tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2978485750390455025.post4735260216545143755..comments2023-05-25T07:17:05.918-04:00Comments on Abide in My Word: A Plan to Save the SeminariesRev. Thomas C. Messer, SSPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13740553600700598394noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2978485750390455025.post-10594195930090666722012-09-11T12:51:10.966-04:002012-09-11T12:51:10.966-04:00Thanks for this article, Pastor. As one who has c...Thanks for this article, Pastor. As one who has considered seminary and is in a similar situation (I have four kids), I really appreciate your candor. The price of seminary is so outrageous that it almost seems unethical to me. How do you think this contributes to the temptation of pastors to use birth control or obtain vasectomies? If you look at the profs at the sems and the presidents of our synod, you'll find very few that have larger families. Surely the Lord opens and closes the womb, but it would be quite a coincidence for this to all be natural. In light of Pres. Harrison's admonition for us in the synod to be fruitful and multiply, do you think that the seminaries are having a negative impact in this regard? Thanks again for the article and hope you see this a year and a half later!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02292780568274032229noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2978485750390455025.post-29035090880038993242011-02-27T23:04:02.349-05:002011-02-27T23:04:02.349-05:00I think few things made me more bitter at the Semi...I think few things made me more bitter at the Seminary than dealing with financial aid. . . not because I wouldn't have gladly paid what I ended up paying, but because what I got didn't match up to the promises I got.<br /><br />I was in the days of the tuition guarantee - my tuition would be covered... so two weeks after I graduated college I was up at the Sem to take Latin and Hebrew -- and then was told that *summer* tuition isn't covered. After I got there. And the response was, "Well, just take out a loan" -- but I couldn't, because it was still technically the previous academic year... and I hadn't filled out a fasfa for that year.<br /><br />Of course, I also found out that the $2500 scholarship I had won was applied to my tuition guarantee (so it made absolutely no financial difference to me whether I won it or not)... again, after I got there.<br /><br />I have no problem writing letters to scholarship boards for what they send to the company store... but let me know what is up before I get there so I can plan accordingly. It was the reality being so far off from the expectation that annoyed me... and it wasn't as though I *wouldn't* have come if I had known what was coming... I just would have prepared differently.<br /><br />But this is what your Seminaries start doing when they are abandoned by the Synod in terms of cash.Rev. Eric J Brownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17747919365522145094noreply@blogger.com