Why Bible Knowledge Alone Does Not Prepare You for Ministry
Jackson Stanfield, center, writes about his experience of ministry preparation at Nashville Bible College.
Taking the long drive from Michigan to Nashville, Tennessee, I was filled with anticipation. I came from a background of intellectual study of Scripture, so I wasn't wondering whether Nashville Bible College would teach me the Bible. I wanted to know how it would prepare me to take what I knew and actually use it in ministry.
I was not disappointed.
Studying Scripture is essential preparation for ministry. But ministry also requires learning to pray, work, serve, understand people, and live faithfully alongside them. Biblical knowledge is meant to shape how we live.
That is one of the things I have begun to understand during my time at Nashville Bible College.
Emma Lyons has taken her biblical education mission to El Salvador, Uganda, and now Taiwan. The crossover between learning and doing is a feature at Nashville Bible College.
Learning to Apply Biblical Knowledge
Nashville Bible College combines biblical education with community service, professional development, and international missions experiences. These give students opportunities to apply what they are learning in contexts outside the classroom.
Students may serve locally in places such as senior housing communities and food pantries or travel internationally to countries such as the Philippines, El Salvador, or Uganda.
The classroom also provides opportunities to think through real problems. In courses such as Ministerial Skills, students consider challenges communities face and discuss how ministry leaders might respond to them.
Tyler Worlow, Temur Raykhonov, and Max Harvey serve in East Africa doing road side clean up for a community in need.
Understanding the People You Serve
Professors also emphasize the importance of understanding the history and context of our faith.
In History of Christianity, I learned that prominent missionaries did not minister without considering the culture, language, traditions, and religions of the people they encountered.
Paul gives us an example in Acts 17. Speaking in Athens, he references an altar “TO AN UNKNOWN GOD” and even quotes Athenian poets as he explains the God they do not yet know. Paul knew the truth he wanted to communicate, but he also paid attention to the people he was communicating it to.
For someone preparing for ministry, that distinction matters. Knowing Scripture and knowing the people you hope to serve should not be separated.
But ministry preparation goes even deeper than cultural understanding, travel experience, or historical awareness. It requires a life increasingly shaped by Christ. At NBC, I have experienced this in some surprisingly ordinary places.
NBC wants to help all students learn how to pray, which happens through practice. Morning prayer is expected of all college housing. Evening prayer and worship nights also punctuate our calendar regularly.
1.Prayer: Knowing God, Not Just Knowing About Him
Even with all the biblical knowledge we receive through classes and chapel, morning prayer has become a place where the pressure of deadlines and the stress of time management disappear.
Through testimonies, music, prayer, and intercession, I have time simply to know God. It prepares my mind to receive what I am learning, but it also prepares my heart for God's people—which is the true purpose of ministry.
Studying God cannot replace spending time with him.
2. Work: Representing Christ Without a Sermon
Through ProDev, students sometimes work in environments where the name of Christ may rarely be mentioned. In those environments, it becomes even more important to live in a way that reflects Christ through our actions.
Courses such as Introduction to Community Development have challenged me to think about exceptional service within my work alongside the theological truths I am learning in class.
That has helped me understand another part of ministry preparation: representing the character of Christ to people I may never have the opportunity to preach to.
3. Even Cleaning Can Teach You to Serve
One of the most unexpected lessons for me has come through something much less impressive: cleaning assignments.
I overlooked the significance of this during my previous college experience in Michigan. After arriving in Nashville, however, I began to see the connection between caring for a shared environment and caring for the people who share it with you.
Ministry means respecting the people serving alongside you. One simple way to do that is to respect shared spaces and take responsibility for them.
It led me to begin asking myself a basic question: If Jesus were physically in the room with me, would he approve of how I was caring for it?
Cleaning a room may seem far removed from preparing a sermon or studying theology. But learning to serve people in ordinary ways may be some of the most practical ministry preparation we receive.
Orientation and retreat weeks help us refocus on the God who calls each student and staff member into ministry, and helps complement classroom knowledge.
Preparing a Whole Person for Ministry
At Nashville Bible College, professors, students, and RAs encourage excellence in areas of life that may not initially seem connected to biblical education.
I am beginning to understand why.
The knowledge we gain is not the end goal.
Ministry requires going into communities at home and abroad, but it also requires learning how to live and work faithfully among the people around us. Biblical knowledge should affect how we understand people, how we approach our work, how we pray, how we serve, and even how we care for a room someone else will use after us.
My question when I drove from Michigan to Nashville was how a Bible college would prepare me practically for ministry.
I'm discovering that some of the answer comes from the classroom. Some comes from prayer. Some comes from work. Some comes from serving other people. And apparently, some of it even comes from cleaning.
All of it is teaching me the same thing: what I know about Christ should increasingly shape the way I live.
