Imagine getting a job at an ice cream shop, but you’ve never had a lick of ice cream in your life.
Perhaps you need the job for some extra income each month, or you’ve always been intrigued by how ice cream is made, or even love the social aspects of friends getting a cone after a movie on a Friday night. You’re deeply interested in everything there is about ice cream, even to the extent that you want to work in a place that sells this creamy delicacy.
But you’ve never actually experienced the very thing your work revolves around.
What do you do when someone asks you, “What’s your favorite flavor?”
What do you do when someone asks, “Cone or no cone? Or should I just go with a shake?”
What do you do when someone says they’re allergic to dairy but orders an ice cream sundae anyway?
In all three of these instances, the best thing you could do is smile, shrug your shoulders, and say, “I have no idea.” Maybe you could figure out a way to manage, but this is also true: To work well in an ice cream shop, you have to experience the very thing you’re selling. It’s one thing to know all about it. It’s another thing to speak out of experience.
The same applies to the local church. Maybe you received your call to ministry at a youth camp, have always loved reading your bible, dream about being a preacher, or wonder if you could plant a church of your own. What are some of the necessities for being trained for the ministry to which God has called you?
A natural starting point is to search for colleges that will best train you to achieve these dreams. You pick the college, enroll in classes, and start studying about everything there is to be a pastor, a non-profit director, a theologian, or a minister. You learn how to study the Bible, what doctrines are central to your denomination’s belief, how to preach, what to say when a troubled congregant walks into your office, how to officiate a wedding, and the best way to teach the next generation of teenagers. All of these are incredibly crucial and absolutely necessary for learning about ministry in the classroom. But there’s one crucial element missing from this list of ministry and theological education.
It’s the local church.
You can’t study for ministry without being immersed in a local church. Just as tasting ice cream is central to working at an ice cream shop, so is being embedded in a local church or ministry central to your field of study. It’s one thing to read books and write papers to gain the necessary knowledge for your ministry—but there are some things you can never truly learn until you are thrust into the concrete experience a local church has to offer. There are always exceptions to the things you learn from a book or a class, and those exceptions are experienced in the real-life ministry on the field.
One of the greatest factors that will set you up for success in your ministry education is to invest yourself in a local church. Volunteer at the youth group, serve on the First Impressions team, rock the infants in the nursery during a service, play on the worship team, interview the lead pastor, or go on hospital visitations. There is so much you can learn about ministry when you are plugged into a local church alongside your coursework.
Do everything in your power to practice the what you’re studying to become. If God has called you to ministry, it doesn’t begin once you receive your degree.
Your ministry starts now. So dive in!
