Seminary 101: aim for a challenge
This is going to be the last part of the Seminary 101 project. However, I love talking about seminary so anytime you have questions or want to share your own experience, send me an email! I would love to hear from you.
At times, seminary has made me anxious. I’ve been afraid that I couldn’t pass the classes. I’ve worried that I wouldn’t nail down a topic for a research paper. I’ve been concerned that a professor from another denomination might be a liberal heretic. I’ve had questions about the orthodoxy of sources that we have used. In each case, my fears have been unfounded. I have passed my classes. I have written all the research papers I’ve been assigned. All of my professors have been orthodox believers and the sources that we have used have sharpened and shaped my own beliefs.
That doesn’t mean I won’t feel anxious about any of those things again as new quarters come around and new classes start. There will always be a general trepidation as well because seminary is challenging. My own abilities are being stretched. I’ve learning new perspectives. I’m being asked to consider possibilities that have never occurred to me before. Those are challenging settings.
I could have taken an easier path through seminary. I would have still had to write papers but I could have gone somewhere where I was told what was true in every tiny detail and all of my professors believed the same thing. I could have not gone to seminary at all and continued to learn other ways. I could have read all the same “safe” people. I choose not to do any of those. And I’m glad. (This does not mean that if you choose one of these things that you did something wrong. This is speaking for myself and of my own experience and what I need.)
I did not want to go to seminary to have all my own thoughts validated. Or to be told what to believe. I wanted a challenge. I wanted pushback and other ideas. I wanted to learn how to interact humbly with people who thought differently than I did.
This is something I encourage whether you are in seminary or not, whether you ever want to go to seminary or not. Read books that challenge you. Develop friendships that stretch you. Listen to podcasts and people and classes that reform you are as a person. We all need the challenge.
Sometimes life stretches you when you didn’t ask for it. Those are the circumstances we can do nothing about. But sometimes, we can choose a challenge or we can choose to be comfortable. I hope we don’t always stick with comfort. (Though there’s nothing wrong with some comfort every now and then, for sure. I don’t actually think we gain anything by making life as difficult and prickly as it can be. It does that enough without our help.) Pick one place and stretch a little.
Always,
Lisa
Links I Love:
I picked up Project Hail Mary at the library last Friday and inhaled it over the weekend. It was phenomenal.
Scot McKnight talks about reasons for going to seminary.
This article about TikTok influencers shared by Jill Atogewe is depressing.
This podcast episode is topping my to-listen list for the week.