first semester in seminary, done.
Seminary sounds like a scary word, not gonna lie. At least to me it did before I started, and if I’m being honest, it still kind of does seem daunting…especially Greek & Hebrew classes, iykyk. Thank goodness my degree doesn’t call for ‘em. Anyways, enough about that.
I wanted to share some thoughts and experiences I have had in seminary thus far. For starters, I want to say that my experiences are by no means objective truth about seminary or grad school in general, but my experiences. I want to share in hopes that it can offer perspective or encouragement to those looking to do seminary in the future or those who are in seminary now.
If you don’t know what seminary is, it’s essentially college with emphasis on the Bible. Specifically, Graduate school. I go to Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri. I am in my second full semester and am loving it. I moved here for school specifically and I enjoy the city a ton!
I want to go about this blog post in a Q&A style because I've gotten many questions and I wanna make sure I get to them!
1. How did you pick the school you wanted to go to?
This is the first step in deciding where you wanna go (obviously) and I took it pretty seriously. There are a lot of seminaries in the world/ in the USA so it was important for me to do my research. I had looked into a few other schools and never really got excited about them. I then realized I followed quite a bit of the professors on social media from MBTS and checked out their website. I looked into their mission statement and loved how their emphasis was on the local church.
I then visited the school because I had a friend say she would go with me and has a friend there that we could stay with. I said yes and before the weekend was done, I knew it was for me. I was fortunate that God made that decision pretty easy for me.
2. How does seminary impact your relationship with God?
Truthfully, this last year in general has been a hot mess for me and my walk with Christ. The Lord has been faithful in keeping me whenever I want to leave and walk away. I cannot take any credit for His doing and His love that doesn’t waver, so praise be to God for that. But I will say, when I first started the fall semester, I was so busy with reading (and truthfully, I was encouraged in the Lord through my reading!) that I never made time to sit with God.
I feel as though this is such a stereotype even at any Bible school, but it’s true. Even if you are reading 30 hours a week about God, you need to add a few more hours to that to be with God, sit with God, and meditate on the beauty of God. While this adoration CAN and SHOULD happen during studying/learning, it also needs to be done sometime during the day aside from learning.
I say this wisdom because every person I have talked to at seminary has told me this and I have also experienced this, myself. It was a scary thing a few months into the semester because I was viewing God as more of a mythical creature rather than my creator and savior. It was scary because I was like, “man, I’m going to school for God and I don’t even feel like I know Him?!”
It was actually during my Theology final that I was flipping through Genesis to discuss Natural Theology and the Creation where I was just sitting in awe of God’s goodness through His word. Man, it was a cool moment. I didn’t want to do my final because I just wanted to sit and bask in the goodness of His word. But…. my hand was cramping because I was already on my 5th page and wanted to go get Starbucks to celebrate being done with finals week… LOL.
But I share this because the conviction of the Lord is good and His steadfast love is faithful to bring us back when we wander or lose sight of what is important in our walk with Him. That conviction brought me back to the place of enjoyment with God and I am so excited to keep that a priority as I walk into the Spring semester.
So if I have any encouragement at all… BE WITH GOD!
3. How do you stay focused on your singleness with all the Godly guys around?
Yall, I just wanna be honest and upfront with you with this question. Again, my answer is not objective, it is my experience with my observations. So here’s the deal….
GIRLS: stop being so infatuated with finding your husband when you are going to school to learn more about God. stop idolizing marriage as if it’s top priority because the truth is that your relationship with God is first priority and so is your obedience to what the Lord has for you in that season. No, marriage is not bad. No, desiring a husband is not bad. These are both good things, but your focus needs to be on Christ. If a guy ends up wanting to pursue you and you like him, then go for it with wisdom. But your purpose is not to get married from seminary, it is to learn about Christ and be equipped for ministry.
I think it’s incredible if you were to meet your husband at seminary. No doubt! But not only do I see way too often that women are so hyper fixated on guys, but this mindset leads to wrongful thinking about the guys who are in front of them. I have seen women be blind to see who a guy actually is because they desire a certain godly guy so badly. They see what they want to see instead of who he actually is. I don’t want this whole post to be about this so i’ll have to do another blog post on this alone, lol.
But I do want to point out something in my own life that happened in hopes it helps someone else. I did not guard my heart when it came to seeing these seminary guys for who they actually were. I was that girl who loved the idea of meeting her husband at seminary so much that I didn’t stop to think that they were just another sinful, immature, broken human being like me. And you may be thinking, “well of course, Rachael” and tbh, yeah. HAHA.
But this is what happens when we make idols our gaze instead of God. We leave our hearts open to deception, hurt, and unwise decision making. So with all of that vagueness, I want to say some tangible tips that I wish I would have known (or maybe I did know but I didn’t listen)
Have a strong local church body/community that you are a part of!
Don’t hang out with guys 1 on 1 often!
Have a ton of girl friends!
Prioritize God more than people! If you prioritize people, it will be hecka problematic.
If you are interested in a guy and he is interested in you, don’t overthink it. Seek wisdom from others and go on a coffee date. It doesn’t need to be that big of a deal!
Don’t hang out late with guys!
Have clear communication. If you start liking a guy and there is major confusion, have a clarifying conversation. You don’t have expendable time or energy to waste to be distracted.
Make boundaries!
Those are some of my initial thoughts with my most asked questions on seminary. The truth is, I could talk about these things for so long. I would love to do part 2 so if you have any questions, feel free to comment and let me know what you want to know.
Praise be to God!