We may be in the middle of summer, but some individuals are considering their academic futures. For some high school students, starting college right after graduating high school is the plan. For others, they plan to take a gap year, then will consider their options for college. However, a large portion of individuals are going back to school as an adult.
This does not necessarily mean that they are going back to college because they want a career change. As a matter of fact, many adults going back to school are looking for a degree that matches the work experience they have already. This happens regularly in the professional workforce, so why should it be a surprise that many pastors are also finding themselves going back to school after 10 years, if not more?
Why is it that pastors, who seemingly have an already established career path, would want to go back to school? In a recent interview with Christianity Today, Pastor James Meeks, who leads Salem Baptist Church in Chicago, shared why he felt the need to go back for a master’s degree.
“In all honesty, the master’s was always something that I thought I would quickly get back to, and 40 years later I happened to look up and discover that I had never gotten back to it,” said Meeks. “I knew right then that this was the right time and a good time to start that pilgrimage again.”
When Meeks began pastoring, he had recently gotten married and had a baby. He felt that by going back to school, he was adding on too much pressure to his already busy life.
“I couldn’t drop any of the responsibilities I had on my plate and that meant school had to be the thing to go,” he said.
The benefit of going back to school as an adult
While some might find the act of going back to college to be an embarrassing thing, it can huge benefits. Adults going back to school have a completely different mindset than a teen or young adult, and that mind shift can help with academic success.
“Once you’ve already lived your way through a large chunk of life, you are much more aware of how high or how far you’re going to go,” said Meeks in the interview. “Right now, as an adult learner, I’m mostly focusing on improving the knowledge and abilities that I already have.”
For some, the opportunity of going back to school online or in person jumpstarts the passion they used to have in ministry.
“To be pushed and pulled at 45, after 20 years of giving myself to learning, gets me really excited,” said Pastor Matt Chandler in another interview with Christianity Today. “I’m actually eager to hear what’s out there and to see what good is in there that I might be able to consider. It might further and form what I already believe even as I look at it from a different perspective.”
Chandler found that taking courses with other pastors and Christian leaders from different denominations has helped him expand his understanding of how leadership can work.
“Whether I agree with everything or don’t agree with anything, I can talk about it,” said Chandler. “I can critique it, apply it, take it apart, and put it back together. Now I get to interact with different ideas than my predominant stream, and that’s a plus.”
For a chance to see how going back to school can work for you, check out the academic programs, classes for pastors and other pastoral training options that are available with Harbor Genesis.