Category: seminary

Personality Types, Spiritual Gifts, and Ministry

My Vocation of Ministry seminary class homework has included taking various inventories – personality type, spiritual gifts, witnessing style, conflict management style, and more.  For years those of us in discipleship ministries have been using these type of inventories as a starting point for self-discovery, personal growth, and reflection on types of ministry people might be most suited for.  Please explore some of the links below for yourself and for those you spend time with!

Personality types – why we use them, testing website, and the four basics (because it’s easier to grasp than Myers-Briggs or the Enneagram, though I’m a fan of those too!)  personality-types-and-discipleship

Spiritual gifts – Spiritual Gift Assessment Tools

For a book and/or Bible study that covers both of the above, plus your heart passions, life experiences, and natural abilities, try SHAPE by Erik Rees of Saddleback Church.  SHAPE

And for fun, here is one I had not seen before:  Witnessing Style Inventory – though we are all called to share the gospel, our preferred manner to do so varies. Witnessing Style Inventory

Do you have a particular tool you love to use?  Tell us about it and send a link!

Graphing Your Spiritual Journey

What would your spiritual journey through life look like as a line graph?  Up, down, steadily rising, some bumpy spots?  When did your spiritual life begin?  Where are you today?  Try this simple exercise of drawing out your spiritual journey as a line graph on a piece of paper.  (Imagine a stock market graph, from the day your were born until today…)StockmarketLine

If your take your time and reflect on your journey it can be a powerful tool for self-discovery, and a great preparation for sharing your story with someone else.  Be sure to label important markers on your journey such as:  salvation, sin issues or difficult seasons of trials, high points, changes of direction in career or ministry, getting married or divorced, having kids, etc.

Here’s a full set of instructions if you’d like to incorporate this exercise into your discipleship ministries.  Graph Your Spiritual Journey Exercise

Ladies at The River, you know we will be doing this exercise this fall! : )

A Class for Those Considering Ministry

If you’re paying to go to seminary, you presumably have some sense of being “called into the ministry” as a full-time vocation.  To help students intentionally reflect on what that might mean, Asbury Seminary requires all students to take a Vocation of Ministry class their first year. This is my summer 2018 project.

The class is designed to help us:
– Articulate our spiritual journey and calling to ministry,
– Consider our gifts, passions, and experiences as they relate to ministry,
– Embrace spiritual growth and character development,
– Find life balance so that ministry is sustainable,
– Recognize healthy (and unhealthy) patterns of relationships in ministry (including sexual ethics), and
– Demonstrate sensitivity to cultural, ethnic, and gender issues with regard to ministry.

That’s a lot of ground to cover in one class!  We have done some interesting projects that I will recount for you in brief posts as the summer continues.  Our reading list for the class is:BookList

-Guinness, Os. The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life. 2000.
-Smith, Gordon. Courage and Calling: Embracing Your God-Given Potential. 1999.
-McNeal, Reggie. A Work of Heart: Understanding How God Shapes Spiritual Leaders. 2011.
-Barton, Ruth H. Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation. 2006.
-Ethridge, Shannon and Stephen Arterburn. Every Woman’s Battle: Discovering God’s Plan For Sexual and Emotional Fulfillment. 2003.  (Guys are reading the men’s version.)
-Lupton, Robert. Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help, And How to Reverse it. 2011.
-Roberts, Benjamin T. Ordaining Women. 1891, reprinted 2016.
 

A Semester in the Gospel of Mark

Seminary classes appear to either be (a) content-based in which one must master a body of knowledge (theology, church history, etc.), or (b) skills-based in which one must master a skill to an academically acceptable level (preaching, interpreting text, Greek, Hebrew, etc.)  This spring I spent a semester learning Inductive Bible Study (IBS) skills and practicing on the English text of the Gospel of Mark. It was a lot of work, but rewarding!

If you think about it, no one recorded every waking moment Jesus spent on earth.  Even today we do not record every moment of every day, even if reality t.v. shows and Snapchat stories promise you otherwise… everything is edited! So we have four different gospel accounts of Jesus’ life, each by a different author, each telling the parts of Jesus’ life and ministry that they wanted to communicate to their audience. The content of each narrative is absolutely true, simply edited by a different author.

IBS asks the question, “Why did Mark chose to tell this story, to this audience, at this point in his narrative?” IBS presumes that Mark, with the help of the Holy Spirit, arranged the stories of Jesus in a particular fashion to communicate particular truths to his audience.  IBS is a bit like bringing AP English Literature skills to the gospel narrative and asking questions about structure, recurring themes, framing, foreshadowing, climax, repeated cycles, and more.  Once we understand the structure of a passage, and its context, then we become better interpreters of the text.  Single verses, yanked out of context and

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applied to a situation, become taboo… After all, no one opens a letter from an old friend, reads only the 5th paragraph, and then puts the letter away for another time!

This is the companion commentary we used which I recommend for anyone teaching on Mark by Mark Strauss:

And just to give you an idea, here are some examples of the introductory paragraph of IBS papers I wrote every week all spring:

The Surprises of 2017

I had no idea.  I’ve been thinking about how life with God is such an adventure.  Last January 1st I spent time reflecting on the previous year, and in prayer.  God gave me Hebrews 11:8 as a theme verse for the year.  Then on January 2nd I read this in My Utmost for His highest:

Heb118 I didn’t know what was next.  I wasn’t expecting anything unusual really.  Then in March I spent a weekend with Sandy Richter, and two weeks later I knelt on the grave of Paul in Rome and the words that came out of my mouth were, “Lord, help me be faithful to preach the Word, in season and out of season.”  (Is the Word ever out-of-season?!)  In April I applied to seminary, in May I was accepted at Asbury, in June I stood in the pulpit on a Sunday morning as a guest speaker for the first time, and in September I started classes.  A year ago seminary was not on my To Do List, and here I am one semester into the game.

I still don’t know what’s next, other than the Inductive Study of Mark class I registered for this spring.  I really am enjoying being in seminary, but I don’t have an end game… In fact, not knowing “why” makes school a continual faith exercise… I am here because I am obedient, not because I have a plan.  As long as I check-in with The Master Planner on a regular basis, He will certainly keep me headed in the right direction.

My verse for 2018 is Isaiah 43:19 “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?  I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”  I wonder what the new year holds… I wonder if I am already standing ankle deep in the rising river waters?  Last January I didn’t give my theme verse much thought, this year I am paying attention!

Tell your story – How has God been busy in your life this last year?

Adjusting to Being a Student Again

I’ve turned in my research paper and finished my final exam – my first seminary class is done!  Thank you to all of you who have supported me (to the ladies at The River who paid for my books!) and encouraged me not to lose sight of the end (you who take my phone calls when I need to vent, you know who you are!).  A special thank you to Lynn Haven UMC who has been flexible with me studying, travelling for class, and given me a quiet office space.

For Introduction to the New Testament I read 6 books (about 1400 pages) this fall, and listened to some 40 hours of lectures online or in person, wrote a research paper on interpretations of Luke 16 (the Parable of the Dishonest Steward), and took two exams.  I have no idea how people in full-time ministry with families can take more than one class at a time!  (Be nice to pastors you know who are still in school!)

I discovered that I procrastinate by cleaning and doing laundry, so my house is still looking pretty good.  Ha ha.  I really enjoyed the academic work, but that is my nature.  I was overjoyed to discover that my background in sociopolitical systems and other cultures is very relevant to modern Biblical studies.  I found time management challenging – it was difficult to evaluate how much time to give to various projects, since they always expand to fill whatever time is allotted.  I was annoyed to have to give up other activities to make time for studying… (I am coming back to tennis, I promise!)  I struggled to keep things in perspective – when I had 100 pages of reading to do and it was 10pm, but my teenager wants to talk… then I would choose to set the book down and talk.  In the end I keep reminding myself – I have a family, a job, a ministry, and friends – seminary is extra.  Stay with it for the long haul, but keep it in its proper place.

Thanks to all who have asked how I am surviving.  Now, time to celebrate!