It seems more and more pastors in our area have no professional training. Some are high school grads who can speak well and know their Bibles. Mega-churches often train their own staffs perhaps in conjunction with online classes.
Is this trend increasing, especially with the pastor shortage (if you believe it exists, as I do) in conservative churches? Please comment to add depth to the poll, if you wish.
Discussion
NewIn our area the North…
In our area the North American Baptists have began to train future pastors in their churches rather than the seminary. These are churches that are within less than an hour's drive from the North American Baptist Seminary in Sioux Falls. Their reason is that the seminary has departed so far from Biblical standards that they no longer feel comfortable sending students there.
NewI voted no change
I think the qualifying word was “accredited” which I took to mean accreditation by secular accrediting agencies.
while I understand why schools seek such, I think churches don’t care. But that’s just me perhaps. Maybe others think differently
Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
NewSame as it's been for a century
It seems to me that fundamentalism (and to a lesser extent, evangelicalism) have a long history of suspicion towards higher education, dating back really to the days when their forebears, spiritually speaking, lost control of the seminaries. Hence we have a long tradition of hiring pastors who've gotten into "the business" by being a good speaker with apparent good Bible knowledge, and an accompanying tradition of not...exactly paying them very well.
I'm torn here, because on one side, Jesus' disciples didn't exactly have an MDIV, but on the flip side, I've seen an awful lot of guys with just a Bible college degree more or less practicing the same plan they learned in Bible college....50 years back....completely unaware of how ill-suited that plan is to today's society.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.