How Can Seminaries Help Pastors with Lifelong Learning?

Theological education and doctrinal formation are at the heart of healthy ministries and healthy churches. In our present series of articles, we have asked Dr Davy Ellison, Director of Training at the Irish Baptist College, to answer some key questions about how we think and develop theologically. In this instalment, we ask Davy how ongoing learning can be facilitated for serving Pastors.

At the risk of turning this into an advertising campaign, I think sharing my experience at the Irish Baptist College might prove a helpful avenue to exploring the question. We do at least five things to help pastors with lifelong learning at the Irish Baptist College.

Ministry Enrichment

The Irish Baptist College has a ‘Ministry Enrichment Programme’. This sounds fancier than it really is. This programme simply offers pastors the opportunity to sit-in on some of our ministry preparation teaching. While it probably covers material that’s relatively familiar to them, the major benefit is the chance to sit in class alongside some young, hungry students.

Like a stone that sits in the flow of a constant river, ministry can smooth our edges and dull our distinctiveness. We lose our appetite for theology because life is about church politics! Sitting in class with younger, more idealistic students helps fire the furnace for theology and ministry again. It enriches our ministry.

One-Off Events

At the Irish Baptist College we also run one-off events like Open Lectures and Summer Schools. These events often permit us to secure leading voices that are globally recognised in biblical studies, theological education and ministry specialisms. We then put these people in a room with local church pastors, members and other ministry workers. This in-person access is not always available to ‘ordinary pastors’ in small churches. But seminaries and theological colleges can help facilitate this.

Of course, reading their books or listening to the latest podcast might provide a pastor with the same information—but it doesn’t provide him with the same experience. The in-the-room dynamic encourages lifelong learning. It ignites appetite and encourages desire.

Student Placements

A central feature to our Preparation for Ministry Course at the Irish Baptist College is placements. We are a theological college designed to train gospel workers, and so we want our students to gain not simply an education but an experience. Church and ministry placements serve this purpose. They are, however, impossible without pastors.

At first glance this doesn’t help pastors but burdens them. True it requires time and effort on their part. But the payoff is spending time with a student in the middle of their studies seeking to glean as much wisdom as possible from a seasoned pastor. The cut and thrust of answering questions, sharing experiences and offering feedback helps pastors be lifelong learners. It also gives the opportunity for pastors to hear about the student’s classes, reading and essays. A mutually beneficial experience.

Postgraduate Study

Formal study is perhaps the first element that people would think of when considering how a theological college might help pastors with lifelong learning, but it is only one facet. An important one all the same.

The Irish Baptist College’s MTh programme is specifically designed to be completed alongside ministry commitments, requiring minimal class time and steadily paced to be completed in three years. It is ideal for continuous professional development.

Many of us have high ideals about what we will read and study personally, but most of us need structure to make it happen. A postgraduate programme can provide that structure with set reading, clear guidelines and firm deadlines. Another feature of our programme is that the minimal class time is in-person. To some extent this is inconvenient. But far more importantly it gives pastors opportunity to fellowship with others in an intellectually stimulating context. The three days of class per module, if approached correctly, can serve as a retreat. 

Involvement in Teaching

The final way in which we at the Irish Baptist College help pastors to be lifelong learners is to include them in our teaching schedule. To be responsible for teaching necessitates the reality of study. Across all our different levels, some teaching is delivered by full-time faculty and some by visiting lecturers, who are almost always practitioners. If pastors are to participate appropriately in teaching, they must be diligent in study—and if it is a higher education course, they need some awareness of the latest developments in scholarship in a way that is not always necessary for day-to-day ministry.

There is a plethora of ways in which seminaries can help pastors with lifelong learning, these are only five.

Davy Ellison (PhD, Queen’s University, Belfast) serves as Director of Training for the Irish Baptist College. He is an elder in Antrim Baptist Church, and is the author of several books. Davy is currently writing a volume on conversion as part of our A People on Purpose series.