In this podcast, you’ll learn: Guiding principles for sifting through candidates; How to avoid common mistakes made in the pastor search process; Whether to consider pastors who have been fired from a church; and What search firms offer churches that are looking for new pastors. Read a Portion of the Transcript Leith: There have been times ...

In Today's Conversation, Leith Anderson and Dan Aleshire talk about trends in theological education, including most popular degree programs, student gender ratios, and what makes a seminary successful. 

In this podcast, you’ll hear the expert on theological education in the United States share:

How changing expectations of pastors have impacted seminary training;

How seminaries have adapted to distance and online education;

What evangelicals can learn from mainline and Catholic seminaries; and

What seminaries need to do in the next 20 years to continue being effective.

Read a Portion of the Transcript

Leith: Let’s start with the basics. What is a seminary? I actually googled “seminary.” And there are a lot of different definitions, so I guess we need yours.

Dan: I think that the definition that the Association of Theological Schools works with is that it’s an institution that provides education for the practice of ministry. And in the ATS case, they would be schools that operate at the post-baccalaureate level. A seminary has lots of other things that it’s doing, and the scope of things that it does is ever increasing. But I think that at the heart of it, seminary education is education for persons who want to pursue or are actively pursuing some form of ministry.

Leith: So, let’s get some statistics, just so we can understand — not just for those that are involved in higher education, but for those that aren’t. Let me just rattle off a whole list of questions, and you can just pick the ones you want to answer. I want to know: How many seminaries are there? What is their size? What percentage of them are evangelical – what percentage of the students and what percentage of the seminaries? Are students, are they mostly men or women, or younger or older? And which degree programs are most and the least popular? And how long to people go to seminary before they get their degree? Just give us a picture of the stats.

Dan: Let me talk from the subset of all theological schools that are the 270 schools that are members of ATS. There are lots of other schools that are related to a particular church or a particular neighborhood that are not degree granting or not related to ATS. And so, I’ll leave that unknown number out of my response, Leith.

ATS has about 270 member institutions in the United States and Canada. And about 110 of them, we classify as evangelical Protestant. About another 100 or so are classified as mainline Protestant, and the remaining schools are Roman Catholic or Orthodox. Together those schools enroll about 76,000 students. The dominant degree program that has the plurality of the enrollment is the Master of Divinity, and that would be the case across all those ecclesial families. The highest concentration of M.Div. enrollment would be among Roman Catholic schools, and probably the lowest concentration of M.Div. enrollment would be among evangelical Protestant schools.

The two largest age groups of students in ATS schools are students under 30 and over 50. Those two groups constitute about 54 percent of the total enrollment. We thought one time that we should rename ATS as the Association of Schools of Parents and Their Children. We have two very different age groups. At one time, it appeared that folks were leaving careers and entering ministry, and students in their 30s and 40s were a large group. That group has as a percentage of enrollment has shrunk, and the group that has grown most fast over the last 10 or 15 years are students over 50.

We’re not quite sure what all that means. Our hunch is that one: The Baby Boomers — that bulge in the population — have gotten older, and they’re still going to seminary. The other is that these are not career changers; they’re career completers. They’ve taught school for 30 years. Or they’ve been in the military,

In this podcast, you’ll hear the expert on theological education in the United States share: How changing expectations of pastors have impacted seminary training; How seminaries have adapted to distance and online education; What evangelicals can learn from mainline and Catholic seminaries; and What seminaries need to do in the next 20 years to continue being ...

Almost every day we hear about another tragedy in the world or in our country. Sometimes those tragedies hit home. In Today’s Conversation, Leith Anderson talks with Joel Hunter about how to respond to crisis when it comes to your town.

In this podcast, a longtime pastor and respected leader reflects on the recent Pulse nightclub shooting in his hometown and shares:

What kind of leadership pastors can bring to communities in crisis;

How churches can prepare for such events;

How his conversion story impacts his ministry approach; and

What messages need to be communicated to church members and to the broader community, including the media.

Read a Portion of the Transcript

Leith: What do we do when crisis comes to our city? What kind of leadership should pastors bring to the table? This is our topic for today. Joel, on June 12, 2016, a shooter killed 49 people and wounded 53 others inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, your city. That happened early Sunday morning. How did you first hear about what had happened? As a pastor, what was your first reaction — your gut response?

Joel: At four o’clock in the morning, I received an email from a police officer in our congregation who was headed to that scene. The email simply said, “Pastor, there has been a multiple casualty shooting event. I am heading there now. Please pray. If we ever needed prayer, it’s now.” And so, I was up at that time, but I usually do my devotions, and so I didn’t see the email until five that morning. Of course, I immediately began to pray, and after that time of prayer, switched on the news to see the horrible event of the biggest mass shooting in the history of our country. So I just rocked back. I was driven to my knees. I wasn’t preaching that weekend, but immediately began to hear from other community leaders about the event and about how we could respond.

Leith: In some ways your not preaching made it easier that you had one less responsibility. So what did that Sunday look like for you? What did you do the rest of the day? Did you go to church? Were you able to do that? Were you out in the community? What happened?

Joel: No, I wasn’t able to be at church. I was kind of out and about. Mostly I prayed. You know, when you don’t know what to do, you don’t know the extent of a tragedy… Because it was both a hate crime and a terrorist attack, and because it happened in a gay nightclub. I told my congregation soon after that; I was so gripped by this tragedy not because I had so many relationships in that community but because I had so few. And so the first reaction I had was “I don’t know if I know any of these families.” The second reaction I had was to pray that God would undergird, personally, each of them. And then a group of us pastors soon were on the line together. We have a pretty close fellowship of pastors here, and we were all saying,“Okay, this is a community tragedy. How can we respond to this together?” Because many of the injured were from the Latino community, and so El Calvario and other Hispanic pastors that we knew would be dealing mostly with the families. But, there was just this reaction like … it’s almost surreal. You don’t know what to do, so you do the two basic things you do know to do. You pray, and you talk with other people who are spiritual leaders who you respect and try to get some sort of response plan together.

Leith: So what did churches in Orlando and in the greater Orlando area — how did they respond? And Joel, I think what I am most interested in is not hearing the outlier story of some church somewhere that did something inappropriate or bizarre. What did most of them do? And especially what did they do that was good?

Joel: Well, thanks for that question, because there were so many events, they continue to this day, to memorialize and sympathize with this horrible event.

In this podcast, a longtime pastor and respected leader reflects on the recent Pulse nightclub shooting in his hometown and shares: What kind of leadership pastors can bring to communities in crisis; How churches can prepare for such events; How his conversion story impacts his ministry approach; and What messages need to be communicated to church members and ...

In Today’s Conversation with Leith Anderson, Kay Warren offers insights and advice from her experience as a pastor's spouse in the public limelight.

In this podcast, you’ll hear Kay share:

How to manage spoken and unspoken expectations of the pastor's wife;

What pastors' spouses can do to set boundaries;

Her experience being vulnerable and grieving publicly; and

Advice for church members in caring for their pastor's spouse.

Read a Portion of the Transcript

Leith: So Kay you have been in ministry your entire life; you are a pastor’s daughter, a pastor’s wife. So I’ve got to ask: Did you grow up wanting to do this? Did you want to be a pastor’s wife?

Kay: You know, I actually wanted to be a missionary. And growing up in the ‘50s and ‘60s in a pretty conservative denomination, that was really the only option open to me as a girl if I really wanted to serve the Lord full time. So that was the direction I was heading, and I was not opposed to being a pastor’s wife. I had good feelings about growing up in a pastor’s home, so it wasn’t something that I ran from. But I sure didn’t anticipate it.

Leith: So, a life in ministry can be wonderfully rewarding and meaningful but can also be deeply challenging with unexpected pressures and stresses — many of which are kind of unique to pastors and their families. So let me ask you a question that I have been asked, but I will put it to you specifically, and that is: What is something you would tell young people who are entering this unique position of being married to a pastor?

Kay: Well, I really do believe it is a sacred privilege. You alluded to the title of a book I am in the process of writing. And when I first started teaching it to ministers’ wives almost 30 years ago, I first called it “The Changing Role of the Pastor’s Wife.” I was young in ministry. Everything around me was changing. It wasn’t the world that my mother — my mother as a pastor’s wife, I was used to that — and this role was changing, so I called it “The Changing Role of the Pastor’s Wife.” And then as Saddleback began to grow and expand, I changed the material title to “How to Grow With Your Church” because then those were the issues I was having to deal with as our church was growing and nothing stayed the same and how did I adjust to this expanding ministry.

And then I kind of hit a more difficult stage of both life and ministry, and I changed the material title to “How to Keep the Ministry from Killing You,” and taught that for several years because that really reflected what I saw a life in ministry. I was having to do everything I could think of to keep it from killing me. Now I as settle into this fourth decade of ministry, I really do see it as a sacred privilege.

So when I talk to women — and increasingly more men whose wives are becoming pastors or senior pastors — I really want them to understand that it is a privilege. There is a lot that changes through the years — through the decades. There are periods in which you are going to think that it’s going to kill and what do you have to do to keep it from killing you. But to settle into that space of believing with all your heart that it is a privilege.

My mom is 92 and has dementia, so there’s a lot of her personality and her memories that are fading. But when I ask her about her years — 50 plus years — in ministry she says the same thing every time. She says, “I always thought being in ministry was a privilege.” So that set it up for me to look at this as a life of privilege. It’s different than any other profession. It has some pitfalls, and some — as you said — disappointments that other professions don’t have.

And honestly there have been more than a few moments in which I have wished that Rick had been anything but a pastor — that I had married a plumber or a pool cleaner, I don’t know,

In this podcast, you’ll hear Kay share: How to manage spoken and unspoken expectations of the pastor’s wife; What pastors’ spouses can do to set boundaries; Her experience being vulnerable and grieving publicly; and Advice for church members in caring for their pastor’s spouse. Read a Portion of the Transcript Leith: So Kay you have ...

In Today's Conversation with Leith Anderson, Adelle Banks takes us inside the world of religion reporting. 

Faith and spirituality are a powerful motivation or undercurrent in many stories of our day. Good religion reporting helps us understand these trends and motivations.

In this podcast, you’ll hear a veteran and well-respected religion reporter share:

The challenges of reporting on religion, particularly evangelicalism;

How America's changing religious landscape impacts reporting trends;

Tips for pastors and others who are interviewed by the media; and

Her insight on the coming top religion stories.

Read a Portion of the Transcript

Leith: So Adelle, let’s just start with you. How did you get into this business and this profession of religion reporting?

Adelle: My whole journalism career, which began right when I finished college, has had a touch of religion — if not a focus on religion — throughout it. I covered religion at every job I have had since I left Mount Holyoke College. My first job was at a paper in Binghamton, New York, and I covered the traditional stuff reporters cover when they start their careers such as different cities and towns and school boards. But I also covered some about religion. I remember writing about clergy couples, and I also wrote about church outreach to singles and stories about various major religious holidays. When I moved on to my next job farther up in upstate New York, I covered towns and schools again, and business stories too. But then I expressed an interest in the religion beat, because I had enjoyed covering that topic previously and am generally fascinated with the topic. And I got the religion beat. And I covered things like the local Catholic bishop and Jews and other faith groups as well. Then I went to my home state of Rhode Island, and at that newspaper, The Providence Journal, my colleague who covered religion had been doing it for a long time and did it for a long time after I left there. And so I knew if I wanted to continue on the religion beat, I would have to do it somewhere else. And I ended up becoming the religion reporter on the Orlando Sentinel for six years before I moved to Religion News Service. So it has sort of been my professional lifeblood for a long time.

Leith: There is a part of me that want to say you must know more religious people and know more about religion than just about anybody in America, but let’s just keep talking about you and other reporters on religion. How does your own faith impact how you report on issues of faith or religion?

Adelle: I think in my role as a church member that it has made me more sensitive to the various trends and issues related to clergy and congregations in particular, as well as to the average person in the pew. But I also think that reporting on this topic is not something that has to be done by a person of faith. There have been very good reporters who had no faith at all who have covered this beat very, very well. And I have sometimes found that just being in a place of faith — not necessarily my own — can trigger story ideas and open up my eyes to things that are going on or things that are coming up. For instance, I sing in local chorale and that chorale happened to have rehearsed at a Catholic church at one time and just going by the bulletin board at the church I got story ideas. So I think that you can be a person of faith, but you don’t have to be. But it helps to be in places where you can see where the stories are.

Leith: So you have an angle or maybe an altitude that is kind of different from everybody else. Most of us live in our small worlds of our church, our parish, people who are like us. And then there are the outsiders, and maybe we don’t even know them personally. So from your view — from this high altitude, as well as close to the ground — how is Americ...

Faith and spirituality are a powerful motivation or undercurrent in many stories of our day. Good religion reporting helps us understand these trends and motivations. In this podcast, you’ll hear a veteran and well-respected religion reporter share: The challenges of reporting on religion, particularly evangelicalism; How America’s changing religious landscape impacts reporting trends; Tips for pastors ...

In Today's Conversation with Leith Anderson, Vinh Chung shares his amazing refugee story of rescue and redemption. 

Vinh was born in South Vietnam, just eight months after it fell to the communists in 1975. His family lost everything and fled the country when he was three and a half years old. They joined the legendary “boat people” and sailed into the South China Sea, even though they had no destination in mind.

Now as a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, Vinh runs a successful dermatology practice in Colorado Springs and serves on the board of World Vision.

In this podcast, you’ll be inspired as you hear Vinh share:

How God used a small group of Christians to bring his family to the United States;

How his family overcame cultural, economic and language barriers as they adjusted to life in small town Arkansas;

His experience returning to Vietnam as an adult; and

The parallels between today's refugee crisis and his family's experience.

Vinh also shares his family's story in "Where the Wind Leads", published by Thomas Nelson.

Read a Portion of the Transcript

Leith: Let’s start out by understanding a little bit about what was happening in Vietnam, and how your family fit into all of this.

Vinh: Back in Vietnam my family was very wealthy. My father’s family had this rice milling empire that was probably worth millions of dollars in today’s value. And during this time, there was a civil war between the North Vietnamese and the South Vietnamese. And the North Vietnamese government won, and after August 1975 they declared victory. And they punished the defeated South Vietnamese. My family was from South Vietnam. And they also targeted ethnic Chinese, because at that point there was tension with China. My family was also ethnic Chinese. So those were two strikes against us. And then the other strike against us was that we were wealthy. They did not like wealthy people. And so they took everything away. They took away our business, kicked us out of our house, and we were forced to live in this little shack in the rural Mekong Delta. We had no electricity, no running water, and it was eight months later that I was born. It was just a daily struggle for my parents to feed their eight children. And they knew that we may survive if we work really hard, but there was no future. Because we knew that regardless of how hard we worked — whatever we saved up, whatever we tried to do to better ourselves — at any moment anything could be taken away, because it had already happened. And so this is when my parents decided to load up their eight children and leave the country to seek a better life.

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