Paul BurkhartFor my seminary Internship, each semester we have a different spiritual practice to engage in for the semester. The goal is to expose different people to different ways of engaging God in a deep way so that as they step out in ministry, they have...
Having spent time around a lot of seminarians, I can tell you that the nitty-gritty, practical realities of pastoral life don’t get talked about enough. That’s a problem. But the bigger problem, in my view, is that whenever these...
My one year at the first seminary I attended was perhaps the most formative time of theological change in my life. The seminary itself was in the midst of a redefinition and realigning of its commitments and leanings, and so points and counterpoints...
Do you have any rituals? My roommate gets up most every morning at around the same time, goes for a run, makes a French press of coffee and sits out our kitchen table and reads his giant red-leather study Bible and journals for a long time after. I...
Confession: I’m a night owl. I can’t do mornings. And yet, there is a long tradition in the Church of beginning your day with devotional meditation with God. I’m working on it. But in the meantime, one of the great ironies is that few things can put...
In one of the first episodes of the U.S. version of The Office, a show set in a paper company, one of the employees is asked why, though he hates his job, he doesn’t quit. He says something like, “Because what would I do...
About five years ago, I did my first year of seminary. I took a break after that year and have now returned to a different school to continue. Recently, I stumbled upon an old journal entry I wrote on the last day of my first semester. I was a...
We’ve been talking a lot on this site about various mobile apps and web services you can utilize for seminary, but at the end of the day, many of us still have some sort of desktop, laptop, or some other “real” computer which will...
When it comes to the “theological education” aspect of seminaries, there are several different philosophies. Here are three: 1. Conviction Mindset One school of thought says that you go to a school that shares your convictions (or is close enough)...
As part of my two-year Internship process for my seminary, each semester there is a particular Christian Spirituality practice we are to do regularly. We have done the Ignatian Examen and the Daily Office. This semester, we are doing an ancient...
I’m terrible at organizing. Well, that’s not quite right. I can come up with brilliant systems of organization, but I often just never implement them. This bad habit has followed me throughout my life. It was easier when school consisted of clearly...
John Calvin famously opened up his Institutes with a profound set of lines about the close intimacy between knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves. He did not start with Scripture or hermeneutics, but anthropology. In the Protestant focus...
I do these weekly Study Guides for our church home group leaders. I read a bunch of commentaries on the sermon text, and condense the scholarly thoughts into a 2 page verse-by-verse commentary our leaders can use to help answer people questions if...
I recently found myself looking, back through A.W. Tozer’s The Knowledge of the Holy and was reminded just how good of a book it is for seminarians to read every now and then. In a sermon preached by Tozer on God’s Holiness, he tells the...
We’ve talked before on this site about how seminary has changed. The days where all you need is a Bible, notebook, and a library card are over. There is a whole world of resources available, means to access them, ways to organize your time at...
Learning theology is one of the main purposes and joys of seminary. But through the course of your education there, you’re likely to have many of your proper theological convictions challenged, shaped, and changed. And yet, even as we’re going...
We’ve all been there. You’re reading a book by some Christian author and they make a point in the course of their chapter. It’s a good point. You agree with it. It’s helpful. And yet, because this author prides themselves on being “biblical”, they...
When I first started seminary and teaching, I often fell into that temptation to try and mimic my heroes. Anyone that knows me well knows this. Especially in college, I always had some new author, preacher, teacher, or friend that I very much...
If there is one category of seminary courses that is most maligned, it is probably the Practical Theology courses. If I can be honest for a second, they are seen as the “vegetables” of seminary, whereas the “real” theology classes are seen as the...
In seminaries, the most hit-or-miss class might be the occasional course on Preaching. I’ve had the unique experience of taking two different preaching courses at two very different seminaries. One course was incredibly dry, unhelpful, and boring...
Seminaries are weird creatures. In the beginning, most everyone is new and has to do the awkward dance of forming relationships while at the same time trying to find a flow for school to survive. It takes a unique person to really be a part of both...
It won’t take you long upon your arrival at seminary how much things may have changed from previous generations of seminary educations. One of the biggest differences is just how digital everything is. Most seminaries have some sort of online class...
It won’t take you long upon your arrival at seminary how much things may have changed from previous generations of seminary educations. One of the biggest differences is just how digital everything is. Most seminaries have some sort of online class...
“No Politics in Church? Not So Fast.” | Religion & Politics // As many of us have heard, Pew Research recently came out with a study highlighting the decline of Christianity and the rise of the unaffiliated and atheist. Many of these...
A while back, I attended a performance of Rebirth of a Nation, a film created by Paul Miller (aka DJ Spooky) that seeks to deconstruct and remix the 1915, W.D. Griffith film, Birth of a Nation, a highly acclaimed cinematic venture and one of the...
In my first year of seminary, I was in a New Testament class with an eccentric and somewhat unorthodox professor who enjoyed challenging various long-held theological assumptions and beliefs with the goal of helping us freshly think through these...
Was Abraham called to kill Isaac? Yes. He went forward with that plan until God “called” otherwise. Would he have been disobedient to continue with the original “calling” of killing Isaac after God said “stop”? In the church today we have a very...
It won’t take you long upon your arrival at seminary how much things may have changed from previous generations of seminary educations. One of the biggest differences is just how digital everything is. Most seminaries have some sort of online class...
In any school, especially graduate school—including seminary—one of its greatest costs is to one’s sleep. At least, I know that’s the case for me. I spent most of my adult schooling years with an average nightly sleep duration of 4 to 6 hours. And...
“What scares the New Atheists” | The Guardian // For the first time in history, there exist societies in which the default worldview and assumption is secular. In these places, people walk out there doors and the existence of a god is...