On the Facebook groups I’m a part of, this seems to be a fairly regular question: “People keep encouraging me to go to seminary. Is it worth it for youth pastors?” As someone who has studied to complete two seminary degrees (M.Div. & D.Min., both at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary), and as someone who has been in full-time youth ministry for a decade, I think I’m qualified to finally address this question on the blog. What I’ve written below is largely based off my M.Div. since that’s far more common. If you would like to discuss the benefits of a D.Min. please comment on this post and we can dialogue there.
I want to address three common objections before presenting some reasons why I believe seminary is important (not essential, but important) for anyone who is called to lifelong pastoral ministry. After those three objections, you’ll see my list of arguments for why seminary is worth pursuing.
Living Theologically 