Emerging Scholars Blog

InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Network

ephesians

What Is Ministry?

About 18 months ago, I stepped down from my position as Associate Director of the Emerging Scholars Network and handed the reins over to my faithful coworker Tom Grosh. I kept my toe in the world of campus ministry by continuing to write for InterVarsity and leading a seminar at Urbana, but at the end of this month, I’m going to be stepping down (again) from my role as a blog contributor to focus on my new full-time job as web manager for a Cincinnati-based manufacturing company. It’s an unusual career move, but most of my career moves have been unusual. Next week, I’m going to share my thoughts about where ESN has come over the past several years and where I see it going in the future, but today I wanted to offer some reflections about the nature of careers and ministry.

In truth, I never expected to work for a Christian organization. When I finished my BA, I thought I would eventually get a PhD and become an English professor; the grantwriting job at the local orchestra was just a temporary gig to pay the bills. I chose Regent College for graduate school because of its focus on theological education for lay people, and I expected to use my education there as a foundation for a career outside the world of professional ministry. Only after several (very fulfilling!) years with a nonprofit with a non religious mission did I feel God pulling me toward an explicitly Christian organization.

Who Does God’s Work?

Between my time at Regent and my work with IVCF, did I cease to minister? Not at all! In addition to starting a community of 20- and 30-something’s in our local church, my nonprofit work focused on establishing standards for an ethical marketplace, mirroring many of the ideas I learned from Paul Stevens at Regent. Interestingly enough, this company I just joined reflects many of the concepts of sustainable business and stewardship taught by Regent’s Loren Wilkinson. [Read more…] about What Is Ministry?

Scholars, Teachers, and the Church [Updated with correction]

Speaking of teachers and scholars, here is a photo of Professor of Education Mary Poplin speaking to  InterVarsity staff at our 2011 staff conference

Correction (5/18/11): In the post below, I attributed a blog post to V. Philips Long of Regent College, when the post was actually written by Phillip J. Long of Grace Bible College. The text of the post has been corrected. ~ Mike

Last week, my response to Donald Miller resonated with many, many people, resulting in (by far) the highest number of comments, page views, Facebook shares, etc. of anything we’ve posted here. I think philosophy professor Mike Austin expressed a common reaction among Christians with an intellectual bend:

I’m simply amazed that someone could honestly believe that the problem with the contemporary church is that it is too intellectualized.

There was also some slipperiness on Miller’s vocabulary, as physicist W. Brian Lane noted:

I’d like to know what his functioning definition of “scholar” is. He switches back and forth between the terms “scholar” and “teacher,” but those are definitely not the same role in the academic world.

In the comments, two distinctions repeatedly came up: the difference between teachers and scholars (not to mention pastors); and the difference between teachers/scholars within the church and outside the church. By “outside the church,” I don’t mean non-Christians, by the way — I’m talking about, say, a high school physics teacher or a professor of Italian literature, who exercise their teaching and scholarly gifts primarily in secular contexts. Most of our readers fall into that category (or hope to, at least). This week, I’d like to spend some time parsing out those distinctions. But first, a couple of questions for you: What examples have you seen of scholars and teachers serving the church or in secular fields? What kinds of scholarly work are needed in the church?

Teaching as an Office of the Church

Ephesians 4 is perhaps my favorite chapter in the entire Bible. If I were ever to tattoo a Bible verse onto myself, it would likely be Eph. 4:5 — “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” — which is a bit odd, since I’ve been baptized twice, but that’s a story for another day. As I quoted last week, it also includes a powerful statement about not only who should lead the church, but also how and why. [Read more…] about Scholars, Teachers, and the Church [Updated with correction]