8 Ways to Gain Ministry Experience While in Seminary

1 week ago 22

Ministers are like plants, or so I suggested in my last article. Like any living thing, plants must grow.

While some plants stay indoors for the entirety of their lifespan, most plants that begin indoors need to go through a process called hardening off as they reach maturity. Plants must gradually be exposed to outdoor conditions like sunlight, wind, and temperature fluctuations. The gradual acclimation prevents transplant shock and encourages the plant to develop stronger, more resilient growth. It can then endure harsher conditions that come with moving permanently outdoors.

Some seminarians stay “indoors” during their seminary years, commendably committed to the hard academic work of earning a degree. But they ought not neglect conditioning themselves in preparation for being transplanted “outdoors” into the world of post-seminary ministry.

I completed my seminary degree more than a decade ago. The four-year, 105-credit degree was accompanied by moving across the country, having two kids, and working six part-time jobs between my wife and me. It was a whirlwind, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything, especially because we prioritized “hardening off” by involvement in our church and community. We didn’t always succeed at staying involved with the ebb and flow of life and school (especially as our children began arriving), but we often erred on the side of finding more opportunities for ministry rather than fewer. Balancing gaining ministry experience with academic studies proved to be fruitful in the long run.

In this article, I list three principles I learned in my time at seminary, followed by eight practices that helped me gain ministry experience.

Setting the stage

But first, let me set the stage a bit.

What is “ministry”?

Briefly, what do I mean by “ministry”? Essentially for a Christian, ministry involves leading others to Christ in evangelism, and then helping others follow Christ in discipleship. This happens in or outside church, in large group teaching or small one-on-one settings. It can also happen in the classroom as a seminarian gains the hard skills for further academic study and seeks to pass those skills on to future academics.

What kind of ministry might be available to a seminarian?

There are formal ways that could be a great fit—whether paid or volunteer—but there’s also the informal kind of ministry that every Christian should be a part of. This involves sharing what you’re learning in your personal reading, stopping and taking time to pray for others, and seeking to help in times of need.

You can often also get involved in your seminary as a teaching assistant, or occasionally a fill-in teacher. I substituted in a few exegesis classes and quickly found that a heavily academic route was not one I wanted to pursue—though I still have a strong academic itch I like to scratch through rigorous study and occasional teaching in seminary. But your mileage may vary.

3 principles for gaining ministry experience

Before getting to the really practical suggestions below, there are a few principles that drive the practices I suggest. These should go alongside any pursuit of ministry experience before, during, and after seminary.

1. Read your Bible and pray everyday—for yourself!

Those in ministry know this temptation well: You get good at studying the Bible and praying for public ministry, but neglect the private discipline of reading and praying for yourself. Read your Bible, pray everyday, and you will grow—unless the Bible is just an academic book for you or a book for someone else’s benefit rather than your own.

Make time each day to dig into the Bible and pray over your day, even if briefly. That discipline will in turn give you much patience for the doldrums and difficulties of ecclesial or academic ministry.

Read your Bible, pray everyday, and you will grow—unless the Bible is just an academic book for you or a book for someone else’s benefit rather than your own.

2. Connect your studies and devotional life

The above being acknowledged, it is true that we can combine rigorous academic discipline with our personal devotional life. B. B. Warfield, the renown divine among the Old Princeton faculty, wrote:

Sometimes we hear it said that ten minutes on your knees will give you a truer, deeper, more operative knowledge of God than ten hours over your books. “What!” is the appropriate response, “than ten hours over your books on your knees?” Why should you turn from God when you turn to your books, or feel that you must turn from your books in order to turn to God? If learning and devotion are as antagonistic as that, then the intellectual life is in itself accursed, and there can be no question of a religious life for a student, even of theology.¹

One need not turn from God when they turn to the books for study. Both can happen at the same time.

I went about doing this by journaling throughout my seminary years, listing the passage on my journal and writing personal reflections for myself. Or when working on a term paper examining Paul’s argument in Romans 9–11 and its varied interpreters, I began the day by soaking for a bit in Paul’s prayer and stunning acknowledgment of God’s glory in Romans 11. This warmed my heart towards God for the work ahead of unpacking in precise detail all the exegetical nuance of the passage.

3. Put your family first, church second, and studies third

If you have a spouse or children, realize that the patterns you set up in seminary will likely follow you into ministry in the church or the classroom. All your time neglecting them for your books can quickly become a habit that becomes the norm for regular ministry.

You must find ways to prioritize your family. For us, we sought to take a weekly day off together where I put my studies away (with mixed success), and prioritized me being involved in our home.

After your family, prioritize a local church to be committed to. This should be the place of Christian ministry, whether your future vocational plans mainly involve the church or not (e.g., academia). Having a church family that doesn’t just sap your strength but pours into you and your family is a huge deal. Your commitment to and involvement in a local church is important, regardless of your chosen path after seminary.

This does not mean your family or your church will get more time than your studies on any given day or week. But for someone planning on vocational ministry, your family (if you have one) should be healthy. Nor should you ignore the local church. Each of these areas will be fuel for enduring faithfulness in ministry.

Tools to Grow with You for a Lifetime. Your books, notes, and sermons are searchable and stay with you for life in Logos. Try Max today.

8 practices for gaining ministry experience

With these three principles in mind, here’s eight practical ways for gaining ministry experience while in seminary.

Some of these may seem rather basic at first. But don’t underestimate them, as they have served us greatly.

1. Find the right-sized and type of church

Not all churches will help an aspiring church leader get ministry experience, so take care of what church you get involved in.

Whether big or small, a church should be seeking to multiply leaders, and seminarians are often prime candidates. Yet some large churches may choose to have all their professional pastors run most things. Or maybe they have too many fellow seminarians vying for a limited amount of opportunities. On the other hand, a small church may have an individual pastor who chooses to do it all without delegation.

You want a church that feels small with opportunities to serve and especially to teach. A large church can do this by creating rhythms for the whole church to experience life together, whether in how they organize their Sunday mornings or how well they shepherd their people towards communal mission. They can seek to feel small, though they are very large.

That being stated, the average size of a church in the United States is sixty regular participants. To spend all your time at a very large church, then, may leave you ill-prepared for the realities of serving at a smaller church, so be wise in finding the church that’s the right size for you.

2. Get a ministry job or internship

This is the most self-evident in the list: Get formally involved in ministry, whether inside or outside the church.

When I came to seminary, I sought out a job as a ministry assistant for a pastor. For roughly four thousand hours over four years, I got to shadow the pastor, had hundreds of opportunities to teach, and was involved in regular discipleship and occasional intervention in the lives of parishioners.

Even if your church doesn’t afford the opportunity to get a job, there are all kinds of ministry-related jobs one can seek out. My encouragement to you would be to find in-person opportunities to spend time with real people, instead of seeking a job that is entirely or mainly remote. There can be opportunities to minister remotely, but most long-term effective ministry is done up close, whether in church or the classroom.

3. Get to know your area pastors

In addition, consider getting to know pastors from others churches in your area who might have broader opportunities for pulpit supply, internships, and residencies.

One of our nearby church plants provides, in partnership with three other local churches, a summer internship where the pastors partner together to provide training and opportunities for seminarians aspiring to ministry. Finding such opportunities, especially when there’s a lull in your studies, is a gold mine for ministry experience.

4. Consider joining a “regular” small group

What do I mean by a “regular” small group? One that’s lead by laypeople and consists mainly of laypeople, instead of being led by a church leader or aspiring leader.

Why seek this out? Shepherds who have never been “among the flock” (1 Pet 5:2) will not know how to care for the sheep entrusted to them. And being in a group led by those with no formal education gives some of the best “real world” opportunities for informal ministry.

Some seminarians gravitate towards others in the same life stage and with the same vocational goals. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with this, but it is very limiting in terms of getting to know others who aren’t like you, which in turn limits opportunities for ministry. Finding others to do life with one-on-one—who are not in the theological “bubble” of seminary—helped me gain experience as I was discipled by them and discipled others in turn.

5. Find mature believers who know less about theology than you

Theological knowledge is not equivalent to maturity in the Christian faith. Many mature Christians want to know God through deep study, but lack the opportunity to be formally educated.

Finding others who know less than you do, yet are more mature, is a key path to ministry opportunities. You get to serve the mature Christian who is hungry to know more about God as you share what you’re learning in your studies. And in turn, you are served as you find fellowship with and are discipled by a more mature follower of Jesus.

Some people look askance at seminarians, as though they are inevitable know-it-alls. Instead, seek relationships as a disciple and not only a discipler. And for those pursuing long-term academic ministry, imparting such knowledge to those who seek it is a worthy proving ground for the classroom.

6. Take every opportunity you can—within reason

Seminary offers a unique opportunity to gain significant knowledge and expertise that no other season of life will afford. It makes sense to commit oneself fully to the rigor it takes to succeed academically. Likewise, for those pursuing fruitful ministry down the road, finding present opportunities to minister—formally and informally—can produce invaluable experience. So, when such opportunities arise, take them!

Except when you shouldn’t.

Seminarians should seek to get through school, not martyr themselves on the altar of their own ambitions. Those who overdo it in seminary by taking too much on their plate may find their family in shambles or their disposition bent towards a messiah complex.

Your future ministry cannot afford such down payments on disaster. Take the opportunities as you can. Turn them down when you can’t. Seek to know yourself. And ask those who know you well whether you’re overdoing it.

Your future ministry cannot afford such down payments on disaster.

7. Deliberately seek out non-Christians

It’s human nature to spend more time with those we’re like, and less time with those we’re unlike. (The rise of social media and associated algorithms only reinforce these habits.) Christians are no different: We generally want to be with others who believe as we do.

But this creates a false understanding of Christian ministry. Part of what Paul called Timothy to was fulfilling “the work of an evangelist” (2 Tim 4:5). This is an essential component of not just faithful Christian leadership, but faithful Christian discipleship.

What should you do with them? Spend significant time with non-Christians. Make it increasingly normal to have deep, even religious conversations with them. Find out their needs and wants. Know their lives. In other words, see them as your neighbor and love them, as Jesus commanded.

8. Practice hospitality—and ask for it

So much good, lasting ministry takes place in homes around food and drink. Often the easiest place to be with someone is in the context of their (or your) home. This is low-hanging fruit for ministry experience in seminary.

We’ve found this to be true as a youth and family pastor, and now as an associate pastor. The same was true as we sought to invite neighbors and others into our little urban apartment throughout seminary. We weren’t always successful in having people over, but we tried incessantly.

But honestly, sometimes we were more successful in getting into people’s homes. That might sound odd, like we imposed ourselves on others. Perhaps we did, at times!

But regardless of where and how it happened, friendships were deepened and new paths for discipleship and ministry were opened through hospitality—given and received.