Seminary, Ordination, and Denominations

All three are really closely related when you are talking about mainline congregations, and I have been thinking about these things ever since I wrote my blog post last week about 13 Reasons Why Seminaries are Irrelevant. There have been some good posts floating around this week on these topics:

• Is Seminary Relevant? -The guys at GoingtoSeminary.com saw the blog exchange between Tyler and I last week and are featuring our posts on their site. Tyler has expanded his post for the GoingtoSeminary site; my post will run on Monday.
• When an M.Div. Isn’t Enough – If you don’t follow Adam Walker Cleveland’s blog, you won’t believe the hoopla going on with his attempt to get ordained. He’s seeking ordination in the PC(USA). He got his undergraduate degree in religion from a private Christian University. He went to Princeton Theological Seminary, a PC(USA) seminary, and got not one but two degrees–a Master of Divinity and a Master of Arts in Youth Ministry. However, his presbytery says he still lacks seven courses before he can be ordained. That’s almost another year of full-time study.
• Tony Jones has started a petition in response to Adam’s dilemma.
• The seminary dilemma – Erik shares a lot of my thoughts on ordination here.
• The church as an agent on self-preservation – Another vote against denominationalism.

Youth Ministry

• Start putting things off – Youth ministers are notorious for doing way too much and thus distracting ourselves from things that are really important. This article advises people to start putting things off so you can focus your time.
• Planning in youth ministry – Erik outlines how he tries to do some of his planning in his ministry. Good thoughts for how to use the flex time coming this summer.
• Evaluating your ministry – Tim offers a free download of a survey he used to try and measure different areas of his church’s youth ministry. The results of this survey have him considering whether or not he should cancel large group meetings altogether. The survey is easily adaptable for your ministry.
• Jobs of a small group leader – Chris is doing a series of posts about what he expects in small group leaders. Here is part two.
• Theology of high school youth meetings – Some good questions to consider here. If you aren’t asking them, you should.
• Bonhoeffer on youth ministry – He always has a way with things. Thanks to Jake for pointing this out.
• A theology of play – Adam gives some meaning to dodgeball.
• From missions to missional – I think most of us are trying to figure out how to make this shift. Some good thoughts here by Dan.

Miscellaneous – Church, mission, theology

• On church hospitality teams – David Fitch says it is a false expectation for people to be integrated into a church community in a few visits.
• The most impressive person at Princeton – You’ll be surprised.
• Leading to the edges – Adam McLane on where you have to lead in order to grow.
• Why it matters that Jesus REALLY rose – Tony Jones ain’t no heretic when it come to the resurrection.
• The New Perspective on Paul – Scot McKnight has started a series on the new perspective on Paul. If you aren’t familiar with this theological topic, this would be a good place to start.
• How the young view religion