It's seem to me this is something we already emphasize. Seminarians serve in field work congregations from day one. We even have seminarians take a break from classes for an entire year so they can go serve full time in a congregation. Other seminaries have nothing like our vicarage program. Even candidates who go through distance routes (e.g., SMP, CHS) are required to be serving a congregation the whole way through. Candidates who defer placement to pursue graduate studies cannot be ordained until they receive a call.
Even our rhetoric about formation, in my experience, emphasizes the formation role of a congregation. As a case in point, in President Harrison's remarks at this year's call service at the Ft. Wayne seminary, he admonished the candidates to "visit [your people] like a banshee," an emphasis that I received at CSL too.
Perhaps we could emphasize this even more. But it's not clear that we don't already emphasize this to a great deal.
Thanks for the comment Kendall. I appreciate the feedback. And my apologies for being unclear. I am not trying to say that the seminaries are neglecting the congregation as part of training and formation of pastors. As you noted, there is much evidence that the seminaries are aware of emphasizing the congregation as part of the formation process. I'm not debating that.
What I'm observing is that in the conversations and arguments about pastoral formation, the calling congregation's role is not a part of the conversation. Congregations need pastors, that comes up a lot. But the focus of these conversations is zoomed in on professional education.
I started writing this post literally 18 months ago after a conversation with a group of pastors about residential vs. low-residential routes. The emphasis from that conversation centered around the learning environment of the seminaries being what forms pastors. In subsequent conversations with other pastors, this theme continues.
If our conversations around pastoral formation could zoom out from the four or eight years of professional education, I think it might adjust our process as well as the professional education requirements. Maybe that is happening in conversations I'm not a part of. This has just been my observation of the past few years.
It's seem to me this is something we already emphasize. Seminarians serve in field work congregations from day one. We even have seminarians take a break from classes for an entire year so they can go serve full time in a congregation. Other seminaries have nothing like our vicarage program. Even candidates who go through distance routes (e.g., SMP, CHS) are required to be serving a congregation the whole way through. Candidates who defer placement to pursue graduate studies cannot be ordained until they receive a call.
Even our rhetoric about formation, in my experience, emphasizes the formation role of a congregation. As a case in point, in President Harrison's remarks at this year's call service at the Ft. Wayne seminary, he admonished the candidates to "visit [your people] like a banshee," an emphasis that I received at CSL too.
Perhaps we could emphasize this even more. But it's not clear that we don't already emphasize this to a great deal.
Thanks for the comment Kendall. I appreciate the feedback. And my apologies for being unclear. I am not trying to say that the seminaries are neglecting the congregation as part of training and formation of pastors. As you noted, there is much evidence that the seminaries are aware of emphasizing the congregation as part of the formation process. I'm not debating that.
What I'm observing is that in the conversations and arguments about pastoral formation, the calling congregation's role is not a part of the conversation. Congregations need pastors, that comes up a lot. But the focus of these conversations is zoomed in on professional education.
I started writing this post literally 18 months ago after a conversation with a group of pastors about residential vs. low-residential routes. The emphasis from that conversation centered around the learning environment of the seminaries being what forms pastors. In subsequent conversations with other pastors, this theme continues.
If our conversations around pastoral formation could zoom out from the four or eight years of professional education, I think it might adjust our process as well as the professional education requirements. Maybe that is happening in conversations I'm not a part of. This has just been my observation of the past few years.
We know a few of those professors!