RegisterSign in
  • My Faithlife
  • Settings
  • Community Notes
  • Messages
  • About
  • Mobile Apps
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Terms of Service
  • Careers
  • Dev
  • Help

Brent Hoefling
in
Questions Aloud
8 years ago — Edited

Love these videos. The "Gripe Outloud" session was my favorite (so far).  I won't get into all the ways this struck a chord with me, but suffice it to say that there were many notes ringing bells. My personal experience is that I took classes locally and with a college/seminary that isn't the mainstream-seminary places.  Many would say where I went is a degree/diploma-mill.  It was accredited, but not the same as others. I invested a lot of time and effort in those classes over many years. I ended up with a Bachelor's in Divinity, and a dual masters in Christian Education, and Media/Technology in the church.  this happened because I was not seeking a degree, and ended up having credit hours applicable in those fields and was encouraged by the staff to finish them into degrees. Because I moved away from that local setting, I am "forced" to not go further in degree-seeking.  The responses I get from those places essentially is that  work is deemed "invalid".  So far, none of the places I have applied  will take anything I have done in any kind of consideration. And now, these 35, or so,  years later I can't justify "starting over", just because they don't think I learned anything or they just won't accept any of that education as being appropriate or valid for me to continue with them. Fortunately, I am blessed to be a pastor of a church that does value that education, and the "degrees" I have.  Discipleship is paramount, even though it is a small congregation.  so while we have about 40 members, I am working with 4 of them, very closely in discipleship - as a "log cabin" movement/learning.  I will NOT discourage them from degree seeking, but will certainly teach them lessons I learned in that area.   My congregation allows me a lot of leeway to not have to put out fires and be the social director/ event coordinator.  It is my experience with my peers though, that this way of thinking is anomalous. (I still don't have nor do I need an MDiv.)