Virginia Wesleyan College

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Publish or parish? Three anecdotes

By Craig, Wansink, Ph.D.

A young professor named Larry Welborn taught me introductory Greek in 1984 during a three-week language-intensive course in Chicago.

The experience was like taking a sip of water out of a fire hydrant: the workload was tremendous, the course was engaging, the implications of conjugations and declensions were awe-inspiring, and the professor was magnetic. It didn't surprise me to hear that he had been raised in a conservative religious tradition and that he had been a boy evangelist.

Although he had left that denomination and had become much more liberal over the years, he still communicated lessons in Greek grammar and syntax with the intensity of a fire-and-brimstone evangelist. Before we students realized how time-consuming and work-filled the study of an ancient language was, Professor Welborn had us desperately wanting to read Greek, because he had had us experience how revelatory it could be.

I knew then that I wanted to be a teacher or professor and, for the first time, I really felt - because of the revelations of Greek - that I wanted to be a minister.

Seven years later when I was completing my Ph.D. at Yale University, I was talking with an energetic student of mine from the Yale Divinity School who was unsure of what he wanted to do with his life. I thought of Prof. Welborn's abilities and his style, and I recommended that this student consider teaching biblical studies.

"You are a good speaker," I said. "You enjoy sharing exciting ideas. You use analogies well and can lead 20th century students back into the first century. The only thing I don't like about teaching (reflecting on long hours invested) is the grading." "And that only matters if you actually care about the students," he replied.

I'm grateful to say that he isn't teaching or in the parish now. However, he was right. There is a huge difference between people who like to muse about interesting ideas or talk in public, and those who are effective pastors and teachers.

For those who work with youth in church settings, one of the catchphrases of the last decade has been, "Youth don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care." As I look in retrospect, those teachers and pastors who shaped me the most could have been successful in a wide variety of fields, but they had chosen a vocation characterized by caring. They cared about - and showed respect for - their discipline or calling; they sincerely cared about others; and they seemed to recognize, from personal experience, what difference one person could make in a student's or parishioner's life.

The one touchstone to which I regularly return in understanding my roles as professor or pastor comes from a classroom incident almost 14 years ago. A professor of classics was trying to encourage a group of us students, as we were attempting to read a damaged ancient Greek text. Parts of the text had worn away. Bugs had eaten some of this ancient document. Words were missing. Sentences were not complete. The text was in Greek. And everyone was frustrated.

"It is tough reading; it is fragmentary," the professor said about the document. "Our entire life is fragmentary. Do not become enraged at what is difficult or oblique. You, too, are difficult, oblique and equally worth the effort."

It isn't always clear why students go into professions like teaching or the ministry. Sometimes - maybe because I am a minister - I do hope that it has to do with an awareness of grace. During late nights of grading papers or writing sermons, they may feel strengthened by those persons in their own past who may have felt that they were difficult and oblique, but still worth the effort.

Craig Wansink, Ph.D., professor of religious studies at Virginia Wesleyan, is also the parish associate minister at Second Presbyterian Church, Norfolk.