Thank you for this thoughtful piece! As I pastor in a small rural town, I am frustrated by the devaluing of the steady and patient (and very rewarding) calling to shepherd congregations. I've co-officiated (with my ministry colleague) two funerals for congregants in the past three days, and this is holy work.
Yep! You nailed it. The progressive view that our mission is to work toward creating God’s kingdom in society has bad Christology and even worse ecclesiology.
Not to disagree entirely with you, but with my direct experience with multiple seminaries, the issue is employment based, but the other way around from how you frame it. My former seminary home of MTSO is emphasizing the master's in social justice, a two year degree (see link below), IMHO over getting M.Div. training, because the MSJs can get jobs. Actual functional jobs. There's work, and work with benefits in non-profits and activism; ministry positions are today (in my tradition, at any rate) almost entirely sans health care, and the only good thing I can say about that is at least the congregations are overtly saying "we don't offer health care, we expect you to either get it on your own through the exchanges, or by way of your partner/spouse." Most of my "career" churches expected that, but tried to pretend otherwise (and, also my opinion, resented the fact that the spouse's career became more important than supporting the church, even though they were providing the health care coverage -- another reason you saw a general flight from M.Div.s by people, but especially men, in the 80s, 90s, & 00s).
So it's a rational choice by someone who twenty-thirty years earlier might have gone "into ministry" and done the M.Div. course to then go out and make a difference in the world. The constrained compensation picture, along with the wholesale slashing of any pretense of health care provision for ministry positions, meant a position with some alphabet soup org. like the ABCD or the QRST or some clever backronym like ASPIRE or REHOPE, which once was a stipend and no benefits, was now more likely to carry at least the promise of benefits after a promotion or two, and probably paid more even if you did the math on the housing allowance game of "no salary" but all housing allowance and Pension Fund calculated on that, with the "savings" on FICA . . . but the lowered Social Security outcomes, which come faster than you think.
Or, to be totally frank: $30,000 plus health care benefits is more attractive to a potential seminary student than $16,000 housing/$14,000 salary, plus $4,200 Pension Fund. That sort of formula is moving students consistently from the M.Div. category to social justice work, and it's hard to argue with. I do, but I don't often win. Oh, and of the M.Div.s I've mentored? A majority of them end up in hospital chaplaincy for much the same sort of reasons. Plus the pay is better than either, but the benefits are the lock.
Eh, not a rebuttal, just a useful parallel track. More than one thing can be true, certainly in this space! Seminaries can be abused and maligned on many levels (ask me sometime), but there has been some angst among administrators over this shift . . . and as I discussed on occasion with the late and lamented Chuck Blaisdell, if seminaries asked congregations in general what they should do, I am skeptical as to whether the answers would be constructive. How and why we got (and the "we" here is mainline Protestantism in general, not just us'ns in the Disciples) to the execrable compensation situation which drives so much of this is a debate for another day. It's . . . complicated, as Facebook says. But while there's a whole bunch of progressive activist sentiment in seminary faculties and leadership, the driver has been getting graduates some kind of employment. If the majority of grads were getting first full-time work after graduation in tire stores, they'd probably be adding some auto parts classes to the curriculum. But it's non-profits that are hiring, and prospective students know it. Churches increasingly are offering a stipend and two weeks vacation, take it or leave it. Well...
You make many good points. Back in the 90s, many of us LGBT folks were ready to pastor churches. But they wouldn’t have us. Then, churches complained that no straight men with wives and young children were available. Now they’re complaining that there aren’t any pastors at all. Go figure.
As a pastor struggling to find a place to reconnect in church life after retiring from military chaplain ministry this helps calm the frustration. I see I am not the only one grappling with the best way to fulfill the calling to faithful stewarding and shepherding God’s flock entrusted to us.
While I don't disagree with you generally, as a pastor who also has had training in church-based community organizing, I can tell you that there are some community organizing skills which absolutely serve parish pastors well, among them a skill called the "one-to-one". This is a training in deep listening and stories, to understand both parish and community members, to learn their stories and their passions. It is a helpful skill to know how and where people might be gifted in serving God, and it also helps to know the real needs of a community, and not just what "liberals" imagine those needs are. Pastor Heidi Neumark's Memoir Breathing Space is one example of a Pastor/Organizer revitalizing a local congregation (hers was in the Bronx). I am not a total advocate of church-based community organizing (and didn't feel like I was good at some aspects of it) but absolutely I felt that there was some helpful skills there. One thing community organizing can do (also) is get congregations out of of an 'insider-survival' mentality, and back to reminding them that they exist for the world, and not the other way around.
Thank you for this thoughtful piece! As I pastor in a small rural town, I am frustrated by the devaluing of the steady and patient (and very rewarding) calling to shepherd congregations. I've co-officiated (with my ministry colleague) two funerals for congregants in the past three days, and this is holy work.
Yep! You nailed it. The progressive view that our mission is to work toward creating God’s kingdom in society has bad Christology and even worse ecclesiology.
Not to disagree entirely with you, but with my direct experience with multiple seminaries, the issue is employment based, but the other way around from how you frame it. My former seminary home of MTSO is emphasizing the master's in social justice, a two year degree (see link below), IMHO over getting M.Div. training, because the MSJs can get jobs. Actual functional jobs. There's work, and work with benefits in non-profits and activism; ministry positions are today (in my tradition, at any rate) almost entirely sans health care, and the only good thing I can say about that is at least the congregations are overtly saying "we don't offer health care, we expect you to either get it on your own through the exchanges, or by way of your partner/spouse." Most of my "career" churches expected that, but tried to pretend otherwise (and, also my opinion, resented the fact that the spouse's career became more important than supporting the church, even though they were providing the health care coverage -- another reason you saw a general flight from M.Div.s by people, but especially men, in the 80s, 90s, & 00s).
So it's a rational choice by someone who twenty-thirty years earlier might have gone "into ministry" and done the M.Div. course to then go out and make a difference in the world. The constrained compensation picture, along with the wholesale slashing of any pretense of health care provision for ministry positions, meant a position with some alphabet soup org. like the ABCD or the QRST or some clever backronym like ASPIRE or REHOPE, which once was a stipend and no benefits, was now more likely to carry at least the promise of benefits after a promotion or two, and probably paid more even if you did the math on the housing allowance game of "no salary" but all housing allowance and Pension Fund calculated on that, with the "savings" on FICA . . . but the lowered Social Security outcomes, which come faster than you think.
Or, to be totally frank: $30,000 plus health care benefits is more attractive to a potential seminary student than $16,000 housing/$14,000 salary, plus $4,200 Pension Fund. That sort of formula is moving students consistently from the M.Div. category to social justice work, and it's hard to argue with. I do, but I don't often win. Oh, and of the M.Div.s I've mentored? A majority of them end up in hospital chaplaincy for much the same sort of reasons. Plus the pay is better than either, but the benefits are the lock.
https://www.mtso.edu/academics/academic-programs/masters-degree-programs/master-of-arts-in-social-justice/
That's a fair rebuttal. Thanks for the feedback.
Eh, not a rebuttal, just a useful parallel track. More than one thing can be true, certainly in this space! Seminaries can be abused and maligned on many levels (ask me sometime), but there has been some angst among administrators over this shift . . . and as I discussed on occasion with the late and lamented Chuck Blaisdell, if seminaries asked congregations in general what they should do, I am skeptical as to whether the answers would be constructive. How and why we got (and the "we" here is mainline Protestantism in general, not just us'ns in the Disciples) to the execrable compensation situation which drives so much of this is a debate for another day. It's . . . complicated, as Facebook says. But while there's a whole bunch of progressive activist sentiment in seminary faculties and leadership, the driver has been getting graduates some kind of employment. If the majority of grads were getting first full-time work after graduation in tire stores, they'd probably be adding some auto parts classes to the curriculum. But it's non-profits that are hiring, and prospective students know it. Churches increasingly are offering a stipend and two weeks vacation, take it or leave it. Well...
You make many good points. Back in the 90s, many of us LGBT folks were ready to pastor churches. But they wouldn’t have us. Then, churches complained that no straight men with wives and young children were available. Now they’re complaining that there aren’t any pastors at all. Go figure.
As a pastor struggling to find a place to reconnect in church life after retiring from military chaplain ministry this helps calm the frustration. I see I am not the only one grappling with the best way to fulfill the calling to faithful stewarding and shepherding God’s flock entrusted to us.
While I don't disagree with you generally, as a pastor who also has had training in church-based community organizing, I can tell you that there are some community organizing skills which absolutely serve parish pastors well, among them a skill called the "one-to-one". This is a training in deep listening and stories, to understand both parish and community members, to learn their stories and their passions. It is a helpful skill to know how and where people might be gifted in serving God, and it also helps to know the real needs of a community, and not just what "liberals" imagine those needs are. Pastor Heidi Neumark's Memoir Breathing Space is one example of a Pastor/Organizer revitalizing a local congregation (hers was in the Bronx). I am not a total advocate of church-based community organizing (and didn't feel like I was good at some aspects of it) but absolutely I felt that there was some helpful skills there. One thing community organizing can do (also) is get congregations out of of an 'insider-survival' mentality, and back to reminding them that they exist for the world, and not the other way around.
it needs to exist alongside good theology and spiritual practices.