Are the Requirements Unreasonable?

One would think that I would be accustomed to critical words about the MFCA program, but when an individual who I was meeting for the first time, without even being asked, said that he had a very poor impression of the MFCA I was surprised and taken aback. I thought I was in a region where the former TEA and now MFCA had a good reputation – after all, we had always served the churches there well.

This individual was somewhat new to the RCA and has responsibility for new church starts and revitalization and has faced the challenge of identifying gifted candidates to lead these ministries. For him, it was difficult to find such individuals and he believed that it discouraged good candidates when they were told about the requirements to become an ordained minister in the RCA. As a matter of fact, he implied it made his job next to impossible.

When I asked the individual what caused such a negative impression I soon realized that it is a new day and the expectations of the church continue to change and even though this person was educated with a doctoral degree, I quickly learned that he believed our requirements which were heavily steeped with academics, were too great and beyond reason. He communicated that he did not consider a masters degree necessary for a person to be qualified for ministry and that the Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) requirement and the RCA courses were unnecessary “hoops and hurdles” for those who were ready to be engaged in fruitful ministry.

My response, while trying not to get too defensive, is that the MFCA and its requirements serve an important purpose. Take the CPE requirement for instance; I know very few people who would not benefit significantly from a unit of CPE. There are some people who should not enter ministry without CPE because there are issues and formational pieces they should experience before they can adequately function in ministry and CPE intentionally provides those. Although CPE does not guarantee that all the crucial issues will get dealt with, the chance for successful ministry goes up immensely when a unit has been successfully completed.

I can confidently say that 95% of those who have completed a unit of CPE have found it helpful and would not have wanted to do without it. I can also say that almost a third of the candidates report that CPE was the most important thing in their preparation and they could not imagine doing ministry without having done a unit. More and more candidates are choosing a second unit or a year long residency.

Our requirements aim to prepare the best possible ministers and in some ways they protect both the candidate and the church from disatrous ministry experiences in the future. Adding criminal background checks, requiring sexual ethics seminars, and expecting anti-racism training are all attempts to protect us from catastrophies in ministry. Providing safeguards by educating people in a good exegetical practices, acquainting them with Church history so they learn where and how the mistakes were made in the past make for better prepared and wise pastors. Placing people in systems of accountability and connecting them to solid traditions and practices avoid sects and individuals who distort reality and hurt people as oppossed to healing them.

I believe we are doing good work in the RCA and even though there is always room for improvement and change, it is also important to set standards that help raise the bar and produce qualified leaders.