What a privilege it has been for me to receive an education. In addition to graduating from a public high school, I also received a bachelor’s degree from a Christian college and a master’s degree from a Christian seminary. I am extremely grateful for the Seminary that I attended and graduated from. If I could go back and choose again which seminary I attended, I would still make the same decision and attend the same Seminary.
With that said, there are a few things that I didn’t learn in Seminary which I wish I had. Maybe these things were taught and I just didn’t learn them. Here’s my list of things that I wish I had learned at seminary, or at least wish I had taken notes about and would have been able to apply to ministry as soon as I needed them.
Benedictions
I was not taught about the purpose or method for giving a benediction to the congregation. Do I have the people look at me while I give the benediction or do I ask them to close their eyes? Do I use Scripture as a benediction or write something of my own? Is it okay to use someone else’s benediction? After ten years of ministry I will sometimes write my own benediction adapted to the message I just preached, sometimes I will read Scripture as a benediction, and occasionally I read a benediction that someone else has written.
Baptisms
I did not baptize anyone at the first church I worked at because I was an associate pastor. It wasn’t until six years after Seminary that I was tasked to baptize my first person. In Seminary I certainly learned a lot about the doctrine of baptism, biblical support of it, and the history of its practice in the early church. But I did not learn how to conduct a baptism. Furthermore, the church I now serve at does not have a baptismal built into the facilities, so I had to come up with a way to conduct baptisms in a desert! Our solution is that we use a horse trough in our front lawn and we have baptism on a potluck Sunday.
Working with Boards, Elders, and Deacons
Based on my Seminary education I could give you the biblical support for having elders and deacons within a church and I could tell you about the history of their deployment within the church throughout the centuries. But I don’t think I was taught how to effectively and cooperatively work with a group of elders, deacons, or a church board. Every pastor will tell you that these are delicate relationships that need to be handled carefully. Our jobs literally depend on this skill. With that said, I am still learning this.
Baby Dedications
I do not remember talking about baby dedications in Seminary. As the pastor of a local church I have had to answer my own questions. Do I, as a protestant evangelical Christian in an anabaptist denomination, allow for baby dedications? What if people want to have their baby dedicated, but the parents are nominal or carnal Christians? What if grandparents want their grandchildren baptized in our church, but the parents are members of a different church? As a result of these questions, I’ve developed a brief speech about baby dedications that I give to describe what it is, what it’s not, and why we do it.
Being a Hallmark Calendar Preacher
The list of American holidays and other important Christian days adds up quickly. Of course we have New Year’s Day, Presidents Day, Sanctity of Life Sunday, Disability Awareness Sunday, Memorial Day, Veteran’s Day, Reformation Sunday, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Thanksgiving weekend, Palm Sunday, Pastor Appreciation Sunday, Easter Sunday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, etc. Any pastor that is expected to preach fifty Sundays a year like me is faced with the dilemma: Do I continue preaching verse-by-verse through books of the Bible even on these special days? Do I take a break from my sermon series in order to touch on the topics of these special Sundays? How do I minister to the people who feel these days are important to their spiritual lives, but at the same time still meet the needs of people that would rather ignore those days or have no connections to them? Similar to working with boards as I discussed earlier, I am still figuring this out.
Preaching Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday
These are three worship gatherings that have a different feel to the service. The celebration is different and the preaching should also be different too. The people expect something different from the preacher. Our job on these Sundays is to deliver a special message in which our regular audience is in attendance with their loved ones that might not often hear the Gospel.
Things I’m Learning After Seminary
Recently I was at a neighborhood coffee shop. The young man working was attending college and asked me, “Do you think going to college is a good idea?” He began to share with me that he was going to college, but was not sure if it was worth the time and money. He was afraid he might not use what he learned in college for work.
I told him that I was not sure if I was the best person to ask that question. The reason is that I use what I learned in Seminary every single day as a pastor. My Seminary experience prepared me for pastoral ministry and equipped me with the tools to continue learning and growing as I have developed as a professional minister.
With that said, there are a few things I didn’t learn in Seminary that I wish I had. My hope is that an awareness of these things that I’ve shared with you helps you learn them in ministry, just as I am learning them too.
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Christopher L. Scott serves as senior pastor at Lakeview Missionary Church in Moses Lake, Washington and is the author of the book, Walking Straight When Life Goes Sideways: Essential Christian Truths for Enduring Life’s Trials (Wipf and Stock). He provides hundreds of free articles, videos, and Bible study resources at his website ChristopherLynnScott.com.