Q - I'm a fresh seminary/Bible school graduate raring to start a pastoral vocation with a small but rather old church. Please give me some tips on how to best perform my preaching-teaching ministry.
A - What we know is little; what what we do not know is immense.
Start with that. Continue in that.
Formal seminary education, like all other educational experiences,
doesn't make you know enough; it actually tells you that you do not and cannot know enough. Unless you went to a brain-washing school that drills into your head that your group knows and understands everything, you should come out of seminary more teachable and humble than when you came in.
Start with that. Continue in that.
Formal seminary education, like all other educational experiences,
doesn't make you know enough; it actually tells you that you do not and cannot know enough. Unless you went to a brain-washing school that drills into your head that your group knows and understands everything, you should come out of seminary more teachable and humble than when you came in.
Education should not make you proud --- it cannot make you proud; it should make you humble, ever searching, ever teachable.
Because your most inportant realization when you learn is that there is so much you didn't and still do not know.
Because your most inportant realization when you learn is that there is so much you didn't and still do not know.
1. Thus, be tentative.
Do not act like you know it all; do not be dogmatic. Chances are that most of what you now "know" are only "inherited", passed on to you by mentors whose knowledge could also be a hand-me-down relic. This becomes more true if you studied in a seminary run by a congregation whose main mission is to uphold "tradition". Your very education now sets you on a war path against the courses that other congregations take. So, expect "conflict" instead of "harmony".
Do not act like you know it all; do not be dogmatic. Chances are that most of what you now "know" are only "inherited", passed on to you by mentors whose knowledge could also be a hand-me-down relic. This becomes more true if you studied in a seminary run by a congregation whose main mission is to uphold "tradition". Your very education now sets you on a war path against the courses that other congregations take. So, expect "conflict" instead of "harmony".
2. Respect fellow preachers-teachers who, in every sense, could also be like you: products of their own schools, believing they know enough, and believing they, not you, are right.
Maganda kung yung new/young pastors huwag nang manahin at ituloy yung religous wars ng mga naunang generations of Christians. Boring na. In real life naman, no group lives a morally more upright life than others do. Pare-pareho lang na nadadapa at nagkukulang.
Maganda kung yung new/young pastors huwag nang manahin at ituloy yung religous wars ng mga naunang generations of Christians. Boring na. In real life naman, no group lives a morally more upright life than others do. Pare-pareho lang na nadadapa at nagkukulang.
3. Keep learning, especially outside of the mold of your small community. There is a vast world or knowledge out there. From the inside, look out. From the outside, look in. Keep expanding your understanding.
On you own, study BIblical Criticism more extensively and more deeply if you like to expand your capacity to understand, interpret and apply Scripture more correctly and meaningfully.
Know more History.
On you own, study BIblical Criticism more extensively and more deeply if you like to expand your capacity to understand, interpret and apply Scripture more correctly and meaningfully.
Know more History.
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