5 Things I Learned in Seminary: Spouses Edition

Recently a good friend of ours wrote a blog entitled “5 Things I learned in Seminary.”  It was a good read and a number of my seminary friends re-posted it with remarks of “Agree!” and “Yes!” and “This!”  The one and only place that you’ll find seminary students using such brief descriptive terms will of course be on Facebook.  Because outside of the realm of social media, seminary students love nothing more than to engage in a discussion over the nuanced differences between process theology and open theism and the exact nature of N.T. Wright’s view on post modernity.  If I’ve lost you already, then you are most decidedly NOT a seminary spouse, but if you are still tracking, hang on for my version of the “5 Things I Learned in Seminary: Spouses Edition.”

Expect Transition

When we first moved to Wilmore, Kentucky so my husband could pursue his Master of Divinity in order to eventually serve in full-time pastoral ministry, I knew that we would face a lot of changes.  We had to move from our family and friends in Pennsylvania into a new community of strangers and students.  We sold our house and moved into a family-housing unit.  We left our church and had to visit more than a few to find a fit.  We started classes and found new jobs and new dentists and new restaurants and new hangouts.  And I expected all that.  What came as a big surprise is the transitory nature of a graduate school program, especially one in which families live together in a community.  With each semester break, we have to say good-bye to strangers who have become friends and students who have become graduates and in the same breath, welcome a whole new group of fresh-faced, expectant newbies beginning their own transition.  My fair warning to all families considering this move is to be aware of this constant ebb and flow and make your family, especially your kids aware before you take the plunge.  This isn’t to say you should build those friendships and lean into the community; those things are vital to a full experience, but know that part of your friendship is that you will one day need to pick up the phone or send off an email to keep that relationship alive.  You will also have friends all over the country and, if it’s anything like Asbury, all over the world.  Treasures not to be taken lightly.

Expect Community

As alluded to in my previous post, simply by transplanting your life and family to the location of your school, you will find yourself a part of a new community made up of fellow students, respected professors, and seminary staff.  Bonded by a common goal and united by location and time, you have the extraordinary chance to become part of a

unique group of people you may otherwise have never crossed paths with in your lifetime.  Your children can play with kids from all over the globe.  You can share meals with friends from Singapore, Puerto Rico and Korea all in one night.  You can make travel plans to pretty much anywhere in America and have doors opened and rooms available for your stay.  You can have community in the full sense of the word.  OR… you can not.  There are seminarians who for whatever reason (personality, scholarly pursuits, physical limitations) who are either unable or unwilling to participate in this kind of community.  But my experience as a spouse is that the community is one of great blessing for both encouragement and commiseration and one that I have been especially blessed to participate in.  Asbury has done an incredible job at building that community and giving spouses a unique opportunity to be a part of the seminary environment even if they are not taking classes.

Expect to be left out of most conversations

“What did you think about what Collins said about the Nestorian controversy?”  If you are lost already, welcome to my life.  Because the students go to class together and see the same professors together and have the same attraction to all things biblical and historical and Greek together, you can imagine the conversations that take place when they all get in a room together.  I love my husband and I love his fellow seminarians but when they start talking, I start walking.  I have neither the interest nor the knowledge to participate in these conversations.  Unlike them I do not walk into the homes of others and immediately set to examining the books upon the shelves (and speaking of bookshelves, this place is like bookshelf heaven – I think a shelf maker could make a fortune here even if all he did was sell dirt cheap bookshelves of various sizes).  When we have friends over for dinner, I strive to ensure there will be a spouse in attendance that I can talk to about such things as oh, the weather and current events.  Because I love my husband and his friends, as stated earlier, I have acquainted myself with the context of many of the buzzwords like “exegesis” and “hypostasis” and “IBS” (which is NOT what you think it is) so that I can jump in every now and then sound like I belong.  Then I go for a walk.

Expect to be alone sometimes

Finals week in seminary is pretty much the most stressful environment I’ve ever been in.  I’m sure this is true of every graduate school although I don’t know of many where the families all live in a community within walking distance of the library and classrooms and where the collective whole of the community is engaged in a precarious balance of intense studying and paper writing while continuing in the normal child-rearing, money-making aspects of life.  You can quite literally feel the blood pressure of the entire community raise as the semester comes to a close.  Students are not seen; they are behind doors or at the library, pouring over books and notes and Greek verbs and sermon outlines.  The spouses are not seen either; they are hiding in corners, praying fervently to God for finals week to be over and for salvation to come.  Okay, so it’s not that bad.   Or is it?  In all seriousness, if you are the spouse of a graduate students, you have to expect to be alone many times during the semester as papers get written, books get read and vocabulary gets learned.  It’s not always easy because the normal demands of life that you usually face together, you have to face on your own.   It’s better to go in eyes wide open and hearts steeped in prayer than to think you’ll be in it together at every bend.  There are times where you will simply need to say, “Godspeed.  I’ll see you on the other side.”

Expect “Greater Things” are yet to come

As Randy said in his blog post, “Seminary is meant to be temporary and it is meant to be a blessing. But it is not where you are supposed to stay.”  This amazing time of

community and growth is meant to be a step to something greater, something far more meaningful.  Whether your plan is to continue on to a Ph. D. and one day be the professor training the students or if, like us, you plan to use your degree to grow the church and minister to a world in need, the greatest things will come not here, but after you leave and use the tools you have been given.  When you as a spouse can stand beside your seminarian graduate and serve together in a church, a mission field, a community and see people come to Christ, see lives changed by His power and see families healed by His love; when you can send out disciples to be disciple-makers and when you can train up a future generation to answer their call; when those things happen, you will know that the “greater things” can’t be measured in degrees or credits but in souls and lives.  And while this may be one step on the journey, it is not the end.  Greater things are yet to come.

If you'd like to read Randy's original post, click here

http://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/5213/5-things-i-learned-in-seminary