It’s no secret here that I grew up in the crossfire between free range charismatics and institutional Methodist bureaucracy, so it should come as little surprise that I have strong feelings about seminary, denominational credentialing and ministry.
One half of my church life taught me that anyone with the gifts and graces for ministry was a minister and that we are all called to be ministers. The other half taught me that ministry was something conferred by graduate professional degrees and power hungry old men with black robes. Perhaps you see where I’m going with this.
The vast majority of ministry I’ve received has been from nonordained ministers. I’ve received ministry from ordained ministers too. But it had precious little to do with their seminary education or traditional mainline ordination. They are ministers to me because they ministered to me. They did not insist upon tag and title.
In the charismatic circles I grew up in, we put high stock in the priesthood of all believers, and it worked. Ministry was going on everywhere. There were abuses, to be sure, but no more than among ordained mainline clergy.
It should also come as little surprise that I see class issues here too. Seven years total of education is simply not necessary. “Professionals” are not the only people who should be looked up to and trusted. Ministry should be an art and a craft, not a profession. Think master carpenter, not psychiatrist.
A Master of Divinity degree don’t mean shit all for ministry. If ordained ministry cannot be successfully performed without seminary educations and denominational credentials, the human condition is much worse than I had previously imagined. I’ve written here before that I don’t think seminary works and proposed what I would do as a replacement. I won’t rehearse that again now.
But I will say this: Anyone who insists I owe them respect for their overprofessionalized seminary education and ordination credentials is selling something that I’m not buying.
So says Chutney, MDiv.
Hi Chutney,
I look at the gifts and graces question for Unitarian Universalists at People So Bold. (click my name.)
Greetings
Clyde Grubbs
I don’t know if I agree with you here, although I think you’re on the right track.
I think the attitude that “I went to Seminary, therefore I know more than you” is ridiculous and totally agree with you.
At the same time, I think for someone to be the head minister at a UU congregation, they need to have an academic backing that they can get at a seminary, in large part because there or so many freakin paths people take and end up in UUism that Ministers need to know about a lot of different things.
But that’s lead, head honcho minister. I think Associate Ministers don’t need to, nor do lay ministers. At UUCA, it seems like most of the spiritual work is done by lay people. The minister is up there to speak and to give us an interesting opinion piece that we then immediately tear apart immediately after the benediction.
I think with ministers without the seminary backing would be picked as the flavor of the current congregation with its current members, and I think it would be a severe restriction on growth. The ministers would be stuck in a rut and not grow with the congregation.
I certainly don’t think it takes an ordained minister to do ministry, and I don’t think most ministers have the attitude that they are the only ones in a congregation who can do ministry. (i.e. I think your discussions with/about the unnamed one are clouding your overall worldview here – don’t let one arrogant little minister spoil you on the rest.) They certainly don’t have those attitudes at our place. Rev. Paula keeps telling the Covenant Group facilitators that this is how we are doing ministry now – its the facilitators, not the ministers.
I’m not suggesting ordained ministers not receive a ministerial education, nor that we don’t have ordination credentialing. I just think seminary and our current credentialing process don’t do that well at all. The post I linked to near the bottom goes into that in more detail, especially what I think should be done instead.
[…] Chutney (Making Chutney) has a little rant about ministerial ordination and education where he throws a big wet blanket on the conventional mainline ministerial formation process. I read it in context of some of the tight-sphinctered replies at the infamous post at PeaceBang’s Beauty Tips for Ministers. For the record, he and I both have seminary M.Div.s. […]
[…] Links « The gifts and graces for ministry […]
[…] Finally The Gifts and Graces for Ministry at Making Chutney, and from another scribe, in response; The Gifts and Graces and Fellowshipping of Unitarian Universalist Ministers at A People So Bold, and Chuntey’s reply. Check out the comments section of each for some excellent discussion. […]