The Philosophy of Training
The General Convictions that Underlie Our Training Philosophy
1. The primary means that God uses for building His church, advancing the gospel, and glorifying Christ in the world is preaching in the power of the Spirit (Acts 1:8; 1 Corinthians 2:4-5) undergirded by prevailing, persistent prayer (Ephesians 6:19, 21).
2. The effective preacher is first and foremost a man gripped by a love for Christ and His people. His ultimate priorities are communion with his Lord and, proclaiming and exalting Christ’s glory. He is also a man gripped by God’s mercy and grace as revealed in the great doctrinal themes and theological truths of Scripture. He is a student and lover of theology and the history of the church.
3. The effective pastor/teacher is a disciple-maker and reproducer of men, as well as a shepherd who loves and cares for God’s sheep.
4. Effective training for a pastor must maintain a balance between academics and practical ministry. It is possible to be exposed to orthodox, theological training that emphasizes academics to the neglect of pastoral ministry. The reverse is also true. It is possible to focus on pastoral ministry and leadership to the neglect of theology and doctrine. A failure to achieve either dimension diminishes a man’s usefulness in ministry. As Gardiner Spring said in the 19th century:
“How difficult is it, even in this day of theological seminaries, to supply an important vacant congregation with a pastor, in whom the union of eminent learning, talents and piety is considered as indispensable?”
(The Power of the Pulpit, pp. 197-198)
5. There is a need for the training of preachers that combines sound theological education with spiritual fervor and godliness, taught and modeled by men who are active and effective in the ministry of the Word.
6. With the above in mind, the school seeks to primarily staff itself with men who are, or have been, fruitful in preaching and pastoral ministry. The school provides training in the context of the lives and instruction of godly pastors.
The General Character That Permeates Our Training Philosophy
This training, first of all, entails a comprehensive, introductory knowledge of Scripture and church history. The Seminary seeks to ground its students in knowledge of the great doctrines of the faith–doctrines that have inflamed men in the past who were greatly used of God. It also seeks to expose men to the great men, epochs, and doctrinal controversies in Church History that help to give a right perspective on issues and controversies in today’s church. In addition, recognizing that doctrinal knowledge alone is not the end and goal, our aim is to prepare men who are gripped with a love for Christ and who live in constant dependence on the power of the Spirit in their lives and ministries. In this vein, our school believes these things can best be fostered under the godly influence of men who have modeled and are modeling such lives and ministries before their students. As Gardiner Spring aptly put it many years ago:
“There can be little doubt that the founders of our theological schools, by requiring that the professors should be ordained ministers of the Gospel, designed to protect these seminaries from the evils of a mere scholastic influence. Mere scholars, those who know more of books than of men, and more of theological halls than the pulpit, ought not to be invested with the trust of educating a “whole generation of young men” for the Christian ministry.”
(The Power of the Pulpit, p. 203)
Let the teachers of those who are being educated for the ministry be men of no inconsiderable experience in the pastoral office. In the early organization of theological seminaries, the professors were of this character; they came with the experience of settled pastors; not with clear heads only, but with warm hearts, and from the warm bosom of the churches which they loved. Their more early pupils were the flower of the churches; they preached as though they understood and felt the Gospel; and though not a few of them have been called to their rest, their names will be long embalmed in the memory of good men
(The Power of the Pulpit, p. 202)
Second, the training is accomplished by pastors training pastors which is the model in Scripture and most of church history. In Scripture there is no example except that of ministers of the gospel training other gifted men for ministry (e.g., 2 Timothy 2:2; Acts 13:1-5; Jesus and His disciples; Paul and his missionary companions; etc.). In history until the 19th century, including such periods as the Reformation, the Great Awakening, and other great revivals in the church, this was the model of ministry. Spring opines,
. . . from the days of Calvin and Knox, down to those of Merle D’Aubigne, and the Chalmers. So far as my information extends, not an instance can be found in these churches–churches where the pulpit has exerted more influence than in any other part of Christiandom–in which the training of ministers has been committed to those who were strangers to the responsibilities of the pastoral office. So far from this, the ablest and best professors in the theological schools of Geneva, Edinburgh and Glasgow, have been, and still are, men who, like the great Calvin, have been the most approved pastors of the churches.
(The Power of the Pulpit, pp. 204-205)
Spring recognized that the rising dangers later recognized as neo-orthodoxy could be traced in part to this trend in Germany.
“If we look to Germany, we do indeed see a different usage; their professors are for the most part purely scholars, and rarely pastors. Nor is it to the rationalism, the mysticism, the idealism of Germany, nor to its crippled orthodoxy, that the American churches have any desire to look for examples of theological nurture.“
(The Power of the Pulpit, p. 205)
The primary benefit to pastoral training done by those experienced and fruitful in ministry is that it helps to balance academic training with a knowledgeable, practical concern for fruitfulness and impact. Pastors, as the primary instructors of men, help offset the dangers inherent to an academic environment. These dangers include:
- The promotion of a love of learning rather than a love for Christ
- The substitution of scholastic education for spiritual ministry training
- The creation of communicators to academia rather than the human heart
- The promotion of a merely theoretical rather than practical ministry
In order to offset these dangers, our emphasis is on the quality of men to be trained, not the quantity. Often men in ministry are not useful and should not have been accepted into seminary or the ministry in the first place. Charles Spurgeon says,
“I believe it is the business of a great many people who do preach to hold their tongues. I think that if they had waited until God had sent them they would have been at home now; and there be some men who are not fit to edify a doorpost, who yet think that if they could once but enter the pulpit they would attract a multitude. They conceive preaching to be just the easiest thing in all the world, and while they have not the power to speak three words correctly, and have not any instruction from on high, and were never intended for the pulpit, for the mere sake of honor or the emolument, they rush into the ministry . . . I would not advise all of you to be preachers; I do not believe God ever intended that you should . . . No man has any right to address a congregation on things spiritual, unless he believes that God has given him a special calling to the work, and unless he has also in due time received certain seals which attest his ministry as being the ministry of God. The rightly ordained minister is ordained not by the laying on of bishop’s or presbyter’s hands, but by the Spirit of God himself, whereby the power of God is communicated in the preaching of the word.”
(The Sound In The Mulberry Trees, MTP Vol. 3, pp. 318-319)
Spurgeon’s words are to the point. A growing number of men aren’t prepared for a preaching ministry that edifies the church. Neither are they, because of lack of calling, fruitful and effective in advancing the Kingdom.
Third, the school focuses on the qualifications of the man and his fruitfulness in exalting the glory of Christ and edifying the church prior to training. Men must show some evidence of the call to preaching and the pastorate by a fruitful ministry prior to entry into training. In addition, and this is fundamental, a man must first prove by his usefulness his qualification to train others. This is the clear biblical pattern (Acts 13; 1 Timothy 3). Spring rightly
observes,
“If the deacons must “first be proved,” much more the ministers; and if the ministers, much more the instructors of ministers. The more deliberately and impartially the subject is considered, the more it will be found to be one of the absurdest things in the world, to invest a man with the office of a teacher of the sons of the prophets, who is himself no prophet.”
(The Power of the Pulpit, p. 202)
