Editor’s Note: This article is part of an online symposium, “Does Seminary Have a Future?” hosted at Patheos this month. Read other perspectives here.

Yesterday, Tony Jones responded to my post called “Seminary is Great… Seminary Loans Suck… Young Pastors are Slaves.”  I appreciated much of what he said in “The Future of Seminary: Training Tentmakers.”

He suggests that seminary graduates should not expect to find a full-time job after their program requirements are completed.  His view is that bi-vocational ministry will become the norm.

After this he goes on to say that grads, especially church planter types, ought to basically –suck it up.  He states:

Further, I often talk to erstwhile church planters who want to figure out how they can get a full-time salary with benefits while they’re planting a church.  Puhleeze.  Let’s put it in other words: I’d like to do something risky, but without any of the risk.

I get where he is coming from on this.  I agree that church planters that strive to be incarnational, missional, and innovative will need to be open to the possibility of bi-vocational work.  But lets not simply assume that such ought to be the norm or that church planters wanting to make a full salary are wearing a pair of sissy pants. [Read more...]