When people train for a profession, they take classes. Often this is part of an academic programme of some sort, and it includes a graduate degree, or a professional degree. Thus, a Ph.D. is a graduate degree while a M.D. is a professional degree. Both come with the title of "Dr." but only one pertains to the expertise and competence regarding the practice of medicine. So it is with the profession of the clergy. A Master of Divinity is a professional degree. It indicates that someone has studied to become proficient at conducting Christian ministry.

When I was in my first pastorate, the regional director of the association of churches in which I ministered came down to visit. He spent some time in our service and then went to lunch with the leaders and me. I'll never forget the moment when he spoke to us at lunch and started off by saying, "You'll have to bear with Phil a bit; he hasn't recovered from seminary yet." Everyone laughed, including me. Yet, my laughter was nervous, confused, and self-conscious. What did he mean?

Why did I need to "recover" from a professional training that was supposed to prepare me for the ministry? If I had to recover from seminary, why go there in the first place?

One must recover from a professional education enough to remember what one is actually about as a person. That includes the wonder and mystery one felt before one "knew it all."

My pastor used to say that when he first started in the ministry, he not only didn't know it all, he didn't even suspect very much. Indeed! Now, of course a person can realise intellectually that he or she does not "know it all." But that person will often claim they know enough or that they know SOMEthing, and they will focus on their training in the attempt to let that lead them in what they are doing. In the ministry, that is death, and therein lays a paradox. The effective minister must let go of his professional education while using it.

What a professional education gives a person is a set of scenarios in which various problems are presented and another set of solutions are used to solve them. A medical doctor observes symptoms and prescribes medications and treatments to ameliorate such problems. The competence of the doctor is discerned from his or her ability to do these things, moving from one scenario to another.

A seminary education provides a person with facility in Biblical languages, exposure to church history, theology, and knowledge of the Bible, with a smattering of counseling skills all in some way available to help the minister "solve" pastoral problems. It does not, however, create a heart that longs for God and a contrite spirit that waits upon God. The competence of a minister is discerned from his or her dependence upon and devotion to God in service of God's people. Thus, Paul told his protégé, Timothy, "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth."

If a person doesn't appreciate God's inscrutability and yearn to fathom His mysterious depths, no professional education is going to provide that. My professors used to say that seminary cannot give a person a ministry; if one does not have a call to ministry before going to seminary, no professional education is going to provide it. Why? Obviously, one has to be called, but part of that is the preparation of one's spirit such that a person has been touched by God, hungers for God, and will not find satisfaction in the wisdom of professional schools alone.

And that brings me to the "grooming of professional Christians." It's as if the church becomes seminary and the whole process just takes place once removed.

In some churches there is a formulaic approach to living the Christian life. Read this scripture; follow these steps, and (presto-chango)-solution. Attend this service or prayer meeting, throw yourself into worship and life's troubles will succumb to your Christian competence. I doubt it.

The living God will shatter any such idol as fast as the professional Christian can create it. Just as the minister has to "get over seminary," the professional Christian must put aside the formulaic approach to living in the Kingdom of God. The "professional Christian" must leave behind spirituality as professionalism.