Helping New Ministers and Candidates

**Marrow Man** · #1 (**permalink**) 08-24-2009, 07:12 PM

I was reading this chapter from a new book (Risking the Truth: Handling Error in the Church). Carl Trueman makes some good points with regard to helping ministerial students who may be prone to go astray:

Quote:

I am increasingly convinced that pride is the root of problems among students. I was convicted recently by a minister friend quoting to me 1 Timothy 1:5-7 (esv):

"The aim of our charge is love that issues from
a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring
to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions."

My friend made two observations about this passage. First, the drift into dubious theological discussion is here described as moral in origin: these characters have swerved from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith; that is why their theology is so dreadful. Second, their desire is not to teach but to be teachers. Th ere is an important diff erence here: their
focus is on their own status, not on the words they proclaim. At most, the latter are merely instrumental to getting them status and boosting their careers.

Thus, what concerns me most is that students may simply desire to be teachers. If that is their motivation, then they have already abandoned a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith, and their theology, no matter how orthodox, is just a means to an end and no sound thing. It is why I am very sceptical of the internal call to the ministry as a decisive
or motivating factor in seeking ordination. Nine times out of ten, I believe that the church should fi rst discern who should be considering the Christian ministry, not simply a rubberstamp act as a putative internal call which an individual may think he has.

Trueman later mentions that Presbyterianism is well suited to monitor ministerial students (I would add new pastors as well). I know as a seminary student, I was required to become a student of theology in my church's presbytery, and I met with a committee on occasion that followed my progress in seminary. I was also required to preach twice before presbytery. But better measures could have possibly been taken. A member of the committee, for example could have possibly been assigned to me and monitored my spiritual formation outside of the classroom. Of course, the natural assumption is that my pastor/Session is doing this (and they were). But the committee seemed somewhat detached from this, imo.

My question: are there other presbyterian denominations and/or presbyteries who handle things differently. Perhaps something could be done to mentor new pastors who come in to a church/presbytery. I know this sometimes happens on an informal level (as it did with my first church -- there were three ARP newbies in one town with a pastor who had been in the ministry around 30 years, and he graciously took us under his wing). I am interested to learn if others have a better "system" in place.

rbcbob · #2 (**permalink**) 08-24-2009, 09:29 PM

Backwoods Presbyterian · #3 (**permalink**) 08-24-2009, 09:41 PM

Can I say

loud and fast enough?

**Marrow Man** · #4 (**permalink**) 08-24-2009, 09:44 PM

I united with an ARP church when I moved away to seminary. But some young men (most I would suspect) leave their church to attend seminary elsewhere. They need to be mentored while away from their home church, imho.