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Podcast: What I Wish I Knew in Seminary after 30 Years in Ministry (Dave Harvey)

July 05, 2021 by: Crossway

This article is part of the The Crossway Podcast series.

The Path to Ministry

In this episode, Dave Harvey, president of The Great Commission Collective church planting ministry, talks about his own path to ministry, what he did (and didn't) learn in seminary, and how to discern whether or not you're really called to the pastorate.

Am I Called?

Am I Called?

Dave Harvey

Sharing from his wealth of personal experience and illustrating from history, Harvey explores biblical principles and revealing questions to help prospective pastors discern their calling.

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Topics Addressed in This Interview:

01:17 - The Call and Path to Ministry

Matt Tully
Dave, thank you so much for joining me again on The Crossway Podcast.

Dave Harvey
It’s good to be back, Matt. I’m glad we’re going to be able to have a conversation together.

Matt Tully
In our last conversation earlier this year, we were talking about your book, The Plurality Principle, and talking about the importance of having a plurality of elders in a church. In that conversation, you said something that really struck me and stuck with me and made me want to talk to you again. You said something to the effect that every pastor that you know would likely resonate with the feeling that real ministry—the actual daily experience of pastoral ministry—is (I think you said) dramatically different from what they expected while they were in seminary. That comment stuck with me, and I wanted to dig into that a bit more and discuss what it looks like for a guy right now to make the most of his seminary education with that kind of reality in mind. Maybe just to kick us off, could you share a little bit about your own path to ministry, and then how that fits with your experience of seminary?

Dave Harvey
Shortly after I was converted, I began to feel a sense of drawing—what I would later understand as a sense of calling—but it was kind of forming in my mind. I would go to church on Sunday morning and I would see the guy preaching, I would see the guy leading worship, and it was inciting something in me. I think, Matt, the sense of call into ministry is often sparked by seeing gifted people doing what they’re called to do. So that was my experience. I was converted, began having that experience, joined a church plant about nine months after it began in 1985, that church began to grow, and then I was invited to join the staff in 1986. This astonished me because when I began to feel called to ministry, I was thinking, I’m going to do what I’m doing vocationally, and then sometime after I retire—maybe in my 50s—I would go into full-time ministry. So, being twenty-six, my one life dream and goal was being satisfied, so I had no idea what the story arc was going to be from there. So it was in the context of ministry that I then went to seminary.

Matt Tully
As you look back, do you think that was a good order to take things where you were already in full-time ministry and then also doing seminary? Would you recommend that to guys today?

Dave Harvey
Yeah. I think that’s the best way to do it. It’s not always possible, but I think it’s the best option. I’m truly grateful for the path that the Lord opened for me because I was able to experience seminary while already doing ministry, which meant that I could integrate what was helpful into a model that I was already working, and I could also measure what I was hearing against an already working model. I think that guys that jump right from college into seminary often miss that, and that’s a disconnect that can take place. It’s understandable that sometimes that’s the path that people have, but the reality is that when you’re not working in ministry or working—or even serving—in a church in a very strategic way and going to seminary, the learning of seminary can remain somewhat more abstract. It touches down far less than if you’re actually working within a church. As I said, not everybody can do that. You’ve got to have a gracious church, a team that releases you, and you’ve got to have a capacity to be able to do more than one job at a time. But if those things are in tact, it really does create a sweet spot, I think, for the seminary experience.

Matt Tully
I want to dig into more of the details of that experience, but maybe just going back a little bit, you talk about how you had this growing sense of a call to pastoral ministry. You were seeing people doing ministry and feeling this desire to do likewise. What did it look like for you to pressure test that call? I think that’s sometimes something that young guys might struggle with: they feel this desire for something, but is that the only determining factor? How should they think about confirming that desire or that perceived calling?

Dave Harvey
One of the ways that I think the church serves, and one of the most important things about calling, is to allow the church to play the critical role of helping to confirm the call. So, being able to have the context in the church where you’re serving, sharpening ministry skills, understanding what ministry is all about, understanding people a little bit better, understanding leadership better, counseling better, and you’re enjoying both the discipleship and the evaluation that can come from the experience of the local church. Then, ultimately, you’re in a position where the church can lend a confirmation to that call, that internal sense that God has called me to ministry. They can lend a confirmation to that. They can objectively validate that this is a direction you should go in, which is a far stronger place to stand when you’re pursuing ministry.

Matt Tully
Would you go so far as to say that a guy shouldn’t start seminary if he doesn’t have a church behind him that he’s involved in, where he’s got support from the leaders and they’re kind of saying, Yeah, we think this is something that you could be called to. You should go pursue it. What if a guy didn’t have that? Is it not a good idea for him to pursue it?

Dave Harvey
I think he needs to go in with eyes wide open on the disadvantages of doing it that way. I think that you’re in the best position to experience seminary in the best way when you are meaningfully involved in a local church, serving in a local church and—best-case scenario—employed by a local church. Again, that’s not an opportunity that’s going to be open to everybody, but absent that kind of church confirmation and validation, you have the risk of guys that aren’t legitimately called to gospel ministry dropping $100,000 on an education that ultimately is going to inspire them and teach them the Bible, but could be very frustrating because they’re not able to work in the ways that they went to seminary to pursue.

Matt Tully
Did you have conversations with guys like that who have recently completed seminary, or maybe they’ve been done for years and they’ve struggled to find a job? Churches are saying, We don’t feel like you’re really cut out for this. Have you had those conversations?

Dave Harvey
I have conversations fairly often with guys, or pastors that have guys, that are graduating from college and wondering if they should jump right into seminary. I just had this experience within the past five days. I sat with a guy who had a guy in his church, and he’s saying he wants to go to seminary now. One of the things I said is I tried to affirm the desire and didn’t rule out that that can’t be a wonderful experience that sets a guy up for ministry. But I also said that churches are not looking for twenty-six-year-old guys who have spent their entire life in school without any life experience or ministry experience or vocational experience. Churches are not looking to fill their roles with guys right out of seminary. They want to see a guy who has had some kind of vocational success where he’s had to jump into the work world and he’s had to make an income, keep a job, he’s been successful there, he’s learned a trade, he’s proven himself there. In doing that, he’s dealt with some of the very things that the people he’s ultimately going to be ministering to have to deal with each and every day. I think it’s far better to have a role already, as I said earlier, and enfold seminary into it than just jump from school to school.

11:19 - What I Learned—and Didn't Learn—in Seminary

Matt Tully
Let’s jump into that experience of seminary for you. I would love to hear, on the one hand, what were some of the most valuable lessons that you learned—specifically from seminary—that maybe you wouldn’t have gotten from your experience working in a church. And on the flip side, what are some of the things that you didn’t learn in seminary that people might assume that you would?

Dave Harvey
There are some that would be quick to dismiss seminaries, or trash seminaries, because they’re not churches. I think that’s a very dangerous place to live and a dangerous position to hold because, with respect to seminaries and their faculty, one of the roles they play is in protecting the integrity of sound doctrine. We can say that is the purview of pastors, and I believe it is the purview of pastors as well; but who are the ones who train the pastors? Who are the ones that write the books for the seminary classes that the pastors sit in and are trained in? We’ve got to recognize the expertise that seminaries draw and contain. That seminary, then, becomes a bulwark against the light winds of doctrine that blow all over the place in any given season. The opposite is true as well. A bad seminary can take down a lot of guys very quickly. I think that’s one lesson I learned. I gained a greater appreciation for how important the seminary is to sound doctrine. I also think there is the possibility of real spiritual formation in a seminary because seminaries are populated by godly professors and instructors. It’s really easy to mischaracterize or create caricatures of ivory towers and academic eggheads or however you might seek to diminish the importance of the seminary. But my experience has been—and I think any guys who have been to seminary that are listening to this—the majority of people that they’ve sat under are people that love Jesus and have accepted (in almost a sacrificial way) a call to serve. Honestly, they could be making a lot more money elsewhere than they’re making in a seminary. They love Jesus and they are in seminary because they feel a sense of call to shape and form students in the gospel and in conformity to Christ. So that’s another kind of lesson that I think I learned—a real practical one. I hope this is an encouragement for anybody that’s listening that might be wrestling in their seminary experience. I think that for students, hard work covers a multitude of intellectual limitations. For me, I was never a great student in junior high, high school, or college. Once I was converted, my grades improved dramatically, but I’m grateful to God because my dad and mom were hard workers and they passed that value along to their three kids. So I found that with good teachers and with a commitment to just work—if I beat on the languages long enough, if I beat on systematic theology long enough—by the grace of God it would yield and I could make it through.

Matt Tully
How important are the original languages? Often people will say that one of the main value-adds of a seminary education is that you do spend the time on the languages that maybe would be hard to do otherwise.

Dave Harvey
I can remember with one of the seminaries that I went to, in the interview process—and I don’t think the seminary is still in this place—but they said, If you don’t know the original languages, you should not be preaching the gospel. I remember thinking, Okay, that’s not where I want to be. I don’t want to be accepting a position that ultimately rules out 95% of the pastors and preachers in the world.

Matt Tully
So you don’t agree with that sentiment.

Dave Harvey
I don’t agree with that, no, and nor does history. When you look through history, there are plenty of people who have had tremendous gospel impact without knowing the original languages. I do think the original languages, for some, are absolutely essential. I think if you have a call to teach, if you have an aptitude, I think that you should go for that. I think that because of the tools that are available, that every pastor that’s preaching should be somewhat conversant in them. I think that’s one of the reasons why the seminaries require it, but I wouldn’t draw the line where a seminary might—and not all seminaries are the same on this—in requiring that or making that absolutely essential to effective pastoral ministry. I just think that there are so many helps now and there are so many good commentaries and so many things that are dropping the cookies down further in each generation that the gifted and called people can still do effective ministry without the original languages.

18:09 - Evaluating the Model of Online Seminary

Matt Tully
You mentioned a few minutes ago that one of the values of seminary can be spiritual formation, that it helps to shape these guys who are going into the pastorate in a really significant way. How does that relate to the advent and growing popularity of online seminary? What do you think about the online model? Obviously, in some ways, it makes the education way more accessible to more guys who are doing just as you recommended—they’re working in a church, they’re working another job already—but is it also compromising something that is important about that experience?

Dave Harvey
Yes, it is. I lead a church-planting network—Great Commission Collective—and one of the things we’ve done over the past year is we’ve worked to create a learning management system so we can put everything online. We’ve done that because we have international churches, but we’ve also done that because we’ve gone through a pandemic and I realized how vulnerable we were, that our services were, if we could only do things in person. So the pandemic teaches us that it’s good to have a backup plan and that online learning has a place. I think that when you completely remove the experience of bodily presence, of embodied discipleship, I think you remove an important part of spiritual formation and ministry training. So we need something that blends the two. I think a lot of seminaries are doing January terms or one week together and then other stuff online. I think there are all kinds of ways that you can create a track where guys experience both. If it’s just online, I would say that student is at a real disadvantage.

Matt Tully
Especially if he’s not plugged into a church already and serving in that context. Maybe drawing on that, one thing I’ve heard from guys who have graduated from seminary and then gone into a pastoral role is that one of the best things about that seminary experience was the camaraderie—the fellowship with other guys who are pursuing the same thing and they’re brothers in arms, so to speak. But then I’ve often heard that they get into a pastoral role and very quickly they feel alone, isolated, and that they don’t have that brotherhood anymore, even with people in their own church (elders or deacons). It just feels very different. Have you ever experienced that, or have you talked to guys who have experienced that? What would you say to someone who is feeling that way?

Dave Harvey
Yes. I’m familiar with that experience for guys that have been in any intense training environment, whether it’s a seminary or in other cohorts, boot camps—any environment like that where people are being trained and cohorts and relationships are essential to the experience. Wherever they go after that is always measured against the experience of camaraderie that they had there. In some ways, I think seminaries can help and can mitigate against that by ensuring they understand the distinction between what they’re in and what they’re going to have—that life and marriage and parenting and ministry doesn’t provide the context for the intense relational connections that a seminary might, or a pastor’s college. Anywhere that the development of the depth of the relationships is part of the program for the training, that’s not what a church is.

Matt Tully
You can develop those relationships, but maybe it’s just not quite as easy as it would be in a seminary.

Dave Harvey
And that’s why I think it’s important for guys to remain involved in local churches while they’re in seminary so that they’re not creating an alternative church through their friendships in the seminary and, in so doing, moving further and further away from the local church and away from the realities of what it represents to lead a local church and to serve at a local church, which is ultimately why they’re in seminary and what they’re trying to prepare for. So to be involved in a local church—meaningfully involved—in a local church, in a small group, doing some counseling if possible, but having friendships there and whatever discipleship your time will allow, that, ultimately, will serve them as much, if not more, beyond the seminary experience.

23:41 - Expectation vs. Reality

Matt Tully
As you think back to those early years of pastoral ministry, and even as you were feeling that call to ministry, can you think back to any expectations that you had or assumptions about what that would be like? How would you say the reality has changed those for you, now that you’ve been in ministry for decades at this point?

Dave Harvey
I think it’s thirty-five years this month. I think there is a reality about the place of weakness in ministry. I don’t know if this was just my arrogance or just that I, in some ways, had the same experiences as most men, but I thought God was going to use ministry to portray my strengths, never realizing that God had ordained ministry to reveal my weaknesses. One of the surprising things about ministry—and I see this happening so often and I just want to come alongside of guys and help in the interpretive process—is how God takes strong men and pulverizes them and allows them, or ordains, that they endure suffering and betrayal and experiences of shame or loss. Nestled within the weakness that results is an inexplicable grace that delivers power for ministry. That goes to the heart of 2 Corinthians. It goes at the heart of where ministry power comes from, that the secret of pastoring is not rooted in our ability; it’s actually rooted in our inability. It’s not in our ability; it’s in God’s ability. I think the reality of weakness was certainly one of the things that began to take shape in an important way. I think another one was people. One of my favorite quotes is by J. Oswald Sanders: “A cross stands in the way of spiritual leadership. It is a cross upon which the leader must consent to be impaled.” I think one of the defining realities—or, let’s call it a defining moment in ministry—is when you realize that that cross is most often the people we serve, those we love, those we make sacrifices for. That’s not to in any way demonize them. Sometimes in ministry we are their cross as well. But the point I’m making is that ministry forms this paradox where people are our greatest joy, but they’re also the cross upon which we must consent to be impaled. Think about Jesus: for Jesus, the cross meant denial, betrayal, alienation, abandonment, and misunderstanding, from those who were closest to him. A student is not greater than his master. If they deserted the master and he had those experiences, they will do the same to us. It will happen to us. If one leads, he must accept that as the cross upon which they must consent to be impaled.

Matt Tully
Is there a specific story from your own life and experience in ministry that you think illustrates the pain in ministry and that cross dynamic? Or maybe like you were saying before, an experience of coming face to face with your own weakness in a way that was difficult at the time but now you can look back and see God’s grace?

Dave Harvey
I think that when it comes to guys in ministry, God uses either their marriage or their parenting to really teach them the gospel. For me, it’s been parenting. I have four delightful children that I love with all of my heart, but parenting has been very difficult and has had many dangers, toils, and snares for us. I think that I assumed that in parenting we were going to be modeling and portraying things that said a lot about the strength of my leadership and the clarity of my leadership. Really, it did far more to teach me about how dependent I am on Christ, how dependent I am on the gospel, how much I need Jesus everyday, and that the best thing I could do for my kids is to bring that sense of desperation to God and to them as well and go to the Lord together. I think that parenting has been one of the places where I’ve learned the most about the gospel and the most about myself. Let’s face it—and I’m not thinking of any specific situation with respect to my children when I give this illustration—the compliant child can teach us to be grateful to God because they always make us look good. But that child that’s running up the steps screaming, I hate you! and slamming the door, walking up the steps after them, opening up the door and saying, Can I talk? Sitting down and putting your arm around them and saying, Tell me what’s going on and not living out of the offense of what’s being said—that takes the gospel. So that compliant child may teach you to be grateful, but that rogue child, or that angry child, that child will teach you the gospel.

Matt Tully
When it comes to those two issues you mentioned—parenting and marriage—how big of a factor in the struggles that you felt there (and I think all pastors would agree with what you said in that those two issues in particular can be particularly challenging) how much of that is due to just the on-display nature of a pastor’s life, family, and ministry? Did you ever feel this pressure, as the leader of a church, to just sort of have both of those things always figured out, always going smoothly? Did that weigh on you at times?

Dave Harvey
Every pastor feels that pressure. You come in, and maybe you don’t have kids or you have small kids, but as the kids begin to grow, that pressure descends upon you. It may say something about you, it may say something about the culture of the church that you’re involved in, it may say something about the behavior of your kids. One way or another, almost everyone has to deal with that. You’ve got passages like 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 staring at you all the time, and some of the ways that those passages are misapplied and mishandled creates a whole other burden that guys feel like they live under. The way the church can view them through those passages can create a self-awareness and a self-consciousness that can crawl into your brain and it can assault your sense of calling and it can assault your confidence to preach. Again, those are experiences that God not simply allows, but God directs because of what they produce in us. There are certain places in our heart, certain ways that he wants the gospel to take grip in our soul that can only be achieved by coming under the scrutiny of other people, by coming under a sense of disapproval, of misunderstanding, of being judged by other people. God does some of his best work when our high view of ourselves is under assault.

33:22 - Practical Advice

Matt Tully
As a final discussion point, I wonder if you could speak to the guy right now who is in seminary—or maybe he’s about to enter seminary, or maybe he’s just recently left seminary—but what would be some practical pieces of advice that you would offer to that person who is wanting to make the most of their education?

Dave Harvey
I would be encouraging them to embed themselves in a local church. Matt, I can’t say this enough, and it’s not just because I’m a pastor. It’s because I believe deeply in that sense of not simply an external calling but an internal calling as well. Pity the guy who did not receive any external validation going toward seminary and has graduated from seminary and is now seeking to broker his own call and doesn’t know what to do. That’s a really vulnerable position to be in. So, I’m saying that attached to the external call/confirmation is the local church. Don’t approach seminary, experience seminary, or leave seminary without having the local church in view, and specifically the role of the local church in discipleship, the role of the local church in care, in accountability, in just being able to get to know you well enough, to be able to bring a perspective on your calling. And then, once you’ve graduated from seminary, to be able to advocate for your calling, to be able to work alongside of you and to push you out and find places for you, or maybe even find a place for you in that local church. I think that the place of the church—that’s the one thing that the seminary can’t do. The seminary can’t be the church, and good seminaries don’t want to be the church. They understand their distinction. But the things you’re not going to learn in seminary—you’re not going to learn how to apply truth well, because seminaries will teach you how to think, but to pastor effectively, which is ultimately where most guys want to land. You need to care how to care for people, how to lead people. Seminaries have ministry classes, but what the local church does is it forces application. The danger for seminaries is James 1:22: creating and fostering a culture where you’re hearing but not doing. Local churches are not about lecturing on weddings and funerals, they’re about doing weddings and funerals. It’s not about discussing discipleship, it’s about doing discipleship. Nothing replaces the local church for application, and that’s what I would want guys in seminary and post-seminary to know.

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