Negative Effect: The Impact of Pastoral Formation

I recently found myself reading a book on the economics of mental health care.¹ Maybe I was reading it because I’m married to a psychologist, or because I think mental health care is important. Or maybe it was simply because it was summer and the book was there. Whatever the reason, Thrive: How Better Mental Health Care Transforms Lives and Saves Money was a fascinating read. Full of research data, the book outlines how widespread mental health issues are in causing human suffering and how there are evidence-based treatments available that can address, if not solve, those issues, all before making a clear case why funding publicly available treatment is better for people and for the economy.

One point that the authors stress is the importance of proper training for therapists. They cite a 2008 study on how a therapists’s skill level impacted how well parents were trained for addressing antisocial behaviour in children.² The study showed (perhaps unsurprisingly) that those who were better trained, or more skilled, were more effective.³ However, the thing that struck me was that the least skilled or under-trained therapists were not just ineffective, but actually had a negative effect.

This has me thinking: Can something similar be said about pastors and the church in terms of the importance of professional training? Can it be that the least skilled pastors can actually cause a negative impact on someone’s spiritual life like how poorly trained therapists can cause a negative impact on someone’s mental health? Perhaps this is behind James’ warning that not many should become teachers?⁴ There is an awesome, fearful responsibility in pastoral ministry.

The book didn’t need to convince me of the importance of education and training (you sort of need to value education if you are going to pursue a PhD). But I have been pondering this idea—that under-education can have a negative impact—as I once again prepare to teach incoming Bible College students this fall. I am reminded of how beautiful Bible College years can be, but also how important it is to the training of future pastors and leaders. It is about more than just becoming competent at a number of skills, but about the formation of character and spirit.

In my first semester of Bible College I was in Dr. Gordon Franklin’s legendary course on the apostle Paul. That was back in Fall 2009, but there was a particular lesson that I keep coming back to all these years later. Shortly after Saul’s conversion (he was not yet going by his Roman name, Paul, at this time), he left Jerusalem and went to Tarsus (Acts 9:30). Then, ten years later, Barnabas brings Saul to Antioch (Acts 11:25–26). The question was (and is), what was he doing for those long lost years? Was he doing nothing? Was he ministering but none of it was recorded?

Dr. Franklin’s answer was that Saul was in “God’s Waiting Room.” He listed a number of benefits for being placed in God’s waiting room: It is a place where we can reflect on our decisions, a place where we can vent our anger and resentment, it is essential to our personal and theological growth, and it can set the stage for later ministry. Dr. Franklin passed away this year so I have been reflecting on the many lessons he taught me about life and ministry. I keep coming back to this fundamental lesson on the importance of slow formation.

Along these same lines is Alicia Britt Chole’s exquisite book Anyonymous: Jesus’ Hidden Years and Yours. Chole reflects on the hidden years of Jesus’ childhood, arguing that those hidden years of formation enable Jesus to endure forty days of temptation in the wilderness before entering into public ministry. The book is packed full of the wisdom of embracing anonymous seasons of formation, as well as stressing the danger of rushing through those seasons too quickly. For example, she writes, “In these early anonymous seasons, God graciously grants us the opportunity to wrestle with our appetites before our lives are at stake, to struggle with our passions privately before moral collapse affects the innocent publicly”.⁵ This brings us back to Thrive. If bad therapy can have a negative impact, then we need to understand the importance of eduction and formation when it comes to our pastors and leaders.

So, as I hit publish on this post, and get back to preparing course notes and slides for the upcoming semester, I will be mindful of the danger in being under-formed. And I will be thinking of how I can encourage my students to embrace this season of learning and growing, this season of being in God’s waiting room.

¹ Richard Layard and David M. Clark, Thrive: How Better Mental Health Care Transforms Lives and Saves Money (Princeton University Press, 2014).
² S. Scott, A. Carby, and A. Rendu, “Impact of Therapists’s Skill on Effectiveness of Parenting Groups for Child Antisocial Behavior,” IoP mimeo, London: King’s College London, Institute of Psychiatry, and University College London.
³ My wife mentioned that there are also studies showing that there is a ceiling to the benefit of training. The importance is the needed level of professional training.
⁴ James 3:1.
⁵ Alicia Britt Chole, Anyonmyous: Jesus’ Hidden Years and Yours (Thomas Nelson, 2006), p. 87.

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