FTE "On Call" Blog

Trace Haythorn

Former President, The Fund for Theological Education

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March 02, 2009

Seeking Service, Not “Refuge”

Motivation matters.

Lisa Miller’s quick take on projections of rising seminary enrollments (“Divine Refuge in the Storm”, Newsweek Feb.16, 2009) offers hope for growing numbers of churches in need of qualified pastors. But it misses a fundamental point about Millennials who seek the mantle of ministry.

Sure, graduate school enrollments go up in economic downturns. But in this current storm, suggesting that students go to seminary to find “divine refuge” is a little like saying that firemen responding to an alarm are looking for a safe place away from the station. The truth is that seminary students today make a courageous and countercultural decision to take on significant debt—followed by an uncertain future and sparse starting salaries—even as clergy positions are cut or go unfilled. Not many today opt for that return on investment.

So why go to seminary? Students tell us their motivation is to repair the world, not seek refuge from it. Their aim is to engage, not to escape. They want to rectify the swelling heap of issues lying at the altar of a broken social and financial system, wrought by highly leveraged greed. Vocation reflects values. Thank goodness these young people are thinking more like Martin Luther King, Jr. than Gordon Gekko. We ought to help them on their journey. If we don’t, those seeking their own “divine refuge” in local churches may not find the leaders they want looking back from the pulpit.