Purpose

Many people seeking training for Christian ministry think of seminary training. Most of them are not sure what training they need. This they have never thought of. They just trust that a seminary or Bible College will do that for them. We are thankful for the many faithful teachers through the years that God has raised up to challenge and equip His people for His service.Our question for those contemplating ministry in God’s harvest field is, “ What kind of training does God desire to give you and why?”

If God has said to go, why not go right now? Or what is it that God wants to do first in your life?This process has unfortunately been short-circuited by the student looking to what the church wants. They see that pastors, teachers and missionaries require a seminary degree so that is what they look for. They look at the financial, time and more than often moving of home requirements and because of the burden on their heart go to get a degree.

They have given their personal inquiry as to what God wants to first do in their life so that they can effectively minister to the Lord. As to content, character training, Bible knowledge, skills, mentoring, etc., they have sacrificed this pursuit to the school. They trust the school.If the schools were doing a good job at preparing God’s servers, then we would be somewhat content.

I have not yet heard of a school that takes a student and goes over with them on how they are there to serve the student as He seeks the training God has for him. Instead, the student identifies some area of interest and is run by the program. The students are betrayed by their choice of major and electives. They think this brings the fullness of training for them.

We suggest this model is far from ideal. Some have smoothed this problem over by providing good mentors or advisors.We need a change of mentality that will drive both teacher and trainee by the key question as to what God wants to train into that particular individual. There are some common elements, others are overlapping and still others specialized.Some might object that the student does not know what he needs.

This perhaps is true enough, but why has the student not been trained to discern what God will be doing in his life. Wouldn’t any curriculum be more focused if they could break through this ignorance. We should not only train them in general areas but areas that we often do not think about such as relationship skills as in being part of a missionary team, or relating to some church member who has a difficulty against you as a pastor.

We need to work closer with the students so that we can hear God’s heartbeat in them and then help them see what God will probably do in their lives to adequately equip them. Some of this training could be received before they start; some later on or during that time of service. One of the big problems those who have started serving is that they are on their own.

The trainee, we believe, should stay as close as possible to his home church during this time of study. This is where the biggest learning situations arise, though not always the most appreciated. We are not chiefly thinking of opportunity to serve but opportunity for misunderstandings, need for listening to authority, handling conflict of time, and seeing people in pain. Full time studies crowd out the most important training one can get in the home church.

We are aware of the constraints on time and budgets for such a flexible program. But we have in most cases not even started by asking what God is desiring to do in their lives. And so we end up giving more to some and less to others. It is true degree programs are more flexible, but are the seminaries liable for giving a degree to someone who is not godly? What if the couple has marriage problems? Does the school even know. We have trained the students in knowledge and certain study skills but generally have jumped over large areas of importance.

We need to train the churches to start asking some more real to life questions of those that they want to serve in their churches or with those people they are sending out. This will begin to have the churches be more responsible to their flock as a whole as well as those interested in training. For example, a pastor will begin to think what kind of people he has in the church and where they should be. What training does God want to give them. Where does He want them to be?Where does Christian training get its roots? There are no doubts different answers, but we ought to start with the twelve and seventy disciples Jesus trained and sent out. Jesus recognized that the disciples needed to be with Him. They needed to see what kind of life Jesus lived, how He ministered, how he conducted himself.

Some Christian training institutions have done better than others in implanting a deep passion for missions. Usually it is for the average student a very little emphasis such as in chapel two times a year. Those who are interested can usually find special courses but little is required for all. It is perhaps this reason that many churches goal is to grow themselves rather than grow God's kingdom. We need to develop a greater connection between the life of the Christian, church and His kingdom worldwide.