Web Extra: A 21st Century Pastor

When Chris Thacker entered seminary three years ago, he felt called by God to do something, but wasn't at all sure what that would be. Seminary just seemed the next logical step.
Graduating from George W. Truett Theological Seminary in December with his master of divinity, Thacker knows what he wants to do and he's ready, after eight years of undergraduate and graduate work, "to get off the JV," as he says "and begin pastoring a church."
That clarity didn't come to Thacker, though, until last summer, which he spent fulfilling the pastoral ministry component of Truett's MDiv requirements. Seminarians spend three months in the field in either a church or nonprofit service agency focusing on a specific area of interest. They work closely with the pastor or executive director during the mentorship. It earns students 12 hours of credit and provides them with real-life experience in practical, firsthand ministry.
Thacker chose Dayspring Baptist Church in Waco, where he and his wife, Jessica, are members, so he could work with its pastor, Burt Burleson, BA '80. He focused on planning and creating an artistic worship experience and crafting and delivering sermons. "My focus was on what goes into preparing this 11 to 12 o'clock time on Sunday morning," Thacker says. "I've seen it done in a way that it is both ancient and future, and I felt Burt knew how to do this."
The 25-year-old seminary student had a lot of guidance. In addition to a supervising professor and the director of the mentoring program at Truett, Thacker worked with a committee of lay leaders from Dayspring that gave him direction.
"They offered encouragement, feedback, constructive criticism on what they saw in me as a person, as a Christian and as a pastor in training," Thacker says. "There's really no way to evaluate yourself in that situation without listening to all those voices from the community. That was invaluable."
An in those three months, there came a point when Thacker knew what he was meant to do. "I guess it's like saying, when did you know you wanted to marry the one you do. The thought came to me, if I do anything else I won't be nearly as happy as if I do this," he says.
He is not, however, naïve about the challenges before him. Membership figures for mainline Protestant churches have been in decline for the past two decades, as have the numbers of those choosing to become clergy. Generations X and Y are much less interested in the denomination or the institution than they are in reaching people for Christ -- and they don't often find both in one building. 
Thacker, who grew up in a traditional, small-town Methodist church until he joined a Baptist church's active youth group, has seen the best of both types of worship experiences. "I had this experience of a mainline Methodist church that taught me reverence," he says "And then the Baptist church taught me about a closeness I could have with God, the fact that God is near and approachable."
In his "ideal" church, Thacker hopes to blend those elements. "It would be a church that is able to appreciate that which is ancient and historic about our faith, and yet at the same time, be able to enter into our culture and be on the leading edge of new trends and thought that are out there."
Finding and sustaining that balance is a difficult task for today's pastor, and a challenge for the seminaries that train them. As more pulpits of small mainline churches go empty, seminaries are charged with preparing pastors to fill them. Yet, the typical 23-year-old entering today's seminaries identifies more with an experiential rather than ritualistic worship experience. It's a dichotomy that concerns Thacker. "There's a high percentage of established churches that exist today that won't exist in 25 years," he says. "If we're continually training seminary students to be a part of those small mainline churches, but not giving them the information about how the culture around them is changing, then they're not going to be able to help those established churches survive.
"This isn't about overhauling what songs they sing," he adds. "It's about helping those churches understand they've got to be relevant when the world around them is telling them they have nothing to contribute anymore."
And yet, Thacker says he "can't give up on this thing that taught me my faith," i.e., his mainline church experience. So, he struggles with finding the balance for both approaches -- a struggled that epitomizes the challenge of the 21st century pastor.
"There's that part of me that says the seminary has to continue to teach students that the church is so much bigger than their generation and their preferences," he says. "It has to encourage them to not leave behind those people who are never going to be able to sustain a church when the world around them is so different than they are."