The Pastoring Professor as Mentor: Walking the Walk

By: Willie Edward Hucks II
Originally published in Current Magazine

The year was 1999. The average price of a gallon of gasoline was $1.30 ($1.91 in 2017 dollars). The Dallas Stars won the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup. Serena Williams won her first Grand Slam tournament singles title, the U.S. Open. President Bill Clinton was acquitted by the U.S. Senate, having been charged on counts of perjury and obstruction of justice.

It was also the last year I pastored a congregational district.

Fast-forward to 2016. Seventeen years after last pastoring a church, and 10 years after last teaching on the university level, I was granted the opportunity to return to my two greatest professional loves: teaching on the university level, and pastoral ministry. Combining these two provides a laboratory for me—and all other professors who serve as active pastors in churches—to mentor the next generation of pastors in ways that carry the potential to be quite impactful.

The Criticality of Pastoral Mentoring

The previous statement by no means serves as an indictment against professors who do not currently pastor churches. But for those who teach the more foundational practics courses, such hands-on experience proves invaluable. My daughter, who just completed her first year at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, has professors who still practice medicine. Should it be any different in seminary hallways?

Over the years, several professors have assumed the same privilege that many pastors from Southwestern Lower Michigan to Indiana and the Chicagoland area also have. They serve as church pastors who have the opportunity to work with student pastors who are enrolled in the Theological Field Education (TFE) program. Although the program had a different name when I matriculated at the seminary, my first recollection of a professor who also served as a mentoring pastor was Walter Douglas, who served as professor of church history as well as pastor of the All Nations SDA Church.

According to the TFE syllabus (CHMN 560), the primary objectives for this practicum are to 1) Provide the student with the opportunity to gain competency and expertise while involved in practical field activities, 2) Implement the theoretical learning in a specific area of field ministry experience, and 3) Engage in evangelistic contact with the unchurched. Undoubtedly, such is best accomplished through pastoral mentoring of the students while being appropriately supervised.

According to Scott M. Douglas, such mentoring must emphasize character development, prioritize family, build a friendship that extends outside of the office setting, and grant the freedom and flexibility to accomplish a task without fear of being micromanaged. While any pastor can provide mentoring in these three areas, the pastoring professor occupies a unique position when it comes to such guidance that he or she can offer.

The Advantages of the Pastoring Professor

All professors bring a wealth of experience to the classroom that transcends book knowledge. Such is the case with me from several perspectives. I have seen the theological pendulum swing over the generations from my childhood. Parenting young children who have grown into adults has provided ever-expanding views of how God relates to me, and how I should relate to others. Seeing church life and worship styles in more than 60 countries has created a theological flexibility that I can instill in those whom I mentor.

However, the itinerant life that I lived for those 17 years prior to coming to the Seminary to teach developed within me a blindness to the realities of life in the congregation. Guest speaking appointments led to plaudits. It also led to detachment that sometimes produced seminar presentations born out of the abstract, as well as safe and sanitary solutions that did not address concrete congregational conundrums—whether within the church or in the community.

Taking on the responsibility of serving as pastor of the Niles Philadelphia SDA Church has served as a necessary corrective, for it has provided an avenue for me to stay connected to real members with real issues. I was familiar with the Niles Philadelphia Church and its excellent worship experience. I even knew some of its members. But serving as their pastor provides a clear window into every aspect of each individual life.

That is significant, because pastoral trainers can talk about the need to employ spiritual gifts, or the criticality of financial stewardship, or the vitality that understanding Old Testament, New Testament, and biblical languages brings to the preaching event. But while all of these must be emphasized, the church members process these and other things through the lenses of having to care for aging parents, having to make ends meet while paying the church school bill for their children to receive an Adventist education, dealing with significant health challenges, etc. The pastoring professor has a clear understanding that theory is tested in the crucible of reality.

Another advantage that the pastoring professor brings to the table is the ability to bring more practicality and passion into the classroom. This does not render as ineffective the professor who does not pastor a church. It does, however, lend greater credibility to the professor whose primary teaching function lies within the realm of congregational practics. The dangers have always existed not only for the professor who has been out of district ministry to grow stale with each passing year, but for the students to see that professor’s teaching as scratching where one does not itch.

But how does all this impact the mentoring relationship? I return to the TFE model. According to the TFE syllabus class description, “TFE is built around the mentoring relationship between a ministry context mentor or seminary faculty and an individual seminarian in area churches or community ministry settings.” Arguably, the most logical connection between the seminary and congregation, as it relates to a mentoring relationship that prepares the student for his or her future ministry, would be a pastoring professor. On the one hand, that professor has, on a regular basis, addressed theory in the classroom; but now places his or her student pastors in situations that prove to be real-life case studies, creating the need to answer the questions, “What would you do?” “How would you handle this situation?”

Hyveth Williams, professor and director of homiletics in the Department of Christian Ministry, as well as senior pastor of The Grace Place in South Bend, Indiana, since 2013, has combined her professorial and pastoral roles in ways that attract students to want to be mentored by her. She has intentionally positioned them so their gifts can be maximized and the community can be benefited. She states, “I see my church as a living lab for seminarians. It is most rewarding when even some seasoned participants exclaim excitement over learning innovative practices in what can become routine ministry.”

I had two TFE pastors during the spring 2017 semester. One of them, Carvil Richards, speaking of his experience as my mentee, reflected upon the belief that some hold: “There is a distance between academics and the church in terms of the execution of ministry and strategy, and that the church is behind in principle and practice when compared to the academy. However, I find it different in my TFE setting.”

Conclusion

Serving as a pastoral professor is not for everyone; not even for everyone who teaches in the Department of Christian Ministry. What becomes more important is for the professor—regardless of his or her department—to maintain a heart for congregational ministry and portray the credibility and authenticity that elicit the trust of those who seek our mentorship as they prepare for a lifetime of ministry. And in the long run, both they and their congregations will experience the blessings that academia wishes through our teaching and mentoring.

 

Niles Philadelphia SDA Church