, and they both gave me very good advice. Each encouraged me to go to seminary. It was the right decision for me. But seminary did not help me the way I thought it would, and it did not do for me what it did for these men.

Their main reason for encouraging me to attend seminary was doctrinal certainty. You see, I had confessed to each of them that I wasn’t certain about some of the hermeneutical and theological tenets that lead toward an eschatology they both seemed utterly convinced of. Each of these men asserted that they had not changed their minds on even the smallest point of doctrine since they graduated from seminary. One had been out of seminary for 20 years and the other for 35 years.

It has been almost 15 years since those conversations. Since that time I have earned not one but two seminary degrees and am working on a third. And I still haven’t figured it all out. I really don’t think that I will. You see the issue here is that what I thought I would find at seminary is not what I found at all. I thought I would find all the answers. I have found some. But the real prize is that I think I am discovering the right questions.

Not everyone needs to go to seminary, but I do think that everyone needs to  learn because if you’re not learning you’re not changing. If you’re not changing, you’re not growing.

One Response to “No Change = No Growth”

1. lyndab2u says:

   January 6, 2012 at 6:33 am

   The idea of awaiting harvest in God’s time was impressed upon me through older women in our church when my children were floundering teens. They are now adults and still not in church but I trust God for the final harvest in his own time.