Monday, June 07, 2010

New Course: Calling to Ministry

At Crossway College, I'm nominally down to teach a new module called "Calling to Ministry" and the descriptor is as follows:

Ministry, Call to PM 104
Discovering your True Calling

This course will be required for degree students (B.Min, B.Th, M.Div). The purpose is to exhaustively examine the nature of the call to ministry. It will slowly but surely weed out the ministerial candidates who have a messianic complex. Such students will be isolated until only one student is recognized as the true Messiah. This group will then be provided with the necessary assistance to form their own cult and escapees from the group will then be studied by a cohort of psychologists and sociologists. Those hearing a voice from God (or in some cases "voices" plural) will be referred to the appropriate psychiatric care and given a white coat with no sleeves and a nice soft cosey room made entirely of rubber. The remaining students who continue on the course will engage in a "boot camp" learning environment with several arduous tests designed to see if their sense of call endures under intense suffering and mockery. The camp will include immunity contests and one student will be voted off the course every week until only one remains. This champion student will then be given a mega church to pastor where his or her immense ego will lead the church into a new period prosperity or inaugurate an ecclesial apocalypse. Students surviving with some self-esteem in tact will be perfectly suited to being ineffective pastors and will be farmed out to denominations that we don't really like. There is no exam and all assessment is competency based. Applications to be received no later that 15 July.

5 comments:

Ben Myers said...

I love it!

Phillip Gration said...

ouch

Alison B said...

I'd love to know what was the thinking that prompted this one! Is there a course with a vaguely similar title starting ... or are you simply testing the waters to see if there's a tv contract out there for aspiring producers?

John Davies said...

But how will I know if I am called to take this course?

Alan said...

Have you sent this to Mark Driscoll?