This post arises out of a unique journey of mine. Believe it or not, I am actually enrolled in 4 seminaries at the moment, pursuing my Masters of Divinity (M.Div) at all of them! Okay, before I qualify that statement, I am actually only taking courses at one of the four seminaries, but I still have student numbers at all of the other ones.
Let me briefly explain my journey, and then I’ll do a brief and preliminary comparative analysis between three out of the four seminaries.
After my undergrad, and right after getting married, my wife and I planned to move back to Vancouver to enroll at Regent College to pursue my M.Div. As a result, that summer in 2006, I began taking classes via correspondence. However, through God’s providence, my wife and I actually ended up moving to Montreal to take a Youth Pastor position at River’s Edge Community Church. While living in Montreal and serving as a youth pastor, I kept on taking courses at Regent College. A year later in 2007, I decided to transfer over to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston because I figured I couldn’t complete my degree through correspondence with Regent. So upon enrolling at Gordon-Conwell, I began driving from Montreal to Boston weekly to take classes. I would leave on Tuesday morning, drive 6 hours, take 1 course, sleep on campus, wake up the next day and take another course, then drive another 6 hours back to Montreal for Wednesday evening. I did that for a semester, and became very tired! So I did correspondence courses the next semester while learning how to church plant at River’s Edge. Figuring I couldn’t do another semester of driving, I decided to enroll at Tyndale Seminary in Toronto because they had an M.Div program for individuals in ministry, which would only require me to travel to campus once a week. And since I had family in Toronto, it was going to be easier. So I enrolled and finished off my Greek through correspondence. Afterwards, in 2008, through much discernment, my wife and I decided to move out to Seoul, Korea to be pastors at Onnuri English Ministry; as a result, I decided to transfer to Torch Trinity Graduate School of Theology here in Korea to finish up my M.Div (it’s an English graduate school in Korea).
Wow! That was long. Anyway, that’s my journey through 4 different seminaries. As much as you might laugh at my journey or think it’s amusing to consider how many hours I actually spent applying and getting accepted into each of these seminaries, there has actually been a great benefit to being at all 4 of them – I can offer first-hand advice and critiques as to the differences between the seminaries.
So I’m going to attempt to make a brief and preliminary (and by no means exhaustive) comparative analysis between the M.Div program in 3 out of the 4 seminaries: Regent (Canada), Gordon-Conwell (USA), and Torch (Korea).
Side notes: I do not know enough about Tyndale to comment. Also, I don’t like emphasizing the negatives, so I’ll write out the unique strengths of each institution! 😀
Regent College (Vancouver, Canada)
- Community
- Professors
- Name-value
- Holistic and culturally engaging types of courses
- Able to take correspondence courses, and even campus courses with the likes of J.I. Packer, Eugene Peterson, Gordon Fee, Bruce Waltke etc.
- Balance between ministry and biblical studies/theology in the M.Div curriculum
- Summer program
- Conferences
Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (South Hamilton (Boston), USA)
- Professors
- Name-value
- The variety and sheer amount of courses you can take (For your degree, you can take courses at Harvard, Boston University, etc.)
- Tradition and ecumenicism
- Conferences
- Mentored Ministry
Torch Trinity Graduate School of Theology (Seoul, Korea)
- International student population (There are students from all over the world studying in Korea to be trained and released back to their native countries – i.e. Nigeria, Iraq, India, China, South Africa, Kazakhstan, Philippines, Canada, USA, etc.)
- International Faculty (Professors from different backgrounds with different academic and ministry expertise)
- Personable professors
- Conferences
- Strong Missions Focus (especially with Korea being a massive missionary sending nation)
- Cheap tuition
- Asian-American Visiting Professors (Peter Cha, Paul Lim, Julius Kim, etc.)
Are you going to seminary? If so, what are the strengths of your school?
If you are considering seminary, what kind of questions do you have?
Follow up (Jan 19, 2011) – After writing this post, I thought I’d follow up with where I’m at now – Check out my post “Why I ditched the M.Div…and am still a pastor.”
Question #1. What is your doctrinal affiliation if any? I’ve gotta know what the bias is, not necessarily to be critical but so I know what I can expect.
Question #2. Why should I come to your school? A fair question considering the cost of tuition.
Question #3. What is goal of all of your programs? What is the end result you look for in a graduating student?
Question #4. What makes you different from school x, y, or z? And why do you think that difference is important?
Question #5 How are you partnering with school x,y,z or organization x,y, or z, to exert your influence, and use the gifted people gathered here in the community?
Seriously, the main reason I think I’m avoiding seminary is because I have yet to find something I’m good at professionally. I’ve gotta be good at something else before I consider that I could be good at direct involvement in a leadership ministry. I’ve got to prove to myself that ministry is not a fall back but a necessary call, to which I have a legitimate alternative to.
1. Amazing question – if this question isn’t asked, then you can get into trouble.
2. That’s why it’s important to know the strengths of each school.
3. For an M.Div – usually pastoral ministry, since it’s a professional degree, rather than an academic degree.
4. That’s possibly a question that can only be answered honestly by yourself, through examining each school yourself.
5. Great question! That’s why it’s good to always ask graduated students, professors, and current students their opinion on the school and how it trained them and prepared them.
To be a pastor, you need a calling. If people enter seminary or enter ministry as a fall back, they will not only hurt themselves, but they’ll also hurt others in the process. Having said all that, I personally wouldn’t wish to do anything else in the world – hence the calling. Blessings on the discernment and journey of discovering the things that God would have for you. I recommend the book – Courage and Calling.
Interesting stuff.
wow, weird confluence of worlds here. Jim, if you are still following this conversation, how do you know Daniel/ how did you find this conversation?
Daniel, Jim is one of my good friends from Hawaii (Chris from the MAGL, I got here through your latest tweet)
Hey Chris,
That’s awesome! hahaha what a small world.
I’m pretty sure Jim just ended up on this site randomly 🙂
Hey Daniel,
Funny I happened on your website as Hyojung and I are considering staying in Korea for another year instead of going to Taiwan. I already got into Trinity and wanted to see what the Lord might be speaking to us/me about my next steps. I realized that I might want to get more training again in ministry and thus my inquisitiveness back into Torch.
Quick question, what do you think of the spiritual formation aspects from Torch Trinity’s program? I know their MDiv’s emphasis is either more missiological and/or pastoral.
Hope you guys are doing well back in Canada! And also CONGRATS on the news. Can’t believe you guys are getting right back into the baby game.
Hey Bryant!
Thanks for sharing what’s happening with you guys. We were hoping to have our kids close to one another, so here we are. haha 🙂 At least we’re back in Canada and we don’t need to pay for any of the delivery costs.
In terms of spiritual formation at Torch…well, they definitely take it into their own hands and have purposely worked it into the MDiv curriculum. You have mandatory spiritual formation courses every semester for your entire degree. That’s not usually the norm in average Mdiv programs. Having said that, spiritual formation is really something that needs to be developed internally. So, with the right attitude, the spiritual formation courses can be good, but with the wrong attitude, they can be a drag.
Blessings!
Nice. I found your article very useful…and you are very qualified to write it since you have been in so many places! Thanks for the evaluation!
Thanks Professor Rata. It’s great to hear from you and to be able to follow you on Facebook.
Hi Daniel,
I’m Jevon from Indonesia. I graduated from a law school here and I’m actually considering Torch Trinity for M.Div. I can’t blv that I bumped into this article you posted 7 years ago and found this is very helpful.
I’m not sure if you are still following the school, but I believe you can help me to get to know Torch Trinity. Could you please enlighten me more about your experience in the school by answering the following questions?
1. How strong and deep the theology study is? Do they promote prosperity theology?
2. How relevant is their teaching in today’s ministry? Do they sing songs from Hillsong or Planetshakers in student chapel? What instruments do they use?
3. How much does it cost per semester to study and live? I couldn’t find this information on their website.
4. How good is the English of your professors and your fellow classmates (esp. those from non English speaking country like Korea)?
5. How personable the professors are? Could you please give an example based on your experience?
6. Are you still in touch with the school from Angel Project or other way?
7. Does Torch Trinity have a branch outside Korea?
I look forward to receiving your reply.
Regards,
Jevon
Hi Jevon, It’s good to hear from you. I’d love to help anyway that I can. Currently, I’m living in the States, but I’ll answer what I can. I would suggest you to contact the school yourself though.
1. No they don’t promote prosperity theology. This is a strongly conservative evangelical school.
2. When I was there, they were relevant and they didn’t have an old school approach.
3. Call them.
4. The professors who would teach in the English program all spoke fluently. Most of my other classmates were foreign born, so they spoke English very well.
5. This depends on the professor. Some function like mentors and others are strictly like professors.
6. No I’m not.
7. I don’t think so.