Pastors that have been trained to go into full time ministry, are now being replaced with marketing and communication technicians.

I applied for a ministry position in San Diego, and they sent me a psycho form to fill out to test my “team” personality traits. If I wanted to go to a place that was ran like that, I go to Microsoft, or Adobe corporations.

Your comments are speaking right to me today. I went to a very large Christian women’s conference over the weekend. It had amazing music, hilarious skits and well polished, entertaining speakers. I found it emotionally uplifting and even motivating at times. I left encouraged — I was assured that God loves me, forgives me and offers me his grace to move through life. Only problem was that I was not given any solid basis for those truths. Only about six Bible verses were referenced during the entire conference, and they were read out of the Message. So once the the glow of the speakers’ words is gone, where do I turn as I re-enter the reality of my life? I am blessed with a good church that offers solid teaching. But is that true of all the thousands of women who were there? Since an emotional lift and some good psychological tidbits were about the only thing offered, how are they feeling today?

It’s not that I minded the entertainment, or the fun, or the music. And I recognize that this was not a venue conducive to in depth theological study. But I think it could have been balanced with SOME study of the Bible. And unfortunately, I find that a lot of events aimed at women are so skewed. There does seem to be this conception that if you make a women’s event too “heady” you won’t draw much of a crowd. But it seems to me, that its better to have a small group that is well grounded than a stadium full of people who are excited, but have no foundation.

SO TRUE! We started a “School of Theology” at our church over the summer and it has been received very well. We are also starting a 7-8 grade Sunday School to focus on Apologetics. Both of which were partially inspired by TTP. We all need a theological kick in the pants with this type of education. It truly is time to move away from consumerist Christianity and get our brains engaged. I think I read on this site that if the churches did their job with theological education we probably wouldn’t need seminaries. That resonated very well with me.

I’m looking forward to more material on this subject!