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The last thing my pastor told me before I left for seminary saved my faith. I think he was just trying to save me from having a rough time in my first New Testament class or from getting frustrated with my professors. As it turned out, he shared something that I have clung to over the past eleven years.

Settling into our breakfast at a Bob Evans where you could hear the roar of the New Jersey Turnpike a few hundred feet away, he told me the following about seminary, “Don’t expect to find all of the answers.”

He was responding to a comment I made about looking forward to really digging into the Bible. I’m pretty sure he meant that I wouldn’t learn everything there is to know about the Bible. That in and of itself was sound advice, but that wasn’t quite what saved my faith.

I don’t know what I expected from seminary. I’m pretty sure I expected lots of answers to all of the tough questions that Christians face—I wanted everything to compute. I also expected seminary to be awesome because I wouldn’t have to take science or math classes, while I could crack Greek jokes in the cafeteria all of the time.

Seminary certainly had very little math, but the Greek jokes left something to be desired (sigh).

Instead of finding all of the answers, seminary revealed all of the dirty little secrets that pastors aren’t allowed to talk about because they’d lose their jobs if they brought any of it up with their congregations.

I confronted controversial topics like biblical authority, inerrancy, the problem of evil, the character of God, how salvation works, the historic views of hell, women in ministry, where we got the Bible from, and the list goes on. My pastor had warned me that I wouldn’t find all of the answers in seminary, and he was right. I found many more questions and problems than the average Christian faces in Sunday School. Since he had warned against finding all of the answers, I was able to take it in stride.

His advice became my mantra as I faced fresh theological dilemmas that had no solution in sight.

I could have swung in any number of directions, but I ended up realizing that my foundation wasn’t some brand of theology or air-tight way of interpreting the Bible. Christianity also doesn’t survive by hiding from tough questions, even the kinds of questions that don’t seem to have answers.

I’ve seen Christians deal with tough questions in a variety of ways. Sometimes they just gave up, admitting that the answers of their childhood faith couldn’t cut it in the adult world. Others dismissed tough questions and the people who asked them—no doubt fearing their faith would crumble if exposed to tension.

Though my pastor was trying to save me from the disappointment of not learning the Bible inside out in seminary, he also planted a seed of doubt that has served me well. While in seminary I learned that my faith could survive the tough questions that seminary professors needed to ask because Jesus never promised us all of the answers.

Jesus promised us life, hope, peace, joy, and love. He promised that remaining in him is enough.

I struggle with the tough questions sometimes. I’m not afraid to face them, and I never want to settle for easy answers—even if I’m convinced that many of them can be reasonably resolved. However, at the end of the day, Jesus isn’t going to test us to see if we answered all of the tough questions correctly. He’s going to ask if we abided in him and let him reshape us into Kingdom people—members of his family.

God’s answer for our tough questions is his presence. When I can abide in him, I know him and suddenly finding all of the answers doesn’t matter.

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Ed Cyzewski is the blogger at www.inamirrordimly.com, co-author of Hazardous: Committing to the Cost of Following Jesus, and author of Coffeehouse Theology: Reflecting on God in Everyday Life. He lives in Columbus, OH with his wife (who is due to give birth in July!) and house rabbits (who do nothing but beg for treats and chew on his couch).

No. 2: Develop a mentoring relationship. Sometimes dips in our own ministry are a result of pouring out into a meaningful relationship. Prayerfully consider whose life God may be calling you to invest in and pour into.

No. 8: Develop healthy friendships. Ministry seeps up time better than a sponge in water. At times, the last thing you want to do is engage other people. But the priceless benefits of having a healthy friendship far outweigh the bad.

No. 9: Don’t be afraid to set boundaries. Problems and To-Do lists seem to bleed into every area of your life. Learning to say no is not a sin. Overextending yourself spreads you thin and keeps you from doing your best in every situation.

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2. Trevin Wax is a prolific blogger who churns out posts like few can. Recently he wrote a post encouraging seminary students to remember a few lessons during their studies. As someone just about to finish school, I found his remarks to be spot on. No one wants to walk away from years of seminary wishing they would have gone about the whole thing differently, heed this advice.

The biggest danger in seminary is that in the increase of knowledge, you lose sight of the most important things. The more you know, the more you are likely to forget.

Satan would love nothing more than to transform your joy of attending seminary into an intellectual snobbery that renders you ineffective in ministry. Guard your heart against this paralyzing pride. Weeds grow next to the flowers. The flowers are blooming at seminary. The question is: will you choke out the weeds of pride in your heart or will the weeds choke out a lifetime of fruitfulness?

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3. I love quite a bit about Portland. Sure the rain gets a little old, but there’s a lot to appreciate about the city. Check out this incredible video highlighting Portland.

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Happy Friday!

I can’t start quoting too many pieces of information that I’ve memorized from the books I read the past 3 months or parts of a lecture I’ve memorized. I’ve done well enough to store all that in my short term memory so I don’t fail the final  (I think I did anyway), but it leaves fairly quickly afterward. Our culture teaches that if I can’t remember those important details word for word in a year, then I’ve lost the value of that education.

What we should be valuing in education is not memorization of information, but instead the formation of a person.

Over the past 4 years of reading book after book, writing paper after paper, listening to lecture after lecture, I can hardly pinpoint specific things that have stuck with me over the years, but I do know that I’m a different person now than I was then. The value of the education to me is not found in a pile of books I read, or the load of notebooks I’ve filled with notes from class, it’s the change that has taken place in my life through God’s Spirit and his use of the books, notes, papers, and discussions.

When I set out to get in shape for a half marathon I ran multiple times a week, for over 6 months to prepare. There was never any specific run that helped me get ready to run 13.1 miles, it was the combination of all the runs that prepared my mind and body.

It’s the same thing with education. The best education can’t be wrapped up in a single book or notebook of lectures in class, it’s the slow formation that takes place slowly but surely if we continue to allow God’s presence to work as only he can.

Let us all desire to be formed by Him.

This feeling I had of a double standard was backed up by a Christian Post article which shared a number of statistics that showed a similar story.

“Of pastors who attended seminary, 83 percent strongly agree the training and experience was worth the time and money…Only 10 percent of Protestant pastors say they would require a candidate to have a seminary degree and instead place emphasis on other qualifications, such as experience and beliefs.”

In other words, pastors value seminary for themselves, but don’t see it as vital for future pastors.

Does that not make sense to anyone other than me?

I hear many people complain about the Biblical illiteracy of upcoming generations, but I rarely hear a call from pastors to push these upcoming generations to become more fully qualified for future Christian ministry.

It is God who calls and prepares people for Christian ministry, but we also must do our part to be as prepared as possible and seminary is often a major part of that process. I truly believe that for many (and most) pastors, part of God’s preparing is the seminary journey.

I hate to see it become devalued by pastors who had their lives changed by their seminary experiences.

Your thoughts?

About 4 years ago I got married to my wife Rose. Shortly after our honeymoon I started my 60 hour-a-week sales job. It was an extremely exhausting and demanding job. I remember within my first week on the job coming home from work absolutely dead to the world. Rose was making dinner, so we sat down to eat dinner. It was our usual friendly conversation about our days. After dinner I retreated to the couch, turned on the tv as any good husband would do after a long day to begin my nightly ritual of relaxing in front of the tv. I’ll never forget the look on Rose’s face. It was the “I’ve been just as busy as you today, the least you can do is help do the dishes” look. And in that moment I had a very keen awareness of how selfish I was. For those of you who are married, I’m sure you can relate with having a new awareness of how selfish you can be through your marriage. I often think back to that night in our apartment as a reminder of how selfish I can be when I don’t make an effort to care for my wife before myself.

Selfishness from God’s people is nothing new. In the book of Judges this selfishness comes out through the story of Jephthah. Judges 17:6 does a great job of summarizing the whole book of Judges: “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.” Essentially, no one provided spiritual direction, so the people lived selfishly, doing what was best for themselves. The people of Israel struggled with the same thing we struggle with: putting our needs over the needs of others and focusing on ourselves instead of God.

As we cover the story of Jephthah in Judges 10:6-12:7 I’ll give a brief overview of the story. The story of Jephthah is very similar to the stories of other leaders spoken of in the book of Judges. Israel has gone from being led in military victories by Abimilech, after his death they begin to be oppressed by other people groups and they turn away from God to begin worshiping the gods of the other people groups. God then, in his frustration with them, brought more oppression on the Israelites. As they did had before when oppression was getting worse; Israel pleads with God to rescue them and they stop their worship of foreign gods. Israel then finds a leader either on their own or through God’s anointing, and in this case they appoint Jephthah to lead their military. He is the son of a prostitute and was abandoned by his family at a young age. Jephthah begins some diplomatic discussions with nearby nations who had been oppressing Israel and the discussions eventually result in a war won by Jephthah and Israel. After the victory, a specific group of Israelites challenges Jephthah for not using them in the war against the foreign nation and a civil war breaks out which is won by Jephthah as well. In the end Jephthah ruled over Israel for 6 years and brought Israel out of oppression. It would only be a short time after when Israel was fall back into the same cycle of oppression and worship of foreign gods. This cycle of oppression, worship of foreign gods, turning back to God, God providing a leader who leads Israel to military victories, and then back to oppression is seen time and time again in the book of Judges.

Just as in the time of the book of Judges, it is normal in our society to live selfishly. In many ways our culture teaches us the subliminal message that our needs are most important. Whether it be ipods, youtube, houses with fenced in yards. All of these things in and of themselves are good things, but they also teach an underlying message that our needs are most important; that we should get what we want, when we want it. I read a statistic that said, 51% of 18-25 year olds most important life goal is to become famous. Not to serve others, not to make a difference in the world, but just to be known by others. If our culture is teaching us that selfishness is a good thing and it is a part of our sinful nature, it is no wonder we struggle with focusing on God and those around us before ourselves.

The first thing selfishness does is it causes us to put our needs over the needs of the people we love. When I was doing my undergrad work I would come home for Christmas break for usually 3 weeks. With all my extra free time I would often play my younger brother in video games. My brother and I have a weird relationship. We’re both very competitive so when we play against each other its usually a death match of sorts. Being that I’m almost 10 years older than him I can easily beat him at pretty much anything, so I always took the chance to beat him at video games. I would always tell myself, “it’s okay if you destroy him every game, you hate losing.” And it was true, I hated losing, so much so that my brother would end up crying after playing me. He’d run to my mom (he was 10 years old back then) and sure enough my mom would come downstairs and tell me to go easier on him because he was young. I never did and it was selfish of me to put my needs of being competitive over his needs to be able to have fun with his older brother.

In the story of Jephthah there are 2 instances when selfish people care more about themselves than those near and dear to them. Late in chapter 11 Jephthah makes a crazy vow to God that if they win the battle (Judges 11:30-31), he’ll sacrifice the first person to come out of his house. It was crazy because God had promised all along to take care of Israel and because human sacrifice was against Israelite law. In the end, he sacrificed his own daughter. Later in chapter 12, after Jephthah had defeated the Ammonites, the men of Ephraim complain that Jephthah did not use them in the battle against the Ammonites (Judges 12:1). Instead of thanking Jephthah for bringing the nation of Israel less oppression, they are upset because they weren’t asked to be a part of the battle. Their need to be wanted and used became a selfish desire. Rather than uniting as a community of Israelites, Jephthah then goes to battle with the men of Ephraim and defeats them as well. Reading on throughout the rest of the Old Testament we see that the people of Ephraim never played a key role in Israel’s history again. Their selfish desire was the end of their influence and power as a community.

The 2nd thing selfishness can do is that we focus more on our needs instead of our need for God. This plays out in Judges 11:4-11 when the leaders of Gilead ask Jephthah to become their leader. In other stories of the promotion of a judge, the community leaders often ask God to provide in that way, but in this instance the mention of God’s guidance is never stated. Their promotion of Jephthah was done quickly and clearly without the Lord’s leading in their decision-making process (Judges 11:8). Their need to have a military leader at the helm was more important than placing themselves under God’s leading. This isn’t to say Jephthah wasn’t the right man for the job or that the leaders of Gilead were ungodly people, but even Godly people can make selfish decisions without God’s guidance.

It is often our successes that can begin to create in us a more selfish mentality rather than reliance on God. The Israelites fell into the worship of foreign gods time and time again in the book of Judges, despite God releasing them from oppression many times. Their military successes did nothing but impart a selfish mentality they were unable to break.

I once heard a pastor named Craig Groeschel say, “The difference between where you are and where God wants you to be, is the pain you are unwilling to endure.” In our culture, I think often this pain is a death of self and selfishness. The pain we’re often unwilling to endure is giving up our needs to focus more on what God needs from us. There is no denying it, dying to self and getting rid of selfishness is a painful process.

The people of Gilead raised up Jephthah to bring about military victories as we just read in Judges 11:4-11, but what they needed was a nation that would focus first on God before their need to be less oppressed. Military victories was not what they needed, true worship of God was.

Back in high school, I was a part of many plays my church would put on around Christmas and Easter. Part of being in a play is memorizing lines. If you have a main role, it is possible that you might have to memorize hundreds of lines or even worse, an entire monologue. The first few play practices are typically with scripts in hand and the director allows all the actors to use the script so that they lines don’t get in the way of working out the acting of a scene. The difficult part of preparation for the play is when rehearsals begin to go off-script. Instead of having a piece of paper give you lines, if you don’t have a line memorized you have to do the embarrassing thing of asking the director for your line. I always found those first off-script rehearsals incredibly difficult because the script had become a crutch, it was what I had gotten used to and comfortable with. In the same way, I think our culture has allowed us to get used to and comfortable with everyone being selfish. The message our culture sends us is that getting what we want, when we want it, is a perfectly normal thing to expect.

1st Corinthians 6:19-20 says, “You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” This idea of selfishness is completely contrary in the kingdom of God, because in his kingdom we don’t own ourselves. We are His. Made to be used by him, as instruments in his great work. The Christian life isn’t about selfishness, it’s about sacrifice. Jesus showed us as the ultimate example, now must be follow. We aren’t our own, we were bought at a price. Whether we change the way we interact with those closest to us or give God the devotion from us that he deserves, we cannot underestimate the negative force that selfish living can have in our lives. We must turn ourselves over to Him.

In studying for this sermon I came across what is known as the Wesley Covenant Service. John Wesley used to hold Covenant services on either New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day as a kind of counter-cultural way for the church to gather without partying. He would always finish the service by reading a prayer of surrender and sacrifice and I think it is the perfect way to end this message on the importance of selfless living.

(Link to the Wesley Covenant Service Prayer)

This semester I took my first preaching course in seminary.

Taking the course was a big step for me, in a weird way. I’m in front of people all the time. Sometimes leading smaller groups, other times leading thousands. But the thought of getting up and speaking for a long period of time is so intimidating to me, mostly because I’ve never done it. I could have put off the class for another year, but I knew it was something I needed to get better at, so I signed up anyway.

Through my course reading and lectures I slowly started to see a lot of similarities between blogging and preaching. Sure, most blog posts are about 300 words and most sermons are closer to 30 minutes, but the principles of good sermon preparation and good blogging are closely tied.

In reality, blogging over the past 3.5 years has taught me as much about preaching as the course did. Here’s 4 ways blogging taught me to the preach (let me also say, I don’t really think I’m a preacher, considering I’ve only given one sermon, just that the principles I learned in class I also learned through blogging):

1. The importance of being succinct. Raise your hand if you’ve ever fallen asleep listening to a long, drawn out diatribe by a pastor on a Sunday morning? Well I never have (my dad would have killed me if I fell asleep listening to him) But I’ve always heard that the most effective blog posts are around 300 words. There is no space for fluff or a bunch of side points. Attention spans continue to get shorter and shorter and the importance of making your point throughout and quickly is paramount.
2. People most often learn best when a sermon (or blog) has one main point or overarching theme. In my course reading, Haddon Robinson emphasizes what he calls the “big idea.” I’ve listened to hundreds of messages that do a great job of presenting and developing several main thoughts within one message. Instead of walking away with a firm grasp on the message, I often forget it within an hour. While, certainly a message with one main thought isn’t immune to being forgotten by the listener, it will only help listeners if the message hones in on a “big idea” and spends its entire time developing the idea.
3. Illustrations take a point from being abstract to concrete. Good bloggers are excellent at using illustrations to make a point. Whether it be using a picture or video or story, often the best blogs don’t make their point on its own, they use an illustration to help it land in real life. Robinson says, “an audience does not respond to abstract ideas, nor have many people ever been moved to faith by reading an outline of Romans…” Illustrations make an abstract point more concrete.
4. The art of a consistent process that works for you. The most intimidating part of preaching was the process of putting a message together. I had no idea where to begin. My class helped me understand a process that works well and being a good preacher is being consistent with following that process. When I started blogging I didn’t make goals about getting readers or becoming a better writer, more than anything I wanted to be consistent with it. Whatever “success” I’ve had blogging is due mostly to being consistent.

How has blogging helped you develop a different skill?

“Only 10 percent of Protestant pastors say they would require a candidate to have a seminary degree and instead place emphasis on other qualifications, such as experience and beliefs” (read more about the study)

For someone in seminary, like me, this is a pretty discouraging statistic. Yet in the same study LifeWay also had this to report:

“Among the surveyed pastors, 85 percent say they have taken seminary classes, and 96 percent of that group say they would repeat those seminary classes if ‘they had it to do over again.’”

I’ve heard too many times since I started pursuing a seminary degree: “seminary degrees don’t matter.” Based on the conversations I’ve had (I’ve had a lot of them) and this type of survey from pastors, churches today value seminary just as much but view it as an added benefit than completely necessary. And I agree, seminary shouldn’t be a have-to and isn’t necessary for all people.

But no where else can people learn from Godly men and women who will put all their time and energy into building the future of the church. And for those of you who say that you can get that at your church, trust me, you can’t.

The challenge for seminaries today is bringing seminary into a culture that uses the internet to learn and has a job that they won’t give up to go back to school.

After reading about this survey, the dean at my seminary had this to say about Multnomah Seminary:

“The objective for MBS is to bring a quality evangelical seminary education to this generation of new leaders who are already serving in staff positions and, in many cases, who are being tapped as tomorrow’s senior leaders. We see this trend as an exciting opportunity to rethink what a seminary education is and how it is delivered.”

Is seminary still valuable?

This is another post in a series I’m doing of questions that some of you asked. If you would like to add your question, go here and do so.

Today’s question is from Joel Mayward. Be sure to go and check out his blog. He asked:

What have been the greatest benefits of attending seminary? What have been the biggest frustrations or disappointments?

To me, seminary has had 2 major benefits. First is that it is a perfect combination for learning a long with working in Christian ministry. What is learned through ministry experience and what is learned at seminary are two very different things, but they both work together to provide a solid base of shepherding, Biblical knowledge, and theology. The second major benefit is relationship building. The connections I’ve made and continue to make with students and professors are many in number. And many of these connections will last a long time.

Seminary, for me, also has 2 major frustrations. First would be that I came in with very limited Biblical and theological education and knowledge. Even now, 3 years into seminary, I still feel like I am behind where I should be. Seminary isn’t a great place to play catch up because there is so much to take in right from the beginning. Second is that I don’t live on campus, and much like undergrad, the key to getting the full seminary experience is living on campus. There are many events, meetings, etc, that I can never make because of how far away I live and how busy I am with my job. Seminaries need to work on allowing students to stay connected even if they aren’t on campus much in a week.

Any of you who are in or have been to seminary have anything to add?

I recently read an interview with Leland Eliason, who is about to retire from Bethel Seminary. It spurred on a few thoughts in my head about whether seminary is relevant to today’s world or not.

1. Seminary is more relevant in preparing today’s church leaders than ever before. Why do I say that? Today’s world knows less about Christianity and the Bible than ever before. Seminary is the one place where a student can give full devotion to learning about theology and the Bible in an accredited process.
2. Sometimes we get too wrapped up in being relevant. I loved what Leland said in the interview. “What I often say to people thinking about seminary is that a seminary degree will create a structure of discipline for you to read and study and learn in areas that you would want to learn anyway. Without the structure seminary provides, you may not find the discipline to make it all happen.” Seminary doesn’t have to be relevant to be vital. The one thing I’ve seen in the past 2 years is that seminary is instilling in me a discipline to be able to handle church ministry for the next 50 years.
3. Reading a bunch of books does not prepare you for ministry. I’ve read a number of blogs and heard a number of people say that a pastor could get a seminary education by simply reading a ton of books on theology, the Bible, etc. Seminary is interacting with students and professors, writing position papers, praying, doing an internship, and much more. Reading books is only a small part. Leland said, “Seminary provides the tools to mine the truths of God’s Word over the long haul.”
4. The process of a seminary education has been tested and proven effective. That doesn’t mean seminaries never change, because clearly the best seminaries are adapting to the shifts in culture, but the premise behind how seminary prepares you for ministry has been proved.
5. Seminary provides you with a base that will allow for a lifetime of successful ministry. Leland knocks it out of the park with the ultimate value of a seminary education:

“I think the danger of doing pastoral ministry without the equivalent of seminary education is in being contemporary without having roots in the history of the church. The history of Bible and theology, for example, turns up every conceivable heresy that we find in our world today. They have surfaced before in an earlier setting. They may be called something else, but in essence there are rarely new heresies. If you have the benefit of church history, it shapes a world view that diffuses the enthusiasm for everything that’s new by tempering it with the truths of God that have been given to us through the Scripture and godly teachers down through the centuries.”

So what do you think:

Is seminary relevant?

1. Read Ephesians 3 times a week for 15 weeks.
2. Write a commentary on Ephesians 3:1-13.
3. Read 4 scholarly books each over 250 pages.
4. Read Acts through Philemon at least once.
5. Read over 250 pages of professor notes.
6. Write a 20 page research paper on Romans.
7. Take 2 personal retreats for my Spiritual Formation course.
8. Write 6 papers, each around 3 pages in length for spiritual formation.
9. Complete 13 weekly assignments for my Bible Study Methods course.
10. Oh and that is not including the tests I have…

Well I have good news…I finished it. All of it.

Here is what I did the past few weeks for finals:

• In Inductive Bible Study Methods I turned in a 36 page single spaced project (to most students that is really 72 pages and the equivalent to a dissertation) on Ephesians 3:1-13. I figure it took me about 35 to 45 hours to get it completely finished.
• In Spiritual Formation I turned in 6 different individual assignments that I had worked on throughout the semester.
• And in Acts and the Pauline Epistles, I took a test on 1st Corinthians through Philemon that turned out to be an absolute beast.

But all that is in the PAST. I am done. I get about a month off and a week-long trip to Alaska for the ultimate break.

It is needed.