I’m Eager to Pastor Now — Should I Skip Seminary?

00:00:00.000 | To go to seminary or not, here's today's question.

00:00:07.480 | Hello, Pastor John.

00:00:08.480 | My name is Brandon, a 23-year-old college student from Georgia.

00:00:12.040 | I have felt a call to ministry and discussed it with the leaders of my home church, to

00:00:16.680 | which they have affirmed and given me the opportunity to serve in youth ministry and

00:00:20.680 | preach on occasion.

00:00:22.460 | The issue I'm facing is that I feel the urgency to be involved with ministry full-time and

00:00:26.760 | to reach out to adults and to the community.

00:00:30.520 | I know I'm called to pastor, but with this urgency, I can't help but want to skip seminary.

00:00:37.740 | Ministry means everything to me, and I know that seminary will help equip me with my ministry,

00:00:42.000 | but I feel pressed to jump into the work now.

00:00:44.560 | Additionally, I have this growing sense that we are not only in the last hour of the end

00:00:48.840 | times, but that we are in the last minutes and that Jesus is soon to return, hopefully

00:00:54.600 | within my lifetime.

00:00:56.580 | Is my sense of urgency wrongly placed?

00:01:00.920 | Brandon, I think your sense of urgency is God-given and valuable, and I hope you don't

00:01:10.600 | lose it.

00:01:12.200 | That is, the massive and eternal realities are at stake that you see, and that's true.

00:01:20.680 | And at every moment in people's lives, they could perish.

00:01:25.960 | They could slip into eternity at any minute.

00:01:29.000 | Everybody we know, we should feel a sense of urgency about.

00:01:34.900 | And Jesus could come and wrap things up historically in your lifetime, even my lifetime.

00:01:39.920 | I would love it.

00:01:40.920 | Oh, I would love it.

00:01:44.040 | Far too many Christians, including pastors, have lost their sense of urgency.

00:01:50.020 | They have settled in to a kind of routine that doesn't feel the sense of urgency of

00:01:58.360 | the danger that people are in.

00:02:01.300 | So, I'm glad you feel it.

00:02:04.100 | Now, let me make four or five observations that might shape the way you channel this

00:02:12.100 | sense of urgency.

00:02:13.660 | A couple of my own experiences might be helpful, and then a couple of Bible references.

00:02:20.260 | It is almost certain that I will see Jesus within 20 years face to face.

00:02:30.100 | That would put me at 93.

00:02:31.780 | I do not expect to live till 93.

00:02:34.840 | My father died at 88.

00:02:38.860 | That would be 14, 15, 15 more years for me.

00:02:43.360 | So I feel a sense of urgency not to waste my life.

00:02:50.240 | So it's not just a matter of what kind of education to get at the front end of your

00:02:54.300 | life.

00:02:55.300 | Right.

00:02:56.300 | But at every point in your life, you're going to feel this.

00:03:01.720 | Every chapter, you're going to feel this.

00:03:05.180 | And you're going to look at the possibilities of what you should do with your life when

00:03:08.900 | you're 30 and 40 and 50 and 60 and 70 and maybe 80.

00:03:14.140 | And you're going to struggle with the precious days that are left and how to use them best.

00:03:19.680 | So that's the first observation.

00:03:21.160 | I'm with you.

00:03:22.160 | In other words, I'm not looking from out here saying, "Whoa, you got a problem, and I'm

00:03:26.180 | trying to help you solve it."

00:03:27.280 | I got a problem.

00:03:28.720 | Second, as I look back over 73 years, I have zero regrets, no regrets whatsoever that I

00:03:37.220 | stayed in school until I was 28 years old.

00:03:41.280 | That's all I did was go to school from age six to 28.

00:03:46.320 | I dropped out of kindergarten.

00:03:48.200 | I started at six.

00:03:49.360 | My mother tried to get me to go at five.

00:03:50.960 | I hated it, so she didn't make it.

00:03:52.520 | Back in those days, you could do that.

00:03:54.480 | That is, I got my final terminal degree of education, formal education.

00:04:01.260 | And it made sense that I should go as long as I could, get that, because everybody that

00:04:07.060 | I trusted was saying, "Go ahead, finish your last degree, and then all the doors that God

00:04:12.760 | might call you through will be open."

00:04:14.840 | So if you got a willing wife and the Lord provides the resources, I would go ahead and

00:04:24.640 | get all the education available to you that your heart would let you get.

00:04:30.080 | I don't regret that.

00:04:33.280 | And I was just talking with somebody last night, I'm going to add this note here, who

00:04:37.800 | is going back to school at like age 60 from the mission field because he feels lax.

00:04:46.640 | And so it may be that we're somewhere along the way, if you do plunge into ministry at

00:04:51.520 | age 19, and you go try to plant a church in some unreached people, maybe 10 years later,

00:04:57.920 | you're going to say, "Okay, okay, I'm going back to school.

00:05:01.400 | That's okay if you want to do it that way."

00:05:03.760 | But I'm saying from my standpoint, I never regretted getting all the education I could.

00:05:09.840 | And you are going to be handling the precious, probably the precious Word of God.

00:05:15.500 | And if you want doctors to get a good education so that when they do surgery on you, they

00:05:19.840 | don't kill you, you better know how to handle the Word of God so you don't kill people with

00:05:25.040 | it.

00:05:26.220 | So I know that from the standpoint of being 23 years old, getting more education can feel

00:05:32.920 | laborious.

00:05:34.760 | When I was in seminary, there was a great deal of urgency among the students in the

00:05:39.880 | late 60s.

00:05:41.260 | They thought they should be out marching the streets and doing more important things and

00:05:44.400 | sitting in seminary classes.

00:05:46.600 | And Professor Bromley, the church history professor, stood up in chapel one day and

00:05:53.480 | announced his text for his sermon, I'll never forget it, Luke 3.23.

00:05:58.680 | And he read it, "Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about 30 years of age."

00:06:05.040 | And he preached for 30 minutes on why we should stop wanting to leave seminary and do stuff

00:06:11.240 | right away.

00:06:12.960 | He urged us to be patient.

00:06:15.540 | And there are reasons why church leaders are called elders, not youngsters.

00:06:24.420 | I remember thinking from that day on, I was 25 at the time, no, not quite, between, I

00:06:30.340 | don't remember, somewhere between 22 and 25, he preached that sermon.

00:06:34.180 | And I remember my goal, as soon as he preached that sermon, I would like to be done with

00:06:39.500 | my schooling and invested in a fruitful ministry by the time I'm 30.

00:06:45.520 | And I beat it by a year and a half, which I was very pleased by.

00:06:50.460 | God was good to Noel and me.

00:06:52.780 | So here, one more thing, maybe a couple of texts to consider.

00:06:56.340 | 2 Peter 3, 8 and 9.

00:06:58.400 | This is Peter's response to those who said that the second coming is not going to happen

00:07:02.620 | because so much time has passed.

00:07:04.420 | It's not, it's just a myth anyway.

00:07:06.740 | And here's what he says.

00:07:08.060 | Don't overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years

00:07:14.300 | and a thousand years is as one day.

00:07:17.260 | The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward

00:07:22.500 | you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

00:07:27.740 | Now, I think that implies several things for you, Brandon.

00:07:33.260 | First, whether the Lord comes, comes back within your lifetime or not, when he comes

00:07:40.940 | and he will come, it will have been short in God's reckoning.

00:07:47.740 | Second, it has been 2000 years and God has made no mistake.

00:07:54.900 | None.

00:07:56.140 | This was the plan.

00:07:57.860 | The day is fixed by the authority of God, says so in Acts 1.

00:08:04.940 | When the Lord comes, it will be the perfect timing.

00:08:10.220 | As we look back over the last 2000 years, are we not glad that hundreds of godly men

00:08:17.300 | and women devoted themselves to serious study that they might write things that for us have

00:08:24.900 | proved absolutely life-changing?

00:08:26.900 | So you can see the point I'm making is that I'm glad that the sense of urgency, say, that

00:08:33.260 | Jonathan Edwards felt or that Luther felt or Calvin felt or Spurgeon felt did not cause

00:08:41.220 | them to just go out and knock on every door and not write sermons and not write books

00:08:46.080 | that would have proved life-changing for me and motivating for me and urgency-creating

00:08:52.700 | for me.

00:08:54.180 | One last biblical testimony, Paul's words as an old man, 2 Timothy 4.6, "I am already

00:09:01.580 | being poured out as a drink offering.

00:09:04.260 | The time for my departure has come.

00:09:06.580 | I have fought the good fight.

00:09:07.940 | I've finished the race.

00:09:08.980 | I've kept the faith.

00:09:10.220 | Henceforth, there's laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous

00:09:15.900 | judge will award to me on that day and not only to me, but to all who've loved his appearing."

00:09:21.020 | Now, this is what, Brandon, this is what you want to be able to say when you come to die.

00:09:28.860 | If it's long or short, so you live 80 years or you live to be 25, you want to be able

00:09:35.580 | to say, "Fought the good fight, finished the race appointed for me, kept the faith."

00:09:43.460 | God has a race for you, a race course.

00:09:45.780 | It's a marathon.

00:09:47.300 | It's not a sprint.

00:09:48.580 | And he has one for all of us.

00:09:50.940 | Ultimately, whether you go to seminary or not is not the main issue.

00:09:57.140 | The main issue is, will you run the course with all your might faithfully to the end?

00:10:05.100 | It is a marathon.

00:10:08.100 | You need to pace yourself.

00:10:09.780 | Find your pace, find your gifts, give yourself to lifelong growth in grace and knowledge

00:10:16.180 | and serve the Lord till he comes or till he calls.

00:10:21.020 | Amen to all that.

00:10:22.820 | But what's your beef with kindergarten?

00:10:25.420 | Well, they made you take naps, number one.

00:10:28.020 | Good night.

00:10:29.020 | I'm five years old.

00:10:30.020 | Do you think I'm going to take a nap?

00:10:32.380 | I mean, we had to take a mat to school, a mat with a little blanket.

00:10:37.940 | And at a point in the day, everybody rolls out their mats and lies down.

00:10:42.100 | I'm squirreling around under that blanket saying, "I want to go home."

00:10:48.020 | And the second reason is because Sonny Paul, my neighbor, was home and he was having fun

00:10:51.980 | digging in the dirt with his trucks.

00:10:55.340 | I wanted to go dig in the dirt.

00:10:57.420 | We had a lot across the street and we dug roads and drove our trucks on the side of

00:11:04.140 | the hill there.

00:11:05.140 | And oh my goodness, I think five-year-olds are supposed to be out learning stuff by digging

00:11:10.420 | in the dirt, not lying under blankets at kindergarten.

00:11:17.260 | You heard it here first, folks.

00:11:18.820 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:11:20.460 | And for more about this podcast, go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:11:27.420 | And speaking of children, should we have them?

00:11:30.220 | I opened Twitter today to see this headline from the Washington Post, "Deciding whether

00:11:35.540 | to have kids has never been more complex.

00:11:39.020 | Enter parenthood indecision therapists."

00:11:42.060 | Now, I'm not sure the question is more complex than it was 100 years ago when the infant

00:11:46.620 | mortality rate was 24% in this country.

00:11:49.540 | Nevertheless, having children is a huge decision for sure.

00:11:53.500 | And it comes with some really complex implications, especially when you factor in this profound

00:11:57.660 | reality, that every child we bring into this world is an eternal being who will live forever.

00:12:04.980 | And if there's a chance that they would be unsaved, isn't it better to not have children

00:12:10.220 | at all?

00:12:11.220 | Wow, that's a big question.

00:12:13.460 | That's on Friday.

00:12:14.460 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and we'll see you then.

00:12:15.860 | [END]

00:12:16.360 | 1. The Decision to Have Kids.

00:12:17.360 | 2. The Decision to Have Kids.

00:12:18.360 | 3. The Decision to Have Kids.

00:12:19.360 | 4. Deciding whether to have kids.

00:12:20.360 | 5. The Decision to Have Kids.

00:12:21.360 | 6. Deciding whether to have kids.

00:12:22.360 | 7. Deciding whether to have kids.

00:12:23.360 | 8. Deciding whether to have kids.

00:12:24.360 | 9. Deciding whether to have kids.

I’m Eager to Pastor Now — Should I Skip Seminary?

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