The Unfinished Pastor
James Berkley
October 1, 1984
I find that continuing education provokes controversy in some quarters. Some congregations wonder why we pastors need it, and some of us fail to use it productively. Still, the same church member who disapproves of our two weeks "away at some institution" would not accept a physician who uses the cancer cures he learned in medical school in the fifties. The treasurer who questions writing the check for the pastor's journal subscription would never do business with a banker unaware of interest-bearing checking accounts. The parent who misses the youth director "off playing around at some youth workers' convention" would not want a physics teacher for her daughter who never felt the need to study after getting his degree from old A&T in '43. In this changing world, practitioners of any sort must have continuing education. That includes us pastors. Types of necessary education
Many of us need remedial education. As surprising as it is to some lay people (and as obvious as it is to others!), we have not learned everything by the time the ink dries on our diplomas. I attended a fine seminary, for instance, yet I learned almost nothing about management. My curriculum simply didn't contain that one subject which so consumes my time. Other pastors gravely feel the effects of missed classes in homiletics, counseling, Christian education, New Testament, or any number of other subjects. Seminary alone cannot adequately equip us for a lifetime of ministry. Even the classes I took were not completely retained. During my intensive Hebrew class, I also happened to be courting and becoming engaged to my wife. Oddly enough I have retained her strikingly longer than Hebrew syntax. We simply do not remember everything we once learned. Some things ...
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