The Formation Seminary Can't Teach

“Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful” (1 Cor. 4:2).

There is so much that I am grateful for regarding my theological education. Seminaries labor diligently to equip men and women for the work of ministry. They teach us to rightly divide the Word of God, preach sound doctrine, understand the biblical languages, shepherd congregations, administer the ordinances, counsel the hurting, and lead the Church with theological conviction. These are indispensable disciplines, and the Church is immeasurably strengthened by faithful institutions that prepare servants for the Lord's work.

Yet there is another curriculum that cannot be mastered in a classroom.

It is not because seminaries have failed in their task, nor because professors have neglected an essential subject. Rather, it is because some lessons cannot be learned from books or lectures. They are only learned by walking the road of ministry itself. They are forged in hospital rooms, funeral homes, elders' meetings, midnight phone calls, broken relationships, seasons of disappointment, and countless quiet moments alone before the Lord.

Perhaps this is the formation seminaries cannot teach. Seminaries prepare us for the ministry. But only years of walking with Christ teach us what ministry will do to the minister. One is learned through study; the other through faithful endurance. It is a formation that must be intentionally discussed, faithfully mentored, and honestly shared between seasoned shepherds and those just entering the harvest field. The Apostle Paul did not just teach Timothy doctrine; he invited him into his life. "You, however, have followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, steadfastness, persecutions, and sufferings" (2 Tim. 3:10–11). Timothy learned ministry not only from Paul's instruction but also from Paul's scars.

If we are to prepare the next generation of shepherds well, we must speak honestly about what ministry does to the soul, or inner life, of the shepherd.

Ministry will first break your heart.

Our Lord never promised that shepherding His flock would be easy. Rather, He invited His servants to take up their cross daily and follow Him (Lk. 9:23). Before any pastor experiences rejection, betrayal, exhaustion, or grief, the Chief Shepherd has already walked that path.

Many of us are called and enter ministry believing that we can fix every problem, restore every marriage, rescue every prodigal, and heal every broken life. It is a beautiful optimism born from sincere compassion. Yet over the years we discover the painful limits of our own strength. We stand beside hospital beds when healing does not come. We bury the faithful we prayed would recover. We counsel families who nevertheless choose separation. We watch people whom we baptized quietly walk away from the faith. We experience grief that cannot be explained by statistics, ministry reports, or leadership podcasts.

The prophet Jeremiah knew such sorrow. He faithfully proclaimed the Word of the Lord, yet was mocked, rejected, imprisoned, and ignored. Still he confessed, "His word is in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones" (Jer. 20:9). Faithfulness is not a thing measured by visible success but by steadfast obedience over minutes, days, weeks, and months, leading to years. A broken heart is often not evidence of failed ministry; it is evidence of genuine love for the Lord and His people in light of the harsh realities of life.

Ministry will also reveal your own soul.

Few experiences reveal the condition of the human heart more thoroughly than shepherding others. Every criticism exposes pride we did not know remained. Every disappointment uncovers expectations we quietly carried. Every conflict reveals impatience, fear, insecurity, or self-reliance. The Lord does not just use ministers to shape His Church; and I say this from experience - He uses the Church to shape His ministers.

James reminds us that "the testing of your faith produces steadfastness" (Jas. 1:3). The Lord often accomplishes that testing through the ordinary circumstances of pastoral life. Challenging people, unexpected setbacks, and seasons of uncertainty become instruments of sanctification, and even greater dependence upon Him. Ministry is not simply the place where we serve the Lord; it is one of the primary places where He continues His work within us.

Ministry will inevitably affect your family.

No ordination service places hands of anointing upon a pastor's wife, yet she often bears many of the burdens of her husband's calling. No child volunteers to grow up beneath the expectations often placed upon the pastor's family, but they often do; which is one reason I have become especially sensitive to the way pastors' children are often spoken about. They did not choose the public expectations placed upon them. They love, sacrifice, and endure because they love the one whom the heavenly Father has called; their husband and their father.

Inevitably, there will be interrupted holidays, missed celebrations, late-night emergencies, and seasons when the weight of caring for others presses heavily upon the home. Congregations often see the public ministry while remaining unaware of the quiet sacrifices made around the dinner table.

Yet Scripture repeatedly emphasizes that the shepherd's own household matters deeply. We often refer to family as our “first ministry.” Paul instructed that an overseer must manage his household well (1 Tim. 3:4–5), not because ministry begins in the church building, but because character is first revealed at home. Faithful ministry should never come at the expense of faithfully loving one's family. Our primary congregation is often gathered around our own table: family.

Ministry can also become profoundly lonely.

As I have written about many times, a pastor may know hundreds of people while having very few with whom he can speak openly. Leadership changes relationships. Authority often creates distance. The burdens that accompany spiritual oversight are difficult to explain to those who have never carried them.

Even the Apostle Paul longed for companionship. He traveled with trusted coworkers, encouraged Timothy to come quickly (2 Tim. 4:9), and valued faithful friends who strengthened him in difficult seasons. Above all, ministers find comfort in the promise of the Chief Shepherd Himself: "I will never leave you nor forsake you" (Heb. 13:5). While earthly companionship is essential, the abiding presence of Messiah sustains the lonely shepherd, but dear shepherd, we must stop long enough to be in His presence.

Ministry changes the way we read the Scriptures.

Before entering ministry, we often opened the Bible simply to hear the Lord's voice. After years of preaching and teaching, every passage can begin to sound like another sermon outline or another Bible study waiting to be prepared. There is a subtle danger that the Scriptures become professional tools rather than the very nourishment of daily bread that we need so dearly. 

As pastors we must continually return to reading the Word devotionally before reading it professionally. Remember the Lord first speaks to the shepherd before He speaks through the shepherd. David declared, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" (Ps. 119:105). Those words must first illuminate the minister's own path before they illuminate the congregation's.

Ministry also teaches us to live with criticism.

Every sermon will bless some while disappointing others, we cannot please everyone, and neither should we try. Every leadership decision will be questioned by someone. Every change will be applauded by one group and resisted by another. Dear colleagues, if we build our identity upon the approval of people, discouragement will quickly consume us.

Paul understood this reality well. Writing to the Corinthians, he said, "But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me" (1 Cor. 4:3–4). This was not indifference toward people but confidence that ultimate evaluation belongs to the Lord. As shepherds, we serve people faithfully while entrusting our reputation to the Lord for the sake of His name.

Perhaps one of the greatest surprises of ministry is discovering that success looks very different in the Kingdom of God.

The world measures influence by attendance, finances, recognition, and visible growth, often referred to in church growth circles as “bums, buildings, and budgets.” Heaven counts faithfulness differently. The Lord has never promised that every faithful pastor will lead a large congregation or become widely known. He has promised that those who remain faithful will receive the unfading crown of glory when the Chief Shepherd appears (1 Pet. 5:4).

The majority of good and faithful shepherds have never stood in a famous pulpit. They quietly loved their people, faithfully preached the Word, endured hardship, and finished their course with integrity. Heaven's measurements are, thankfully, not always ours.

Along the journey, ministry will also teach us grief.

Few wounds cut as deeply as those inflicted within the household of faith. Trusted friends sometimes leave. Leaders in whom we invested may betray our confidence. Spiritual sons and daughters may reject the counsel they once sought. These experiences leave scars that few outside pastoral ministry fully understand.

Yet Scripture does not hide these realities, and neither should we. Moses experienced them. David experienced them. Jeremiah experienced them. Paul experienced them. Above all, our Lord Yeshua experienced them: “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him” (Jn. 1:11). The Good Shepherd Himself was betrayed by one disciple, denied by another, and abandoned by many. When we suffer rejection, we walk a road our Lord has already traveled.

Finally, ministry teaches us lifelong dependence upon the Lord.

Early in ministry we often rely upon our education, our preparation, our abilities, and our giftings. As the years pass, we discover that none of these are sufficient by themselves. Experience humbles us. The ministry has a way of emptying us of ourselves so that Christ alone becomes our sufficiency. Weakness deepens our prayers. We learn to say with Paul, “Who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Cor. 2:16). The answer remains the same throughout every season: “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God” (2 Cor. 3:5).

This may be the greatest lesson of all. Ministry slowly removes every illusion of self-sufficiency until Christ Himself becomes our confidence. There comes a day when a pastor realizes he no longer stands in the pulpit because he feels adequate. He stands because the grace of God has carried him there once again. His confidence is no longer in his preparation alone, but in the mercy of the One who called him. The longer we serve, the more we realize that every sermon preached, every soul comforted, every life transformed, and every burden carried has always been sustained by His grace.

If I could add one course to every seminary curriculum, it would not replace theology, biblical languages, church history, or homiletics. It would accompany them. It would be called The Formation of the Shepherd. It would gather seasoned pastors in the classroom with young aspirants to ministry to speak honestly about suffering, perseverance, loneliness, family, disappointment, joy, spiritual warfare, and the sustaining grace of God. It would remind future shepherds that these experiences are not signs they have failed, but signs that they are walking the well-worn path of faithful ministry. It would remind us that in faith we are imitators, not originators.

For those who have quietly wondered whether they are alone, hear the words of the Apostle Peter, himself a shepherd who knew both failure and restoration: “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Pet. 5:10).

Take heart, faithful shepherd.

The many tears you have shed have not been wasted. The burdens you have carried have not gone unnoticed. The prayers offered in quiet empty sanctuaries, the sermons prepared and delivered through sickness and exhaustion, the hospital visits no one remembers, the counsel given without recognition, and the countless quiet acts of obedience are all known to the Chief Shepherd.

If you recall, Jacob left Peniel with a limp, but he also left with the blessing of the covenant Lord. Many faithful shepherds discover that ministry leaves us with a limp as well; not because He has abandoned us, but because He has formed us.

Seminary prepares us to enter the ministry. Only walking with Christ, alongside seasoned shepherds who are willing to share both their wisdom and their wounds, teaches us how to remain in it. And perhaps that is the formation no classroom can fully teach, but one every shepherd must be lovingly prepared to embrace, and one every seasoned shepherd has the responsibility to share.

If you are a younger minister, seek out an older shepherd whose life bears the marks of long obedience. Ask him not only how he prepares sermons, but how he endured criticism, buried saints, loved his family, survived disappointment, and kept his love for Christ alive. And if you are an older shepherd, do not keep those lessons to yourself. The next generation does not simply need our theology; they need our testimony. That is how faithful ministry is passed from one generation to the next.

In the service of Messiah and His Church
Bishop Justin D. Elwell
Restoration Fellowship International