By (Guest Columnist) Larry Williams, Sr., D.Min.


More and more, young men and women are finding their way into institutions for theological education, not necessarily to prepare themselves for pastoral ministry in the churches of their parents. Nowadays they come to prepare for relevant non-religious, non-sacramental services in areas where conditions make life hard.

Mark the difference between the preacher and the minister. The preacher develops a product for delivery over 20-30 minutes each Sunday. The minister’s work takes place during the time in between the Sundays. Traditionally, the preacher and the minister are the same person. On balance however, a seminary graduate in the class of 2006 will do a lot of ministry and a little preaching. Today’s seminarians are eagerly preparing themselves for living out their calls in faith-based activities. The church and the world really need them to do so.

New students bring their interests in biblical languages and biblical and theological studies, but they also have questions about religion and society. Students push their professors to connect the relevance between church history and current events and specific conditions. They want to know about Richard Allen and John Calvin, but they also bring questions about modern day icons whose approaches to ministry present new models for being the Church.

New Brunswick Theological Seminary, where I am the director of operations, was organized in 1684 by the Dutch Reformed Church in Queens, NY. For most of its history the Seminary prepared white males for ministry in all white congregations. Well known for being at the forefront of social and civic concerns, the school’s historical pride and joy were Biblical Studies, Reformed Theology and Church History. But over the last twenty years New Brunswick’s enrollment has come to be at least 60% African American and over 50% female. While the core subjects remain high priority essentials, this new crowd has some other questions.

The most recurring of these questions seem to come from the most challenging contemporary issues are race, poverty, education, justice, health care and employment. “We need to prepare to speak to people in their own contexts,” offers Greg Williams a second year a student at New Brunswick. “I know Jesus will save their souls; I want to learn how to help them save their lives,” said recent graduate Reginald Pitts. Students today come with awareness of oppression and oppressive conditions and they come looking for tools with which to carve out lasting solutions.

The gender story is similar at other schools around the country; and while there remain schools where white males are the majority, African American enrollment ,as it is at New Brunswick Theological, is rising everywhere. Historically, African American clergy have been educated at Virginia Union’s Samuel Proctor School of Theology, Payne Theological Seminary, Howard Divinity School, Shaw University , Interdenominational Theological Center and a few other historically Black schools.

Perhaps it is true that Black schools with predominately Black faculty have been particularly prepared to identify and address urban woes and have recognized the need to prepare the preacher as well as the minister.

It would be a mistake to say that seminarians in the class of 2009 are preparing for an ethnically homogeneous field of ministry outside the church. On the contrary these are the students who are most likely to have grown up with diversity. They are joining a profession with more well-educated African American clergy than at any other time in history.

There are not enough churches for them all, but there is enough ministry to go around in that protracted time between the Sundays.