The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill Podcast

I'm halfway through listening to episodes of The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. (Thanks for the recommendation, Aleks!) This podcast is eye opening. The narrative follows the rise of a church in Seattle led by Mark Discoll. I didn't know much about Driscoll before listening to the episodes and now I'm too familiar. Excerpts from his preaching are downright shocking. He screams, swears, and talks openly about former pastors he ran over with the Mars Hill "bus" a.k.a. church on the way to achieving the mission. Somehow, his leadership and preaching appealed to thousands of people who attended services and groups.

When I first started out in pastoral ministry the church growth movement was in full swing. Business models of congregational leadership were in vogue and I, along with others, flocked to conferences to hear megachurch pastors pontificate about how to grow a church. Today, many of those big churches led by larger than life pastors have been plagued by scandals and run into substantial problems. Mars Hill is one example.

If you want a good analysis of a grow-at-all-costs ministry model, and the problems arising from that mentality, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill is worth a listen. Parts of it are good fodder for a pastoral theology course. Invite students to consider Driscoll's pastoral theology alongside others such as Eugene Peterson, Will Willimon, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The contrast could not be starker.

 The full Podcast is available here. Below is a teaser to get you started.

What subjects do ministers wish they learned more about in seminary?

In a 2020 article published by the Association of Theological Schools, data collected from alums about their biggest unmet seminary course wishes were boiled down and analyzed. What's the one thing they wanted to learn more about? Here's what the article says:

It is probably not surprising that, for all respondents, categories unrelated to theology proper—"Administration" (19.7%), "Leadership" (15.3%), and "Finance" (15.1%)—stand at the top of the Wish-Learned list. One-fifth of alums marked "Administration," far exceeding all other categories.

Administration? The findings are not particularly revolutionary but they point to a divergence between theological school courses and the real world of pastoral work. Seminaries seem to do a good job preparing pastors to preach and write academic papers but haven't quite figured out how to help students administer and navigate complex congregational systems. 

My own experience confirms what I read in the article. When I was a lead pastor,  I sat on hiring committees, worked on church budgets, administered staff performance reviews, wrote proposals and reports for committees and the board, and all those tasks were on top of my traditional pastoral work of preaching, counseling, visiting, and praying. 

I think there is room to rethink pastoral education to bring the process and outcomes more in line with what today's congregations require. However, there is an equal need to examine congregational life and ask whether its time to rethink the expectations congregations have for their pastors.   

Student Spiritual Formation in Theological Schools

I stumbled across a handful of surprising and concerning findings in an Association of Theological Schools (ATS) publication from 2018. According to the publication, Five Things We've Learned About Assessing Personal and Spiritual Formation, only 59% of theological schools have a formal definition of personal and spiritual formation. Given that personal and spiritual formation should be one of the highest priorities for current and future church leaders and pastors, it is surprising that the institutions educating them aren't more definitive. 

What's even more concerning? Most theological schools (90%) use a tool to assess student spiritual formation. Nothing wrong with that, except the tools have nothing to do with "formation". 

According to my dictionary, formation is, "the action of forming or process of being formed". Formation implies a movement or change to the subject or object in question. If it is a human being then the person is being shaped or moulded. Christian spiritual formation implies a process of change that leaves the person more like Jesus Christ.

With that in mind, shouldn't the tools measuring spiritual formation measure aspects of change? If so, it is surprising to see the most common tools for assessing spiritual formation:

• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) (46 schools)
• Spiritual Gifts Assessments (24 schools)
• Enneagram (19 schools)
• StrengthsFinder (19 schools)

How many of these measure the process of change within a person? As far as I understand, all of the above tools measure things that don't really change. They address static gifts, strengths, temperaments, etc. I did an MBTI test in Bible College close to twenty years ago and I'm fairly certain my four letters are the same today.

It might be time to take a closer look at better measuring tools for personal and spiritual formation.

More on Prayer

In learning to pray, I've been reliant on some saints from the past. This week, two in particular.

The writings of Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, have been peeling back the skin of my God-directed petitions, showing that it's actually my response to God's action (or perceived lack thereof) that forms the basis of prayer. We recognize our nothingness in the presence of God's everything:

"Prayer is inspired by God in the depth of our own nothingness. It is the movement of trust, of gratitude, of adoration, or of sorrow that places us before God, seeing both Him and ourselves in the light of His infinite truth, and moves us to ask Him for the mercy, the spiritual strength, the material help that we all need." (Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, 43)

Julian of Norwich, a Middle Ages ascetic, has opened my imagination to see myself in relationship to the Trinity. She received "showings" (visions) from God and writes about them and her reflections on them. I've found her depictions helpful as I envision what dwelling "in" God or God "in"dwelling me looks like:

"We ought to take great joy that God dwells in our soul, and even more joy that our soul dwells in God. Our soul is made to be God's dwelling place, and the dwelling place of the soul is God, that is unmade." (Julian of Norwich, Revelation of Love, Chapter 54)