(Author's note: What you are about to read is a criticism of seminary education as it currently exists. This should not be read as a criticism specific to my alma maters, the Pacific School of Religion and the Graduate Theological Union. In regard what I learned from them regarding Biblical studies, theology, and other typical seminary subjects, I believe I received an excellent education. -E.A.)
I hinted at this reality in my profile written by the local newspaper, The Daily News, where I was quoted as saying that seminary can only prepare you for about 30% of actual ministry. I was not misquoted. And I was not referring to the little peccadilloes like self-care, boundaries, and ministerial ethics that I think my seminary actually did a pretty good job of pounding into my head over the course of three years.
I'm talking about actually being able to crunch a few numbers and read a QuickBooks sheet.
I began thinking about this when a buddy of mine posted on Facebook a mini-reflection on the status of standardized testing in American high schools--there was a link to an article by a well-educated journalist who, for poops and giggles, took a state's 10th grade standardized proficiency exams and crashed and burned during the math section, despite his education.
Personally, I understand why, and it has nothing to do with the ridiculousness of teaching 16-year-olds calculus (even if I had the raw mental horsepower to do so, I very clearly lacked the maturity and work ethic to actually buckle down and learn calculus--and I feel sorry for the entire math department at good old Shawnee Mission South High for trying to get me to). It has everything to do with the fact that I have a master's degree, a solidly middle class job, and a reasonably sharp intellect, but since the age of 19, I have not had to do any math, for any reason, beyond basic computation. I couldn't write out a basic geometric proof if you paid me.
The elephant in the room, though, is this: in my line of work, especially as a solo pastor, I am already seeing an area where that needs to change. And that's oversight of the church finances.
The model for many churches these days--whether optimal or not--is that of a corporate model--there is a board of directors (maybe called a leadership council, or an executive body, or what have you) who the pastor reports to, and the pastor then de facto assumes the role of CEO, overseeing the entire operation. Which is fine for some matters, but every year at around this time, churches across the country are struggling to make budget. And I guarantee you that many of them are ill-equipped to work at doing so.
I say this from personal experience. I took at least one class from eight of the nine seminaries in the Graduate Theological Union, and I can honestly say that outside of some sessions about encouraging stewardship and tithing, the amount of education I received on budget, finances, marketing, and other such business-related aspects of ministry was absolutely zero. In fact, the only education I received about church finances came from the church that I did my fieldwork at, and even then it was only because I asked to be there--there currently is not any expectation whatsoever for a pastor to graduate and be ordained while knowing the least bit about how to make a church be financially self-sufficient.
How far we have come from the adherence to the Benedictine rule that demanded monasteries be financially self-sustaining!
I honestly don't know why this is the case, though I have ideas--namely that money is still such a taboo in church circles that teaching about it is likewise still considered a sticky wicket. Now, this is a dyed-in-the-wool progressive Christian saying this, but money need not be evil--it is in how we treat it and what we do with it that it becomes evil. Yet I get the impression that many, if not most, churches treat their budget writing processes and stewardship campaigns the same way many of us treat a visit to our doctor or dentist--we know it is good for us, but we really just want to get it over with first and foremost. But since our seminaries are (generally) run by churches and denominations, that attitude inevitably filters over.
I definitely saw this at PSR. Money was the flash point for some serious campus division during my final year there, where the brass decided to save money through faculty retirements and staff layoffs and pay cuts. Some folks were willing and able to engage this discussion, but I was worried that there may have been others who simply wanted to avoid it as much as possible.
And here's the rub--the students my alma maters are educating now will be the ones who are running them 30 years from now. If we weren't taught good church business models now, what makes our denominations think we would run their schools solvently in the future? It is a cycle that, ferociously and destructively, begets itself.
Please note that I am not saying that we should be in the work of running our churches like businesses--that is completely the wrong mindset. But I am saying there is overlap in how a church (or any non-profit organization, really) is run and how a business is run, and that seminaries as they currently exist do not teach to this reality.
And the thing is, this really does not need to happen, especially with seminaries connected to a university or consortium, as PSR and the GTU both are. It can begin as simply as borrowing a professor from the university's business school to teach a required class on economics for non-profits and community organizations and grow from there. Our field education seminars should have church business as a required component of our seminar material. Even if a seminary is stand-alone, the market for professors is so inundated that I imagine you could hire an adjunct to teach a class like this once a year or once a semester for minimal cost.
As my beloved parish here in Longview and I go forward into the new year--with the knowledge when we look at our spreadsheets that we are very much living on faith right now--I can already look back on my seminary education, only a bare seven months in the rearview mirror, and wish I had been better prepared. Most pastors, I imagine, feel this about a variety of issues. But of all those issues, this one can be such an easy fix if we are willing to cast aside that long-held verboten of actually talking about money in church and what role it really has in ministry, for both better and worse.
...after all, Jesus talked about money all. the. freaking. time. Just sayin'.
Yours in Christ,
Eric
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