This is a post I’ve been working on for two weeks, but it’s clearly not going to get any better. And by that I don’t mean I think it’s good.
I was raised in the Unitarian Universalist tradition(s), and also went to divinity school, so I’ll offer some thoughts on lay theological education, if anyone out there is reading. Essentially, the question asked is: how can we bridge the gap between lay experience in congregations and experience in divinity school? In other words, what can we offer people who want “more” (but don’t want to go to seminary or divinity school)?
1. I’m wary of the premise of the question. I’m not convinced I got “more” in divinity school (Unless we mean more debt? ha, ha), so the idea of filling in a gap that doesn’t exist creates some cognitive dissonance for me. I got different stuff in divinity school (lots of work with meditation and death, for example, that I wouldn’t have received in a congregation necessarily). Perhaps the problem is that we think divinity school is something that it may not be (at least not for everyone—I worked full time while in div school, so my experience was slightly different).
I also (cynically) wonder if the overall goal of “lay theological education” is to address the fact that there are too many UU ministers for the number of jobs (at least full-time positions). At least this used to be the case. Is it still? So I wonder if what we’re really asking is how do we get people to stay in UU churches and be satisfied there without feeling compelled to attain ordained ministry and creating a glut of ministers?
2. I’m really not sure what “lay theological education” is. And I’m not sure what “professional theological education” is, really, unless we’re talking about classes in theology as part of the MDiv or MTS degrees. It seems that really we’re talking about “lay ministerial education”? I haven’t quite figured this out….and sadly it’s the “theological” part of this description that has me flummoxed.
3. I would tend to agree with this comment: Adult UU Curriculum needs greater depth. I am in no way an expert on UU Religious Education other than being a participant, teaching it (not the adult part though), and taking a class in it in divinity school (oh, it occurs to me that I actually write curriculum for a living, so perhaps I’m more of an expert than I thought, at least in how to develop curriculum). Here’s the problem: I don’t get the sense that there is strong development overall. There are really interesting topics, but do they build on one another? Are they connected? There’s breadth, but is there depth? (Lack of depth comes from a lack of a master plan and a lack of backwards planning (at least that’s how it usually happens in curriculum design—you have to know what you want people to get out of curriculum before you can write it).) Here’s another possibility: there is depth and few people know about it. That’s also a problem, but perhaps one that is easier to fix.
4. We might want to think of the different kinds of ways people want to engage in deeper work as different paths to different places. Off the top of my head, I think there are at least four different sorts of ways people might want to go “deeper” into Unitarian Universalism within a congregation but without going to div school:
Path 1: Traditional Theological Education (whatever that is) What sort of support can we offer for people who want to study actual modern theology? It’s my experience that reading real theology is difficult, and requires a support system to discuss and clarify it.
Path 2: Social Justice What sort of support can we offer for people who want deeper, more sustained, and more meaningful work in social justice?
Path 3: Spiritual Practice What support do we offer for people who want more advanced formal spiritual practice? (i.e.., beyond Meditation 101, beyond an Introduction to Prayer).
Path 4: Pastoral Work What support do we offer people who want to work pastorally with other congregants and in the community?
[Path 5: I’m sure I forgot something, so here’s a placeholder to be filled in later. Service of the Earth perhaps? Church planting?]
5. Somewhere along the line, there needs to be training in how to not burn out. That often happens when people take on more responsibility without enough boundaries and relief in volunteer organizations. I don’t think you want to plan a lay curriculum of people doing more and giving more without planning for what can happen emotionally.
If you’ve written on the topic, and want to leave a link in comments, I’ll link to you. Any thoughts?
January 26th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Q 1(b) There may have been a glut–certainly we had plenty of options in search 6-7 years back.
But what I heard was that last year, things weren’t nearly as “rich” for search committees.
And I think it was at GA that Peter Morales (I believe it was Morales) observed that in the next decade there’s going to be a huge turnover in UU ministers; many of our extant older, white, male ministers (mostly) will be retiring, along with others. And there’s actually concern about there being enough ministers….
Feast, famine; it’s a cyclical thing, I suspect. But it looks like a hungry time coming.
January 27th, 2009 at 9:31 am
You know I’ve heard that too about the number of ministers needed in the coming decade, but I also heard the same thing a decade ago in divinity school. I’m sure there are some official numbers somewhere. I should ask Philocrites.
January 27th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
…there are too many UU ministers for the number of jobs (at least full-time positions)
Years ago, a young freelance Church of God preacher rented out the community room in my apartment complex for every Sunday morning. He went around the neighborhood, putting up handbills for his new church. Eventually he got himself enough congregants that they rented a storefront; I think they eventually got a church.
In the large US city where I live, several districts with educated, affluent residents are lacking UU congregations. Why doesn’t one of our underemployed ministers move there and start up a church?
Sadly, there are a variety of reasons this doesn’t happen. With rare exceptions, only laypeople start up new UU churches, and darn few of those. If a UU minister did start up a new church, it’s likely that our UU polity would not allow UUA membership. (Obviously, the congregation is not selecting the minister when the minister is selecting the congregation.)
January 27th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
So essentially what you need is more lay people starting churches in order to deal with the (perceived) ministerial glut? That sounds like it could be my “Path 5″ as Church Planting.
January 28th, 2009 at 5:25 am
David: since there are UU ministers starting UU Churches - there shouldn’t be any problem with eventual affiliation (there are other hoops to jump through). Of course one problem with this is that these ministers have to have another full time job while doing these set-ups.