Category: Leading and Helping When People Want to Stay Stuck

A few weeks ago, I was talking to some friends about completing my Doctor of Ministry degree from Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS). I realized that with graduation ceremonies cancelled, I had very little to mark this milestone. It gave me great sympathy for the hundreds of thousands who have missed out on a variety of milestones this year, including graduation.

Last week, my wife and church helped me celebrate that milestone. This fulfilled my desire to have a marker for this transition in my life, but there’s one more thing I want to do. I want to write a summary of my experience in the Doctor of Ministry program at RTS.

My thoughts and prayers about entering the Doctor of Ministry program began in 2014 at a leadership conference. It was there that I really felt God leading me to pursue this degree as a next step in my personal growth.

The problem was that in the summer of 2014, I was living in Western South Dakota, a long way from schools that offered the program. But in January 2015, I moved to Tennessee to serve as Pastor of Evergreen Presbyterian Church. About five months after I moved to Tennessee, I got an email about the Doctor of Ministry degree from Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS). I looked over the program and thought that it would be a good one for me. The four core courses were Leadership, Applied Theology, Church Growth and Revitalization, and Spirituality in Ministry. In addition, the degree required four electives and a project or thesis. I applied and was accepted to the program in May 2015. RTS has multiple campuses. I chose the Atlanta campus because of its proximity and because a friend of mine lived there with whom I could stay for free.

My first class was in July: “Church Growth and Revitalization” with Dr. Tom Wood of Church Multiplication Ministries. Prior to each class in the program, the student had to read 2,000 pages of assigned books. I thought I read quite a bit before, but I realized that I hadn’t read very much! Reading 2,000 pages in a month is a lot! The week before the class started, I was reading all day long for a week trying to get everything done before the class started.

The class was outstanding. I learned so many things from the books, the lectures, and my time with Dr. Wood. I also learned a lot from the two papers that I wrote. My key takeaway was that church ministry had to be oriented outwards. Out of this class arose the idea for my church’s current mission statement:

Love. Nurture. Send. Each member of the Evergreen family, rooted and grounded in the love of God in Jesus Christ, will seek to love and welcome all whom God brings our way; nurture them in the truths of the Gospel, practical wisdom, and use of their gifts; and send them out to love their families, neighborhoods, and communities, joining what God is already doing in bringing redemption and restoration to the Sevier County area and beyond. Love. Nurture. Send.

The italicized part of this statement in particular was the result of this class. I would not have suggested this emphasis without it.

After this first class, I was extremely enthused about the program. Then, I got the news. RTS was changing the curriculum. They would no longer require the four core classes that were a large part of my entering this program. Instead, they would have two tracks: expository preaching and Reformed theology in ministry. They also closed the D.Min. programs on all campuses except Charlotte and Orlando. This meant that I was transferring to the Charlotte campus. All of this required a lot of mental adjustment on my part, but I am glad that I stuck with it. One positive part of the change was that they gave those students who had already begun a great deal of flexibility in how they completed the program.

After completing my first class, I decided that God was leading me to take classes in Orlando . . . in January! I decided to take two classes back to back. My time in Orlando was simply amazing. I stayed at Canterbury Retreat and Conference Center about 2 miles from the campus. This was such a peaceful place for contemplation. The whole staff was so hospitable and glad to have everyone there. The retreat area is on a small lake with a lovely walking trail around it. Every day I would walk around the lake and reflect on the day’s teaching. I could not have had a better place to be and experience those classes.

The two classes I took in January 2016 were Applied Theology with Dr. Steve Childers and Christ-Centered Preaching with Dr. Bryan Chapell. The first class broke a lot of new ground for me. The second was more of a reminder of a lot of key points of preaching that were worth reviewing and reflecting upon again, though with some new things, too. In both cases, I was happy to be a part of these classes and get to know the students.

In Applied Theology, I read two works by Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life and Renewal as a Way of Life. These two books offer a view of life that emphasizes piety and a Protestant theology of revival and renewal that manifests itself in all areas of life. I found these books extremely helpful. Lovelace also got me thinking for the first time about American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. Lovelace writes:

Kierkegaard, Reinhold Nieburh, and Tillich are not wrong, however, in suggesting that anxiety is at the root of much sinful behavior, since the unconscious awareness of our independence from God and unrelieved consciousness of guilt create a profound insecurity in the unbeliever or the Christian who is not walking in the light. This insecurity generates a kind of compensatory egoism, self-oriented but somewhat different than serious pride. Thus much of what is called pride is actually not godlike self-admiration, but masked inferiority, insecurity, and deep self-loathing (Dynamics of Spiritual Life, 88, emphasis his).

I was so fascinated by the idea of seeing anxiety as being the occasion of sin that I wrote a paper on it which was eventually published in the Mid-America Journal of Theology. You can read it here. I would also return to Niebuhr later in the program.

In July 2016, I took my only class at the Charlotte campus, the campus at which I was enrolled. The class was Preaching from the Gospels with Dr. Robert Cara. While this class was also more of a review, I enjoyed being part of it. I especially appreciated how Dr. Cara took a personal interest in us. He invited all of us to go out to lunch each day, and we had a great time interacting with him. I also had a great evening riding roller coasters at Carowinds.

For me, the most important class I took was in Pastoral Counseling. I took this class in January and February 2017 with Dr. Jim Coffield. Once again, I returned to Canterbury Retreat Center. Dr. Coffield basically went through a variety of counseling issues that we face as Pastors and gave us advice for dealing with them. Much of this was new to me and extremely practical. He also exposed us to a variety of counseling situations. He gave us opportunities to do counseling, receive counseling, and interact in a small group with direction from one of his counseling students. This really helped add a new dimension to my ministry, and it gave me a variety of ideas for new reading that eventually led to my doctoral project.

Because of the change in the program after my first class, RTS gave me (and other students who enrolled under the older organization of the D.Min. program) the flexibility to to do two directed (i.e., independent) studies. This amounted to 3,000 pages of reading with a lengthy paper under the direction of an advisor. My first directed study was on the theology of Reinhold Niebuhr. My advisor was Dr. Bruce Baugus of RTS Jackson. We were able to meet in person when I attended a Pastor’s conference in Jackson, MS (at Twin Lakes Conference Center, pictured). He was extremely helpful and encouraging. I thoroughly enjoyed reading works on and about Niebuhr and ended up doing a paper on Niebuhr’s view of the problem of racism (read it here).

The second directed study was in counseling issues. My class with Dr. Coffield had given me a thirst to study these issues at greater depth. I really appreciate my advisor for this class, Dr. Jim Newheiser of the Charlotte campus. Even though we had very different views on Christian counseling, he was gracious and helpful, inviting me to hear a different perspective while also encouraging my development. When I took this class, I was wavering between doing my Doctoral Project on counseling or Niebuhr. After this class, I was convinced to go in the counseling direction.

My final class was actually a preparation for the doctoral project, so it too was an independent study. One of my regrets is that I didn’t get an opportunity to take more classes where I could interact with other students and a professor on campus. I hope to remedy that in the future because all graduates are allowed to audit D.Min. courses for free. I plan to take them up on this! At any rate, I took the class. This class was designed to help students complete the whole program. The outcome was a proposal for the D.Min. project. My proposal was to take the insights of family systems therapy and apply them to ministry. This proposal was accepted.

I have to admit that when I began my project I was not quite sure what I was doing. My first stab at it was a failure. My advisor, Dr. Don Fortson, graciously pointed this out, but he encouraged me to keep going and gave me some ideas. Eventually, I realized that I had to narrow my topic. I took one topic from family systems therapy and applied it to ministry (differentiation of self, if you’re interested!). This focus helped me complete the project. I really began this work in earnest in January of 2019. Once I had clarity, I was able to move through putting together this paper. Thanks to some time off given by my elders, by January 2020, I sent my paper to a friend for proof-reading. This was completed on a sabbatical at a condo in Myrtle Beach (view pictured). In February 2020, I sent in the rough draft to Dr. Fortson. On March 13th, the last day the campus was open before the COVID-19 lockdowns, I went to the Charlotte campus for my oral defense of the project. This was sustained. After that, I had to make some corrections to get it to a place that was ready for a final printing. By May, this was complete (you can read my project here). I was set to graduate.

I had originally planned to graduate on Saturday morning, May 23rd. Because of COVID-19, the graduation ceremony was cancelled. However, the school did a good job of making it special. They sent the graduates a box of gifts that included (for me) letters of congratulations from Dr. Fortson, my advisor; Rev. Ken McMullen, my faculty reader; and Dr. Michael Kruger, the president of the campus. On Sunday, May 31st, the church honored me and other graduates from our church for our accomplishments. It was a great day.

In the summer of 2014, I felt God leading me to the D.Min. I now can see why. My life has been immeasurably enriched by the reading and writing I did as well as by the interaction with fellow students and professors. It was a long journey, but I loved every minute of it (except perhaps the hours of revising footnotes!). I am better equipped to interact with the world and to be a better human, husband, father, friend, pastor, and Christian because of the program. I am thankful to God for leading me in this direction and for all the support He gave me through my wife, friends, elders from our church, and the professors and fellow students at RTS.