As you know, we’ve been preaching a lot these three months in Africa. I’m always amazed when we’re asked to do so by middle-aged pastors and missionaries who’ve been ministering probably longer than I’ve been alive. Sure, some of these men and women step up as evangelists and preachers and such without any formal training or education, but none of us have been to seminary. At most, some of us literally majored in ministry at Christian colleges.
But that wouldn’t get most of us very far on the path to a career in ministry. Yet we’ve seen how God has equipped these men and women with the Holy Spirit in such a way that renders a master’s degree from a seminary almost useless. Likewise, God has taken a ragtag group of twenty- and thirty-somethings with no professional background in ministry and turned them into missionaries.
And it’s remarkable how God uses simpletons like us. . .
Or is it?
While we were in Mvomero, I realized, as I watched a fiery evangelist take careful notes as Christi preached, that many of us are a lot more qualified than we think. Some of us have grown up “in the church” or “in a Christian home” – that’s years of Sunday school and sermons, retreats, conferences, and even classes on the Bible. All those hours – plus hands-on lay ministry – would add up to three years of a seminary.
We very well might as well have an “M.Div.” affixed to our names. Many of our ministry contacts are surprised that we haven’t been to seminary.
So, if you consider yourself out of the running for any kind of ministry or missions for lack of a graduate degree in theology, you have no excuse. There are plenty of “underqualified” workers out in the field and God’s kingdom is coming along just fine.
