Local Church

[aReformedPatriot]

I heard this comment in Hermeneutics from a fellow student. This is regarding Seminary/Bible College and It made me think:

It is a shame that you have to pack up all of your things to go learn the things you should learn in the local church.

In a way, yea this person is right. The Church is by and large an inadequate teacher these days. We have settled for mediocrity and many churches struggle to keep their sunday school numbers up.

It made me think, why is there so much apathy for learning within the church? What do you guys think?

[Dmckay]

I heard this comment in Hermeneutics from a fellow student. This is regarding Seminary/Bible College and It made me think:



In a way, yea this person is right. The Church is by and large an inadequate teacher these days. We have settled for mediocrity and many churches struggle to keep their sunday school numbers up.

It made me think, why is there so much apathy for learning within the church? What do you guys think?25 years ago at my ordination council, one of the questions posed to me by another Pastor was, "What do you see as being the two biggest challenges to be faced by the Church in the coming years?" I didn't even have to think about it. I told him apathy and secular humanism. I then had to explain what I meant by both to the 30 some odd pastors in attendance.

How can we expect our leaders to even begin combatting something they don't know about? I have thought ever since being disappointed with what passed as a Bible Education meriting a BA in Bible College that every Believer in the church should have at least that level of education in bible and Doctrine. I have found that by taking time to slowly arouse the interest of the people in the Churches in which I have been blessed to minister that many come to want this for themselves. I have even had some ask for classes in beginning Greek. So it is possible. The key is to make the believers aware of their need slowly, and have them bring it up. Once they get started it becomes more difficult to hold them back.

[ZiSunka]

I heard this comment in Hermeneutics from a fellow student. This is regarding Seminary/Bible College and It made me think:



In a way, yea this person is right. The Church is by and large an inadequate teacher these days. We have settled for mediocrity and many churches struggle to keep their sunday school numbers up.

It made me think, why is there so much apathy for learning within the church? What do you guys think?

I think it depends a lot on the church. Some churches are very devoted to Bible study and prayer, not just lip-service once a week, but many Bible classes throughout the week and both corporate and private prayer time. Yes, there are oodles of churches that think sunday morning sermon is all the Bible learning they need, but there are many more that are different.

In the Cleveland area, many of the churches have created a consortium of sorts and have a different Bible college-level course each night of the week at different churches, and Moody has an extension that a person can get an associates and even a bachelor's degree by going to evening classes. In the Dayton area, there must be five church-run Bible colleges (I attended two of them) and although they aren't exactly the most challenging classes in the world, I learned a lot and the tuition is dirt cheap.