The American Churchman: The Pastor Shortage

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00:23

And welcome to the American Churchmen podcast, where we encourage American churchmen to take dominion, to take their responsibilities seriously, to serve our

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Lord Jesus Christ, and just to be better all around churchmen. So today we're gonna talk about a growing issue.

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And I think this is something that is particularly pertinent for our audience, which is the shortage of pastors, especially younger pastors coming into the ministry.

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But before we get to that, this is my co -host. Everyone knows who's obviously followed the podcast, but Matthew Pearson.

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Matthew, thanks for being with me today to talk about this. Oh, no,

01:03

I can't hear you, Matthew. I don't know if you're coming through. No, no, no, I muted my mic, I'm sorry. How are you doing,

01:09

John? It's great to be here as always. And as you can see from the setup, the lighting's a bit wonky because I just got moved into my new apartment.

01:17

So getting married in about a month. And so now we're getting set up and I'm still kind of trying to balance, okay, where do

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I want this? Where do I want that? So that may explain the quality for all the people on YouTube that watch because, yeah, so.

01:32

But no, I'm doing good. The quality is actually better than it's been in previous weeks because you actually have good internet now, so. Yeah, yeah, you know,

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I got the best one possible. There was like a little promo code thing for it.

01:43

Like, oh, you can get this for this. And I'm like, shoot, with this podcast, I'm tired of having a pixelated camera being a, so yeah, no, we're good now.

01:51

There you go, yeah, I'm excited about that because we've had some technical issues in the past from not just you, but also me.

01:57

And now I have a new computer, you have new internet. We should be good. Everything should be fine. It wasn't the feds disrupting us as much as we'd like to let everyone know that.

02:06

But yeah, so I actually just got back last night. I was away for the weekend unexpectedly.

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I was in Lynchburg, Virginia, so near Liberty University. And my wife, she has a good friend that passed away and it was kind of a crazy situation.

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It's sort of sobering because you can pass away at any age. She was 36 and had strep, which

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I've never heard of someone at that age dying from strep, but it went too far. She was checked in on,

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I think it was Monday, to a hospital, a local hospital. And then they were waiting too long.

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And so it wasn't until Tuesday that they went to a better hospital. And by Wednesday though, she was gone.

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Her organs were shutting down. It's kind of a crazy, yeah, it is like, and there's pictures on her Instagram of her hiking the previous week, healthy, all the rest.

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But just a reminder, God can take us any time. And so I'm kind of coming off all of that, but glad to be back.

03:07

And we're gonna talk a little bit about just the direction of the church in America.

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And I think this is super important, especially for young Gen Z Zoomer males who want to see the church continue, because you basically are gonna have to decide whether it's going to continue.

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Millennials and Gen Z males are gonna have to decide whether they want to actually put the work in and pursue actually what

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Matthew's pursuing now. And if that doesn't happen, then yes, there will be churches closing.

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There will be a shortage of pastors, basically. So that's gonna, we're gonna give hope though.

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I mean, there's some solutions, perhaps some of the members of the audience haven't thought about, which we'll hopefully present to you.

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But maybe the best place to start here, Matthew, is you are a seminarian right now.

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And I know from just talking to you, I've never asked you numbers and I don't plan to, but you're taking jobs all the time.

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Like if you can do an odd job, you take the odd job. You'll take multiple jobs. Anything you can get, you do, so that you can pay your tuition.

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And now you're obviously gonna get married later this year. You're not quite done with seminary. And it's a strain to get through all of that.

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And I don't know what avenues that you've taken to try to alleviate that pressure, but I know that's one of the things we're gonna be talking about is the financial disincentive.

04:38

Maybe if you want to start out, since you're living this life now, just tell us your logic in even pursuing seminary and then how did you try to pay for it?

04:48

Yeah, well, the reason why I'm doing seminary is based off of,

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I feel a call towards ministry. And when, at least in like the reform world, typically when we speak of pastoral calling and things like that, there's two things, the internal and the external call.

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The internal is like a bit more subjective because it's your fallible perception of where the spirit is leading you.

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Now, of course, there are people that they'll use, oh, well, God told me this, or I feel the Lord is directing me here.

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And it could be the most imprudent, unwise thing in the world. But that's like part of a calling to ministry is feeling the spirit dragging on you.

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But part of confirmation of the internal calling is the external calling as well.

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So people in your life around you, be it church leaders, be it congregants, be it family, all these sorts of groups coming together and all pointing you in the same direction and being like, hey, maybe the

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Lord is calling you to ministry. And something about that though is oftentimes people get really into theology maybe.

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And they'll assume that because they have a hunger for the word of God, because they love learning about theology, that necessarily means you're called to the ministry.

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And the thing is though, is that the call to ministry, the call to be an elder, a presbyter, whatever it is, that's not just based off your love of theology.

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You can be a wonderful lay person who works like a normal white collar, blue collar job or whatever.

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And you're really into theology and you even get into it online with people. And that doesn't mean you're called to ministry. And many people like that exist.

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And they're like, yeah, I'm not going to ministry. That's not my calling at all. I don't wanna do that. So sometimes people get that mixed up.

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But part of the call to ministry is this notion of there's, not only is there like a love for the things of God, but there's a love to shepherd those and guide them towards that in a pastoral capacity.

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And that's something that I feel in my heart. Like, I think that God has stirred in my heart, a spirit of love and charity towards those in the church, be they a fellow

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Theo nerd or be it an old lady that wants to talk to me about our flower garden. I feel like I'm a fairly patient person.

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Even if I don't personally find it interesting, I will ask everything I need to know about it and make them feel like I'm actually there listening.

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So that's part of it is that I really enjoy reading into like this deeper stuff. But I also just, I want to help the church.

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I want to grow and encourage believers in the Lord. That's part of the call and all that yapping to say, that sort of is what led me to ministry or to seminary, not ministry, but to seminary.

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And so part of the reason for seminary is that in the Presbyterian church in America, the denomination

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I belong to for ordination, they require a seminary degree. And so I'm like, okay, well, if I wanna do this, then the means through which

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I obtained that end is by going to seminary. And so that sort of is what led me there is this sort of,

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I felt the call towards being a presbyter. And so I'm like, I gotta go to seminary then.

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And seminary is expensive, tuition's a lot. But the good thing is that if you get plugged in with a solid seminary, there are lots of scholarship opportunities.

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And I do, by the grace of God, I go to RTS Orlando and they do have, I have a very nice scholarship with them.

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It's not like, you know, I don't wanna go into like all the details. It's not 100%, but it's not like super minimal.

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So that's good. And on top of that, my church is helping finance some of my seminary as well. So with that, like, it's still for me, cause

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I'm just like a bit broke, because for me, it still is like a bit of money. I still gotta, you know, I'm like, oh, I gotta fork over this much money or whatever, but it makes it much more doable, even if it is still a bit tough.

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And something people also have to remember about seminary is that, you know, you do have to buy textbooks and textbooks can cost money, especially when a professor assigns you a bunch of books to read.

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Now, you know, maybe you can, it depends on your conscience in regard to piracy laws and whether you believe that piracy laws regarding eBooks are legitimate or not.

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But, you know, the digital library does not have everything. I will say that if you go on, you know, redacted .com

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or whatever, it may not have all the books you need. So you do have to fork up money for that. So, you know, it's a struggle, but it's not like the most overburdened something due to a scholarship.

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And, but yeah, so RTS always offers really good scholarship. I'm speaking of the reform world, but I know RTS always offers great scholarships.

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Greenville has very, Greenville will give you a very solid theological education and they have very cheap credit hours.

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So that's good. So I know there's lots of seminaries out there that offer that.

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So, and the thing too with calling is the Lord is calling to this. There will be a way made.

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You can find a way to do it. So yeah, but no, like you said though, John, I'm working a bunch of little different jobs to support myself, you know, getting married soon and all that.

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So just trying to balance everything, but you know, trusting the Lord through it all. And so, yeah,

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I know that I feel that in my heart, I feel it through the external calling. And so I think that God will, you know, get me through, help me to fly by.

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One of the things you mentioned I thought was really good is that your church is helping you, which not a lot of churches do that.

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And I think it's important. If your church has a missions budget, and I don't want to be a legalist about this, but I really do think you should have a budget for Christian education.

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If you have people that you've cultivated in the church who have a desire to minister, send them out, they're missionaries.

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They may not be in a foreign land. They may be coming back to your very church. That's possible, but they're doing the same work.

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They're doing the work of evangelism and discipleship and all the rest. So consider investing in the people that are actually sitting in the pews.

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That's one of the things my church does. We do have some scholarships, if you want to call them that. They're just, they're more line items in the church budget for people who want to go to Bible college or seminary.

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And I'm appreciative of that. It's not a lot, but every little bit helps, like you said.

10:56

So yeah, my story is a little different. I went to seminary and it initially was not because I thought

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I was going to necessarily be a pastor. I wasn't sure. I was between that and law school.

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I wasn't sure if I should be a lawyer or a pastor. I just knew that whatever career that I went into,

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I would need, or it would be helpful to have a basic knowledge of the word of God. And to me, that meant understanding how to interpret it, understanding the broad sweep of scripture, and then also understanding the original language is enough that I could at least get through Lagos and understand what it's talking about.

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And so I started taking classes with that intent. I did a semester at Master's Seminary.

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I did some online classes at Liberty University's seminary, Liberty Baptist. Finally, I went to Southeastern.

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That's where I actually got my degree. I transferred some of the credits in to Southeastern. And I just finally figured out for me personally,

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I needed to be on a campus to know the languages. So that's where seminary became important was

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I need someone to force me because I don't like learning the languages. It's not something that comes naturally.

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Some people are blessed with the gift of understanding language very easily. I am not. I'm not either.

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I still struggle with Greek and I finished all my Greek classes, but it's partly on me because I don't practice like barely at all.

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So I need to get on that. Well, it's hard when you're working all these jobs too. You're not, if you're in the word all the time and you're constantly using it, you keep it up.

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But most pastors I know, they don't even, it gets rusty for them, but they can still at least use the tools.

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And that's, I guess, more or less why I wanted to understand it. So anyway, all that to say, getting to that point was not a long -term goal for me.

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But as I was doing all of this, I felt more and more pulled in a ministry direction.

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And to the point now that I think that that is where the Lord is leading me is towards that.

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And part of it is that pastoral heart. You talked about internal and external confirmations.

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And I can say that I've had that as well, that when you're teaching blesses people and then you have a heart for them, maybe give it a little contrast.

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I was talking to a pastor who I dearly love, but he said some things that I told him.

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I said, this is concerning to me, which essentially was he, for him, pastoral ministry was too slow.

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He didn't care for doing all the funerals, baptisms, counseling, all that kind of thing.

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And it just, it wasn't, he wanted to be in the limelight. And I said, that's a red flag, actually.

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Like this is a really big red flag. You should probably resign, especially if you don't think you're being a good pastor.

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If you just think you're a preacher and you're not a pastor, you should probably find the exit because being a pastor means watching over the souls of your sheep.

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It's so much more than just giving a speech and taking a stand even, even if it's a hard stand, it's more than that.

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It is having, as Jesus had compassion on the multitudes, we have compassion on the sheep in our congregation.

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And that's one thing that I sensed from you kind of early on, Matthew, is you have that heart for people and not just people who are interested in what you're interested in.

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And that's kind of essential for a pastor. So anyway, different route, but getting to that point though is obviously a strain financially on me as well.

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So this took me about a decade to do. And I did it through working and doing, my company did some tuition match, like a 50 % tuition match.

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So I could take, I think up to, I don't know, six credits a semester and they would pay for half of it, which was really cool.

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So that really helped for some of the courses. I had to go a little slower on some things.

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I had to, when I did have a semester where I wasn't working, I would just cram in as many credits as I could, and learn it all in that semester.

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And then of course, before that, my undergrad, you have to get through undergrad before you can even get to seminary.

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So I had to strategize that as well financially, which we'll talk about. But my hope is that as we go through this article, what we'll do is we'll give people some ideas of how they can make it through if they have that heart, because sometimes that's what's stopping them is the finances.

15:44

So here's some practical tips you might not have thought of that might get you from A to B. And then maybe we could provoke some people who are also called, but just maybe don't think they have the time or maybe they don't see the need to impress upon them that no, there is a need and I don't want anyone to get involved in a career choice of calling, especially if it's not their calling.

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But I do think something's off when we don't have young people taking these roles. So with that said, this is the article and it's from truthscript .com.

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I just wanna remind everyone that Truthscript is a 501c3. We appreciate your support. You can scroll to the bottom.

16:21

Sorry, that's Forbes, it's not Truthscript. That's Truthscript. You can go to the bottom and there's a little donate tab.

16:27

There's also a publish tab if you wanna publish with us. The article today though is called, how can new pastors pay for their education without going into debt?

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And that's a great question. Before we even get there though, I wanna go over a few stats. So I was looking at this more broadly and then zooming in on the pastoral vocation.

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Harvard did a poll and they found that, this is recent actually. When is this? This is spring 2025.

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More than four in 10 young Americans under 30 say they're barely getting by financially. So that's kind of a problem.

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Fewer than half feel a sense of community with only 17 % reporting deep social connection.

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Well, that's also really bad. And I would wager if you are not feeling a deep social connection, you're not gonna see the need for social institutions like the church.

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If you're not connected to the church, why would you want the church to continue? Just 15 % believe the country is heading the right direction.

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Okay, that's irrelevant. Let's see. Traditional life goals are shifting with only 48 % of young Americans saying having children is important.

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And to me, that says, that's bigger than just children. That means people aren't thinking long -term.

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They're not thinking generationally. And to get involved in a church as a pastor, you are shepherding people, sometimes from the point at which they are baptized in a

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Presbyterian church, that's very early, all the way to the point that they're married. And sometimes even to the point that they die.

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I mean, if they die early, you are there for the full span of life. You are dedicating yourself to a community as well as, it's not just theology, it's people, it's an organization.

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And if you're not invested, if you feel disconnected, then you're not gonna see the need for that kind of thing.

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COVID created social isolation, rates of depression, et cetera. So, okay, so that's an interesting poll.

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That's not about pastoral stuff. Also, women are outpacing men in college enrollment.

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This is from 2024 story. Women comprise 58 % of all college students in 2020. So some of our data is a little older here.

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I'm sure that's getting probably worse, but that's kind of an issue that you have now.

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Women are the ones pursuing higher education. And if you're gonna be a pastor, and if you're gonna go to seminary, we'll say, then you would need an undergrad degree first.

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And if women are the ones filling these roles and not men, that means men are going to blue collar roles more, or roles,

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I should say, not just even blue collar, but roles that just don't require a degree. So this brings us to some polls that are quoted in the piece we're about to read.

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This is from the Church Revitalization Podcast. They quote a bunch of things.

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It was linked, but let's see, financial disincentives. They say that the average cost for a bachelor's degree for state resident adds up to over $115 ,000 over four years.

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Wow. And adding the cost of an MDiv could, which could approximate 35 ,000 to 86 ,000 over three years, depending on living expenses, is a big burden.

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What else do they say? Let's see. Recent data in North America's 280 Christian seminaries enrolled 78 ,000 students in fall 2022, showing a slight decline overall with specific decreases among evangelicals and mainline

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Protestants. So interestingly, Roman Catholics and Orthodox schools saw a small increase.

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Evangelicals, negative 3 .2%. So enrollment is actually also going down.

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Let's see, I think this is a Barna poll. The average age of religious leaders has increased from 50 in 2000 to 57 in 2020.

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A 2017 Barna study found that the median age of a Protestant pastor was 54 at that time, up from 44 in 1992.

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So pastors are getting older is basically the theme here.

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All of that stuff seems to play into this problem. So I'm gonna read the first two paragraphs here, and then we'll talk about it.

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A rising tide of concern is growing from the shortage of pastors. And I should say, sorry, I didn't mention this.

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Nathan Downey is the author of this. So Nathan says, a rising tide of concern is growing from the shortage of pastors replacing the aging shepherds currently in our pulpits.

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This is a problem across denominations. The Malphurs Group and Barna Group research noting this issue.

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With the succession crisis looming over churches, we should be thinking now about how to address these issues before the problem gets worse and more churches close because they cannot find a pastor.

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While there are many factors contributing to this problem, one frequently discussed issue is the cost of education.

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For most churches, an MDiv or other seminary degree is required, usually in addition to completing an undergraduate degree.

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Some students are piling up close to or even over $100 ,000 for their education, but the prospects of ministry afterward are typically either bivocational or significantly lower pay than their families can afford.

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As someone who has worked in enrollment for three universities, I think I can offer some vital information. So before we even get there,

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Matthew, I gave some contributors, possibly potential contributors to this problem.

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What do you see as the big one? Do you think it's financial or do you think there's something else that's causing younger potential pastors not to go into the ministry?

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I think part of it is financial, but I mean, the other part of it is just that the percentages of people that are religious is just down generally.

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I know among Gen Z, part of that's like starting to increase a little bit, but a lot of it is just the fact that a lot of Gen Z or millennials just no longer identify as Christian.

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And if you don't have that many people identifying as Christian, you're obviously gonna see a decrease in those going into ministry for obvious reasons with that.

22:50

But no, I definitely do think that the financial is a big part of it as well, which is why like scouting out for scholarships is so important and trying to find different revenues to allow people to like make your journey a bit easier, which is why a big thing for going into seminary is just like part of it's just being connected to your local church well enough for them to be like willing to say, hey, you wanna go into ministry?

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Let's help fund you a little bit versus also just networking in general. So part of it is just making friends in various places.

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And if you're able and willing to do that, that will help a bit. But for some people, they just like, they may not have all the connections.

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They may have only been involved in their church for a set amount of time. And whereas they think that they wanna do this, they don't have the means to do so.

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But it's not to say that seminaries like shouldn't be the price that they are though. Maybe they should be, but you do have to fund the people that are doing it.

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You do have to make sure that the people who are teaching you have a livelihood and an ability to live as well.

23:57

So there's varying factors going into it, but it's hard to say if it's one thing in particular, because a big thing that I know is what

24:05

I just clarified is that with the proper channels, with the proper networking, with a good connection with your local church, you will have means to make it work.

24:17

So that's what I'd say about that. And part of the reason my church was willing to do that is that when

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I was looking into going to seminary, up to that point, I had been a member of the church for four years. I had put myself out there.

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I helped set up for the Lord's Supper. I was in the choir. I taught some Sunday schools for the kids and some for adults and things like that.

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And so by reaching out and being like, hey, I wanna help the church in this way and this way or this way, churches will see that you're willing to do that.

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And in seeing that, they're willing to help you out. And so part of it is just also putting yourself out there with that.

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Because I mean, if people can't see that, like if you say you wanna go into ministry, but they don't see you helping like on the ground level, how are they gonna be comfortable?

25:03

Not let alone just sending you off, but like also maybe helping fund you. So I would say that a big part of it is just to do it, network and get involved with your local church to a degree.

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Now I understand too that in a church environment, be it like a mega church or maybe be at a church, which is not technically a mega church, but still has a lot of people.

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So for example, the church that I attend right now has about like 600 people. It may be a bit more difficult because there's so many people.

25:30

I was blessed to have like a smaller congregation of about 120 people. And so I was able to actually be able to get involved in these different things.

25:38

But I mean, that's what I'd say is just, like put yourself out there because the challenges are difficult financially, but there are many routes that you can take to alleviate the financial burden.

25:50

Yeah, we're gonna talk about some of those in the article. I think it's actually really interesting because there were things that I didn't even know about.

25:58

And I thought that I took all the advantage of all the, I don't wanna call them shortcuts, but the financial incentives, the financial help that existed.

26:12

So Nathan gets into reducing the cost of undergraduate programs. And he talks about how, he uses two universities as examples,

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Liberty is the first one because Liberty has a lot of online stuff. You can go and get an

26:27

MDiv or a, like even if you wanna get an MDiv somewhere else, you can at least get your undergraduate there if you want to.

26:35

And he does the calculation and 120 semester credits at $390 a credit is $46 ,860.

26:45

That's just the credits, right? So if you're living on campus, if you're doing the rest, it's incredible debt that you're taking in if you just pay that, that's a lot of money.

26:58

So the thing is though, and this is what a lot of people don't know, schools will accept usually a certain degree of transfers.

27:06

For Liberty, and I did not know this, they allow for 75 % of credits to be transferred in.

27:12

So that, I don't know if that's new. I thought it was 50%, but it's 75, which means that you can go to other schools and up to 75 % of the credits can be transferred.

27:21

That means you can go to community college and you can take, you can test out of courses. And that's what

27:26

Nathan talks about. He says that there's a website study .com. And if you go to it, it has right here, there's the

27:36

Liberty University online insignia. You can start saving on credits.

27:41

You can choose a, let's see, let's go to courses. You can choose courses.

27:47

So here's history and you can choose, let's say history of Western art. It's a three credit course.

27:54

You could actually do it through study .com and it's legitimate. Like if you pass the tests and everything, you will have a, there's a matriculation agreement where Liberty says they'll honor it.

28:07

And I was going to say, cause I'd never heard of study .com, but when I was doing this and they still are around, you can do

28:14

CLEP tests they're called. You can also do DSST tests. Those are usually higher level undergrad credits.

28:22

Like a CLEP test would be like English 101, but I tested out a lot of classes just doing that.

28:29

Like English 101 and 102, six credits. I paid at the time, it was like 90, 80, 90 bucks.

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It's probably more now, but I sat in a proctored exam for about three hours and that was it.

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I had the credits. I didn't have to take the class cause I already knew it. If you study for those tests and you're self -motivated, then that can save you a whole lot of money.

28:51

You don't have to go through all the things everyone else has to go through. So I think that's a really, really good idea that a lot of people don't take advantage of.

29:04

There's also institutional challenge exams. I never heard of this either. So Liberty has it on their website.

29:11

ICE, not the ice we're all talking about. It's a different ICE. Institutional challenge examinations.

29:17

You can, for a fee of $130, register to test out a business history, psychology, sociology exam.

29:26

So I know this is super practical, but I think this will be super helpful for people who think this is out of reach.

29:31

You can actually get through undergrad fairly easily. I did it for probably, I don't know, $10 ,000 with all the credits and everything.

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And that was now, I don't even want to say how long ago, but today, what, $16 ,000.

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You can actually get through this stuff if you want in a cost -efficient manner, if you're planning on going on to higher education.

29:57

Because if you already know you want to be in seminary, then the undergrad is just, you basically just have to get that out of the way so you can get to that next level.

30:05

At least that's how I looked at it. He does the similar math for Purdue. Oh, I should just mention this.

30:10

So he does the math. He goes, if you transfer in as much as you can, your degree now costs $13 ,550.

30:20

Purdue University, he does the same thing. They have a similar arrangement. And the degree will cost you $4 ,125 .80

30:30

if you go the route he's suggesting. I did this through Thomas Edison College, and I didn't do the same thing.

30:36

I went to community college, and I transferred a bunch of credits from other institutions, but I tested out of a bunch of stuff, and it really did help me kind of get a leg up so that when

30:49

I was deciding between seminary and law school, they're looking at my

30:54

GMAT, or actually, that would be my LSAT, and then, I guess, my GMAT.

31:00

I can't remember if I had to do that for seminary or not. And they're also looking at my

31:06

GPA, which is determined based upon the classes I've taken, not the ones I've tested out of. So technically, my

31:12

GPA in undergrad was 4 .0, because I only took a few classes from the institution that actually gave me my history degree.

31:21

Everything else was transferred in from other places. So those are some helpful things there.

31:29

He goes on and talks about seminary costs, and he says, if you're a resident of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, or West Virginia, so Matthew and I are out of this, and you're a

31:40

Baptist, Matthew's definitely out of this, you can go to seminary for free. And that is due to the

31:47

Charles Casey Foundation. A lot of the guys at Southeastern who I went to school with got either half their tuition was paid for by the convention, or they had this scholarship.

31:58

And I was the only one I knew of that paid it all myself. I did, I paid every credit in seminary

32:04

I did pay for myself, working my way through it. But you might not have to do that.

32:11

And there's scholarships you can get too. I know in undergrad, I took some scholarships. So that's basically the practical advice that Nathan gives.

32:19

I think that's the summation of it. You can get through this cheaply if you just think about it in a strategic way.

32:27

And those are just a few ways that I would suggest looking at it. I'm not convinced that's the only thing.

32:34

I keep preventing people from going this route. I do think it is a big one though. People just don't have the money.

32:40

But I know that there's also like some churches are also going this direction of trying to raise up in -house pastors.

32:51

And I look at that as the substitute for the Bible Institute model, because in a lot of non -denominational and Baptist churches,

33:00

I don't think Presbyterian churches as much, but in non -denominational settings, for a long time,

33:05

Bible Institutes were part of the feeders into pastoral ministry. You would go for like maybe a year, maybe two years.

33:13

One of the big ones in my state is called Word of Life. There's one in Florida as well. I don't know if you've been there, Matthew, but Word of Life Florida is also, no.

33:22

But you go for a year or two, you do some Bible courses, it's basic. They'll maybe take, you'll do hermeneutics, you'll do some basic theology, and then they'll send you out.

33:33

And is it ideal necessarily? Is it the best education? Well, maybe not, but it might be all you can afford.

33:40

It might be the only thing. So there was a lot of pastors who that's all they had going into a church.

33:47

And then they learned on the job and they figured it out and with more study in the Bible, they got much better at understanding and preaching.

33:55

But the Bible schools have been shutting down now for 20 years, just going out of business.

34:02

The conglomerates like Liberty University are kind of swallowing them up and gaining the business they used to have. And so a lot of these places are now looking in their congregations also to see, okay, who has interest in preaching?

34:15

And maybe the pastor takes you under his wing and tries to show you the ropes.

34:21

And then you do some online courses if you feel insufficient. But that's it.

34:27

You're not after the degree. You're just after some experience and some basic knowledge.

34:33

And that is another route you can go in many of the traditions that are listening here. You don't necessarily have to go to seminary.

34:40

None of the disciples obviously did. They did have three years with Jesus. So that does mean something, but maybe ask your pastor if he would just show you the ropes or take it.

34:49

Whatever time you have, if you have a day a week or half a day, or maybe three hours and you just say, all right,

34:56

I'm gonna take these three hours. I'm gonna go help my pastor, whatever he wants me to do.

35:01

If he's doing counseling, I'm gonna ask him if I can do counseling with them or watch. That's an education and it's probably a better education in some ways, because it's practical.

35:12

So that's another thing you can do. And as you gain a rapport in your congregation, it doesn't really matter if you have the degree.

35:20

I mean, if that's the church that you want to pastor, then all that matters is, do you have the competence?

35:29

Do you have the calling from the Lord and do they respect you? So that's my speech for you there on some alternatives.

35:38

And I know we have a lot of comments coming in. Anything to mention there, Matthew? Yeah, the point you made about how an education can almost be better just within the context of the church than even a seminary classroom.

35:53

I definitely think that's very true. And a lot of seminaries will even recognize that, which is why

35:58

I know this is the case with RTS, but they'll require you to have field hours and an internship, like a set amount of hours prior to graduating.

36:07

And part of the reason why is because they can only go so far in a classroom. You can only learn so many things, but at the end of the day, if you feel the call to ministry, you ought to be able to actually be able to interact with congregants and parishioners and things like that.

36:24

And so the big thing with an internship is it gives you the opportunity to learn on the ground.

36:31

It's one thing if you're a soldier to play a lot of call of duty, whereas it's another thing that actually be on the field of battle.

36:38

So there's these things that you have to be able to know that you can only get by being boots on the ground.

36:43

And so I'm glad that a lot of seminaries recognize that and a good seminary will know their limitations and things like that.

36:51

And I just, as a student myself, I think that's very important and I'm thankful that they require that because as much as I love a systematic theology class or a church history class and reading the tristics and things like that,

37:05

I have to be able to know, okay, but how am I gonna take this knowledge and incorporate this into the congregation?

37:11

And that's just about the nature of theology. And I feel like I'm always beating this drum on what people that I talk to in real life or if I'm ever talking about it online is that what good is theology if there's not this practical aspect to it?

37:25

Like you have to be able to apply that which you know from God. And the good thing about the

37:31

Lord is that all these big things like the Trinity and all these things which are, they may be really high up and like hard to comprehend like fully by meditation on these things, you're able to take and apply certain like speculative elements of theology into a more practical way.

37:49

And I think that that's a good thing that church internships do is they're able to have, okay, you've gotten all the theoretical, you've gotten all these things, even like with practical classes, now that you've gotten all this, here's where you apply.

38:00

And that's just really important because like I was kind of saying in the beginning, just because you like theology doesn't mean you're called to the ministry.

38:07

You could be called to being a professor, you could be just called to be a normal guy and you just enjoy reading about things of God because it helps you better contemplate who

38:14

God is and worship him better. And it's for your edification and sanctification and teaching your wife and children, et cetera, et cetera.

38:21

But at the end of the day, theology has to be practical. You need to be able to condense these very difficult to understand topics and not water them down or drain them, but actually nurture people.

38:32

If you get the ingredients, you gotta cook. So that's kind of how I think about it. You have to cook, you can't just let them sit there.

38:38

You have to put the egg with the flour and sugar and all that stuff. And then you're good, you're solid. I do think being a pastor means being a man.

38:46

You have to be masculine to be in that role because you're dealing with wolves and you're guarding the souls of sheep.

38:54

And I think that going through the process of whether it's seminary or an internship or some kind of hard process should be there.

39:07

It shouldn't be too easy. Just because you have the gift of gab, for example, does not mean you should be a pastor.

39:13

Just because, as you said, you like theology does not mean you should be a pastor. There's a number of things that have to really be present and obvious.

39:23

And it certainly is being able to teach, but it's also having virtue.

39:28

It's being able to run your, manage your household well. It's being thought of well by outsiders according to the law of God, not according to their standard, but they'll know that Matthew's not a liar.

39:40

Matthew's not someone who steals. Matthew is someone that I would trust. Those things all have to be there.

39:46

You have to put in hard work, just like Paul poured himself out, like a drink offering.

39:53

I mean, my dad was a pastor, so he still is. I got to watch that growing up. It is not for the faint of heart.

40:00

And I think it's easy to look at that job and to say, you know what, it's too hard.

40:06

And what you end up doing is if you're a virtuous person, but that's the one thing that holds you back.

40:13

You just, you want to have a family. This is the finances, the every, the time.

40:18

It's just all too much. I can't go that, this route. Cause it's, I just want to basically go throw the football in my yard, be a grill

40:25

American. You know, what happens inevitably is you get grifter types.

40:31

You get people who use the church for their own agenda, who end up ascending the ranks.

40:38

They'll say, I'll take it. You know, and they may not have the virtue necessary to be in those places or the fortitude or the temperament.

40:45

And they end up in those spots. And it's because they want to be seen and they want to control others or they want to build an empire, whatever it is.

40:57

And I see a lot of that, honestly. I mean, I think that's why I got into the podcasting in 2019 to some extent is

41:04

I just saw so much of that in Christian institutions. I do think the virtuous people are there and it's not, there's nothing wrong with being a, you know,

41:14

I was going to say a lumberjack. I mean, how many people are lumberjacks? Say a carpenter, lumber.

41:19

Hey, it's okay to be a lumberjack. I'm a lumberjack, I'm okay. But you could be any kind of blue collar worker or an engineer, if you want.

41:29

There's nothing wrong with any of that, but there does need to be, I think, more people taking an interest in the continuation of churches, the pastoral role.

41:40

There's a lot of benefits to it, spiritual benefits. You really do get paid to study the word of God.

41:46

I mean, that's kind of an amazing thing when you think about it, you're not carving out time that outside of work, this is part of your job.

41:56

You're on the front lines of the spiritual war. You get to be where God is working. You know, you're at the scene right there.

42:05

So anyway, I think it's a good thing to desire to be in ministry. We got a bunch of people.

42:12

Jesus was a carpenter, says Sheila. Good point, good point. So true. He is, we should all just be carpenters first, maybe.

42:20

So become a carpenter and then become a pastor. See, I was a furniture repairman, which is kind of close.

42:26

So I like to think of myself as, you know, following in those footsteps or trying to.

42:33

I wasn't intentional though. So Michael says, pastor here, actively training new elders.

42:38

Some young men seem extremely wary of taking on ministerial responsibility. They date, but don't marry the calling.

42:45

If you get my analogy, what is your take? I'm gonna be honest. I see this all over the place myself.

42:53

I don't know exactly. There's a problem there. And I don't know, what do you think,

43:00

Matthew? I mean, I'm curious what you mean by that. I mean, I understand the conception of like dating, but not marrying.

43:07

But just in my personal experience, I haven't run across a bunch of people that are like, oh, I'm dabbling in maybe going to ministry.

43:13

It's either they're in or they're not. So I mean, I'd be curious to see practical examples of that. Not at all doubting.

43:18

I'm just like, that does like, that interests me. I've never really like kind of seen that. So I've seen it.

43:26

I'm just gonna be candid. I mean, this is kind of an issue at my own church right now to some extent. There's a bunch of guys who, and I'm not saying there aren't legitimate reasons.

43:37

I think they all have legitimate reasons, but it's just weird to me that it's as broad as it is. They'll preach even, you know, say there's an opening for Sunday morning service.

43:47

Who wants to preach? Hands go up. I'll do it. I'll do it, right? But when it comes to the position and the role of being an elder, it's been very sparse for a long time.

44:01

And people just don't want to do it. And I don't, and we are in a unique spot in that a lot of people do move down South from New York.

44:09

I mean, you got a lot of young families who end up being potential candidates for that. And then they go, but I don't know.

44:15

I still think it's kind of odd. Like we'll dabble. In other words, we'll preach. We'll do some of the things elders do, but, and we want to be involved in theological discussions, right?

44:25

We want to have authority in the church to some extent. We want to be able to make decisions, but I don't know that position, that's pretty scary.

44:32

Or that's, I don't know what it is. It's, that's not a position that I want to take. And I don't know,

44:39

I've seen, I've heard other people say this, similar things. I don't know how widespread that is, but. Yeah, it might be a little different in the world that I'm in, because like, for me, like the only people

44:47

I know of that would be preaching are those who are, you know, with the approval of their session, because they're like a prospective minute, they're a prospective seminary student, or they are a student, or, you know, they've recently entered under care of the

44:59

Presbyterian or licensed and all that. So like for us, like those are like the only kind of people that in the Presbyterian world, like are preaching.

45:06

So maybe because of that, I haven't seen it much. I mean, like I've had a friend who like, he kind of like dabbles about like, or he used to dabble about whether he's going to ministry or not, but at the same time, he's also having like denominational struggles and hopping back and forth between denominations.

45:20

And he's Eastern Orthodox now. So he's kind of jumped off. No, he's jumped all over the place.

45:27

I won't name him because I don't want to be rude, but yeah, yeah. So, I mean, that's like the most

45:32

I've seen, but yeah, yeah. So, but I think I see where you're coming from though.

45:37

I think that makes sense. Presbyterians have a much higher standard when it comes to who goes into the pulpit than a lot of evangelical traditions, which are, not that you aren't evangelical, but more low church traditions that -

45:50

I'm a proud evangelical. That's right. Of the Westminsterian variety, of course.

45:56

Was it a - I still own the title evangelical. Yeah, not like Russell Moore, who's second guessing at all.

46:03

Cosmic Trees and says, what is it? Oh, she's asking about my friend who passed away. Was it strep sequella?

46:09

I don't know. Yeah, I don't know what it was. I know there's some aggressive forms of strep, but hey, get checked out.

46:17

I'm just telling you. I mean, it's kind of a wake up call for me. I think my body can fight anything, but that's not true.

46:23

Romans 8 says, seminary training and original language proficiency should not be requirements or even preferred.

46:29

There's a billion resources now that are sufficient. I don't know if I agree with this. I mean, it'd be like nice if original language proficiency wasn't required because I'm really bad at them.

46:41

But at the end of the day, I think that part of the reason it's necessary is there's certain nuances in the texts that lead to differing interpretations across varying versions of scripture and that being able to know the original languages may actually help you with exegesis and in helping you with exegesis helps with application.

47:01

I mean, like if you wanna like pick up a book and let another guy do it for you, by all means, like that's fine. There's a reason commentaries are out there.

47:07

But just like, I would like to know that my pastor has the ability to do such a thing, or I would like to be able to investigate something myself with some prior knowledge.

47:20

And part of it, and hey, he says there's a billion resources now that are sufficient. That is true. Part of the way you access a certain subset of those resources though is through knowledge of the original languages.

47:30

So you actually understand the arguments that are being posed so you can understand to assess whether the argument is good or bad and thus you apply it to what you're doing and then you're able to apply.

47:39

Yeah, I agree. I think it's - That's just me though, but - No, I think it is a necessary thing too.

47:45

I'm not saying you, it depends on the circumstance you're in. Maybe if you're starting out as a pastor, it's out of necessity.

47:54

You don't have that yet, but you need to take the role and fill it. But you should be, I think, working on gaining those tools so that you aren't relying on others, but you're actually studying directly what the word of God says.

48:06

Dr. Bob says, good evening. It's good to see Dr. Bob in the chat. Good evening, Dr. Bob. It's been a while, Dr. Bob. Dr. Bob, you need to go take care of this

48:14

Jay Dyer guy. I keep, I don't know who Jay Dyer is. I've never watched any Jay Dyer.

48:19

I have no, I didn't know him from Adam and I keep getting dagged by Stephan Babin, who's a big supporter, but he really wants me to talk to Jay Dyer.

48:30

And I'm like, man, I guess he's an Eastern Orthodox guy who debates people. And my first thought was

48:36

Dr. Bob is the Eastern Orthodox guy. Dr. Bob needs to go take care of this. So I think he's tagged you too,

48:43

Matthew. He's wanted you to go. Yeah, he has. He actually has me blocked on Twitter though. He has you blocked?

48:49

Oh, Jay Dyer does? Yeah, Jay Dyer has me blocked. Oh no, so there's a history between you and this guy. Yeah, because one time him and Taylor Marshall on Twitter were arguing.

48:59

This was back in 2021 and I posted a meme of like a YouTube video of like two idiots fighting.

49:05

Like that was the name of the YouTube video. And then Jay Dyer started DMing me. Come debate me, bro. Come debate me.

49:11

And I just was messing with him in DMs. And then he called me some not very nice or appropriate words and then he blocked me.

49:18

Very Christian. Very Christian, yes. All right. I have to say,

49:24

I mean, and I don't know anything about this guy other than he poses these challenges, but I am so not likely to interact with someone when that's the attitude on the front end.

49:34

Because I don't know what it is. I like, I laugh at it. I don't take it seriously. I don't know. It just seems like pathetic.

49:42

And maybe he's not that way, but it's like, come debate me, bro. Come at me. Give it your best. You know, I was like, like, ah,

49:47

I don't know. I like intelligent discussions, but not the blood sport stuff.

49:55

All right, now we're going to have all his fans. All two of them in our chat. Yerger says, my pastor doesn't have a seminary degree and is the best pastor

50:05

I've ever had. It's sad considering I've been to so many churches with better qualifications. Hey, look,

50:12

I've seen some incredible pastors preach who are not seminary trained and they're just amazing.

50:20

It happens. You don't necessarily need seminary. It's a tool. But it's a good tool and we want to keep it a good tool.

50:31

All right. So actually, Matthew, this is kind of a curious question. Could you learn, do you think you could learn all the things you're learning in seminary on your own if you had to?

50:38

Or do you think it's necessary for you to have the seminary environment? So the thing, the cool thing about RTS at least is if you download the

50:49

RTS app, you can literally access every lecture they have for every class except for like the language ones.

50:57

But you can basically learn it all for free. All the books are out there. So you can read about everything.

51:04

The thing with seminary is that there's like a, even if a school is unaccredited like formally, there is sort of like an accreditation like process where you are on paper demonstrating that you are proficiently trained in this area in that you've written things that have been passed and all that and et cetera, et cetera.

51:23

So the thing with seminary is more than anything, sure, yes, it is giving you an education and sure, you can concede that you can get this education outside of seminary because books are out there.

51:32

Amazon sells these books. You can even go on a pirating website and get them yourself for free if you really want to. You know, these are all out there.

51:39

Seminary serves as a way of giving accreditation to say, hey, this guy actually on paper and you can track it.

51:46

You can look at the degree he went through these things. But no, I mean, I think a lot of this stuff can be learned outside of seminary.

51:53

I think most of it can even be learned within the church. But I mean, I understand the purpose of seminary and why you ought to go there.

52:00

And the fact that many professors probably have like a certain degree of wisdom that you glean from in -person conversation and sitting in their classroom and through them grading your papers that you may not get just from reading a book on your own.

52:12

So that's what I would say is like in theory, sure. But like in practice, like, you know, seminary may be like the wiser option to go with.

52:23

Stormy Squad says, if you're gonna go do by vocational 30 hours a week, just to scrape up insurance for the family while accepting support from the church to pastor, it's brutal, but it seems to be the direction we're going.

52:35

I know a lot of people in that predicament. The church can't afford a pastor. So the pastor takes a job, secular job and then tries to pastor on top of it.

52:45

Very difficult. In the Northeast, that's basically what's a lot of churches are becoming.

52:51

They just don't have the numbers, but there's still a body of believers there, so. Barry Moss says, question, any idea how many pastors have graduated from seminary?

53:02

No clue. I don't know. And it would depend on the denomination. You know, if you're looking at the

53:07

PCA or the OPC, the kinds of denominations Matthew would be a candidate for,

53:14

I'm sure that those numbers are near a hundred percent. I think they require it.

53:20

If you're looking at the Southern Baptists, let's say, or low church evangelical types, it's gonna range.

53:29

There's some more prestigious churches would require it. In fact, I was just talking to my aunt last year and she wanted me to look at the church she goes to,

53:37

First Baptist Church of, I think it's Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and it's, and they require a

53:43

PH, or a DMIN, a doctorate, you know, some of these, and it's Southern Baptist, but some of these

53:48

Southern Baptist churches that are kind of like old, old stock kind of elite require that, and then your more country churches certainly don't.

54:01

My church, we have a lot of people willing and eager to serve, but that's not the case for many churches. Even Gen X are complete benchwarmers and don't care about the ministry.

54:09

All right, shots fired. Cosmic Treason says, John, money, John, money is just one aspect of economic insecurity.

54:17

There's no assurance. I totally get that. Oh, insurance? I don't know. I don't know what he's trying to say.

54:23

I'm sorry, Cosmic. Chris Bolt. Hey, Chris, we're posting the stream. Thank you. Steve Rideling says, get a career and family first, then go to seminary.

54:33

We probably don't need so many pastors with little life experience. Not everyone is a Spurgeon. That's an interesting thought.

54:40

I've actually said on my other podcast that if you wanna be a pastor and you don't have any life experience,

54:47

I would suggest working in the world for a little bit, maybe a few years, do something else just so you know the kind of people you're gonna be ministering to.

54:57

I mean, if you get married, you get married. If you don't, you don't. But I think it is good to have that experience.

55:03

I mean, I worked in a, I had like jobs before, like while I was in college.

55:09

And then once I graduated college, I worked in construction for a year and then I got to seminary.

55:15

And then a few months later, I met my fiance. Obviously it wasn't my fiance right when

55:20

I met her, but then I met her and some months later got engaged. So the career is not there by any stretch, but I did do a little bit of work before and in construction.

55:33

If anyone works in any of the trades or in construction, you know you meet a lot of very, let's just say a colorful characters there.

55:42

A lot of people where you'll have like a crew of carpenters and like the three of them look like they came from like a

55:47

Tom and Jerry cartoon or something. Like you see a lot of crazy stuff. So I kind of knew what

55:54

I was getting into. I went to a secular college and I worked in construction. So that was me, but I did not get a career going immediately.

56:00

And that's why I'm here juggling a bunch of little jobs. So yeah, yeah.

56:05

But you know what, it'll be fine. Everything's gonna work out. I trust God. I've never had,

56:12

I've not once had to ask my parents to help me make rent. So there's that, I've been able to make my rent.

56:19

I've been able to pay my bills. So we've been good. I find it funny at some of the seminars

56:24

I've been to the contractors who, I think this happens organically, but they form relationships with the students and like the students become like their workforce.

56:37

So it's a rotating door because students obviously leave, but like cutting down trees, for example,

56:43

I know like at masters, there was this guy who was, he employed like his whole team, I think, his tree team was all seminary students.

56:52

And I don't know, maybe it's lucrative for employers too. You could think about, hey, if you go to a seminary, they need money and they're generally, those are the kinds of people that are willing to work.

57:03

If they're already in seminary, they're gonna be moral people you'd hope, right? So maybe some contractors should check into that.

57:11

We got Ben and Mahler saying, leave Jay alone. Okay, I'll leave Jay alone. Marianne Jackson is reposting the stream.

57:20

We got a lot of people on Twitter that are reposting. That's great. Okay, one of our mics is now picking up vibrations through the table or chair.

57:30

So we're ending the podcast now. It's too late, Cosmic. You just, you told us last minute here.

57:36

It was probably me fidgeting, moving the mic on the table. I apologize. I'm a bit of a spurg. Yeah, that's why you're in seminary.

57:44

That's true, real. All right, well, that's the podcast, guys. I hope that was helpful. And if you have a friend who's considering going into the ministry and is having trouble paying for it, send them the article, maybe send them this podcast, because I know

57:57

I mentioned a few things the article didn't, but there's ways that you can try to alleviate that. And I wanna see all the churches that need pastors,

58:05

I wanna see those churches filled with pastors. And it is an issue going forward.

58:13

I don't know what it's gonna look like for the future, but the Lord obviously is gonna keep his church going. And it might not look like the way that we want it to look, but he's in charge of that department.

58:24

So I'll leave that to him to build that. Anyway, guys, God bless. Thanks for hanging out with us. And we'll see you next week.