On July 28, the elders of The North Church in Mounds View, Minnesota, announced that they are commissioning two of its pastors, Tom Dodds and me, to plant Christ the King Church. Joining us are Dustin Williams and Nathan Colestock.
Three of this church plant’s leaders are directly connected to Bethlehem College and Seminary: Tom Dodds is on our Board of Trustees; Nathan Colestock graduated with his MDiv from our seminary in 2023; and I am Professor of Systematic Theology and New Testament.
I have served as a non-staff (volunteer) pastor for Bethlehem Baptist Church and The North Church for the past nine years. Beginning in January 2025, I plan to serve as a lead pastor who preaches the majority of the Sunday sermons while I continue teaching at Bethlehem College and Seminary. In light of this news, I would like to share three reflections on being both a pastor and a professor.
Reflection 1. It is helpful to lay out a spectrum of six options for being a pastor or professor.
In his article “Should You be a Pastor or a Professor? Thinking through the Options,” Michael Kruger lays out a spectrum of six options in a chiasm (a-b-c-c′-b′-a′):
1. The Pastor. This category includes your average Reformed pastor who is theologically-trained, understands the importance of academics, but is not engaged in any meaningful study/research beyond weekly sermon prep. This individual does not degrade or downplay the importance of theology/academics, but simply doesn’t engage much with those subjects himself.
2. The Pastor-Scholar. This individual has an interest in theological and scholarly issues that goes beyond the average pastor mentioned above. Thus, he is often engaged in serious reading, study, and academic work that goes beyond weekly sermon prep. And such study often informs his ministry, preaching, leadership, and counseling. He is the type of individual that would probably work hard to retain some level of proficiency in Greek-Hebrew even after many years in the pastoral ministry.
3. The Pastor-Scholar who is active in the scholarly world. This pastor shares the same deep interest in scholarly issues as the pastor-scholar in the above category, but takes it to the next level by actively contributing to the scholarly world in some fashion. This may include writing books, articles, or giving papers/lectures at conferences and gatherings. Such an individual will often have a Ph.D. or other sort of degree beyond the M.Div.
4. The Scholar-Pastor who is active in the church. Notice the terms “scholar” and “pastor” have now been flipped. This word order change indicates that this individual is a full-time professor/academic with a Ph.D., but is still very much engaged with the local church and with pastoral ministry. This individual is certainly ordained and may, in addition to his faculty duties, have some sort of part-time pastoral position at his church. He is actively engaged in teaching and preaching within an ecclesiastical setting.
5. The Scholar-Pastor. This individual is a full-time professor and has a real heart for the church and for pastoral ministry, but is not as actively engaged in it himself. He may be ordained, but he is not on the pastoral staff of any local congregation and probably only preaches occasionally. The main thing that defines this individual is that he gears his academic work towards the church. The church (and pastors) is his primary audience.
6. The Scholar. This individual is what one might call a pure scholar. He is interested primarily in the specifics of his academic field, and has only a secondary interest in how it might impact or be used in the church. He is probably not ordained, and does not really engage in regular ministry in the local church (beyond that of any normal member). The primary audience for his writing/research is his academic peers.
Kruger’s taxonomy is insightful. And I love how Kruger concludes his article: “We need good pastors more than ever. And thus we need good seminary professors to train them.”
I have been operating somewhere between options 4 and 5 in Kruger’s spectrum, and now I am transitioning to a combination of options 3 and 4. It has taken me about thirty years to figure this out! When I was 14 years old, I thought God was calling me to be a pastor, and my pastors encouraged me to pursue pastoral training. So I went to a Bible college. As I studied Greek and Hebrew and theology, I became conflicted: Should I be a pastor or a professor? I kept coming to a fork in the road in which I could be a pastor or an academic, and I kept choosing the more academic option each step of the way. Before Tim Tomlinson and Brian Tabb invited me to join Bethlehem’s faculty in 2013, I was finally about to become a full-time pastor. But what sealed the decision for me to come to Bethlehem is that John Piper and Tom Steller told me that I wouldn’t have to choose between being a pastor or a professor. I could be both. And they would want me to be both. This was a dream come true.
Reflection 2. It is good for seminary professors to be pastors as they train pastors.
It’s not necessary for seminary professors to also be pastors. But it can be beneficial. That’s why some seminaries require all of their professors to have extensive pastoral experience (e.g., our friends at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary).
On the one hand, Pastor Mark Jones wisely cautions that it’s very difficult to excel simultaneously at being a pastor and a professor (think options 1 and 6 in Kruger’s taxonomy above). It’s good for pastors to focus on being pastors and for scholars to focus on being scholars.
On the other hand, it is possible for some men to responsibly serve as both a pastor and a professor, and that can be a win-win for the church and the academy. In 2015, someone asked Dr. Tom Schreiner, “For the past 17 years you’ve served as both a professor and a pastor. Have they worked together well? Any pitfalls or downsides?” Schreiner replied,
When you’re doing both, you’re stretched in terms of time, so I suppose that’s a pitfall. But I think pastoral ministry may be the best thing I ever did because nothing has helped me as a professor in the classroom more than being a pastor in a church. My academic work, which has helped me interpret the New Testament, has been vital for my local church ministry, but it was through pastoring that I began to see how what I was doing in the classroom relates to ministry and which things I should emphasize. I would say pastoring is the best thing I ever did for my teaching.
At Southern Seminary we are encouraged to be very involved in our churches, and many professors are pastors. All our professors have a commitment to be vitally involved in the local church with all its faults and weaknesses—and the church exposes our faults and weaknesses as well. The church is immensely valuable for the classroom.
The same is true for Bethlehem’s professors who train pastors. We are all involved in our churches, and many of us are also pastors.
Earlier this year Tom Schreiner told me that he loved being the primary preaching pastor for his church for about twenty years. When I asked him to elaborate on that a bit and to give me advice if I were to do something similar, he told me this (which I’m including here with his permission): “I absolutely loved doing it! It was the best thing I ever did as a seminary professor. It gave me a pastoral dimension in my teaching that I think has been invaluable. The main advice is to set limits to what you can do.”
Five action words summarize how I fulfill the mission to make disciples: research, write, teach, preach, and shepherd. All five are important, and the more I mature in any one area helps me mature in the other four areas. It is good for seminary professors to be pastors as they train pastors.
Reflection 3. Pastor-professors labor to build up Christ’s church.
I wrote about this ten years ago in an article titled “Three Reflections on Evangelical Academic Publishing.” Here are the three reflections: (1) Evangelical scholarship is a gift to evangelicals for which they should be grateful. (2) Evangelical academics should aim to be academically responsible more than being academically respectable. (3) Evangelical scholarship is ultimately about glorifying God by serving Christ’s church.
A pure scholar (option 6 in Kruger’s taxonomy above) can glorify God with his scholarship to build up Christ’s church. But writing scholarly tomes and articles for academically prestigious publishers is not the only way for evangelical academics to glorify God. Another way is to write more accessible works that people without advanced formal training can understand. An evangelical academic may be able to do that good work even better when he is a faithful and fruitful pastor who knows, feeds, leads, and protects God’s sheep.
In 1979 when Professor John Piper was wrestling with whether to focus on academia or pastoring, he felt an irresistible call to preach and pastor. While I am not choosing between being either a pastor or a professor, I resonate with how John Piper felt back in 1979: I don’t simply want to analyze God; I want to adore him with expository exultation. I don’t simply want to ponder God; I want to proclaim him. I don’t simply want to scrutinize God’s meticulous sovereignty; I want to herald it.
Andy Naselli
Professor of Systematic Theology and New Testament
Prayer Requests:
- Pray that God would do more than we can ask or think as we prepare to plant Christ the King Church.
- Pray that God would use our seminary professors to prepare our seminarians to be faithful and fruitful churchmen.
- Pray that God would use all of our professors to prepare our students to be faithful and fruitful men and women.
- Pray for our incoming students as they participate in Welcome Week starting Monday with move-in.
- Pray for our returning students as they return to Minnesota and prepare for classes to begin.
- Pray for our staff and faculty as they make final preparations for the beginning of the school year.
- Pray for the full funding of the Alex Steddom International Student Fund, supporting in-country seminary education.