Josh Benner

Tag: testimony

  • What seminary taught me

    13240631_10103459013196830_6669337147853210272_nI graduated seminary two years ago today. I consider it my proudest accomplishment.

    It wasn’t easy. I chose Trinity Evangelical Divinity School because I knew it was a great school that was academically rigorous. And they did not disappoint on that front. I’ve compared it to four years worth of theological Navy SEAL training.

    I learned a lot there. Things I learned about preaching, I use every week. Training in theological and Biblical studies impacts me on a daily basis.

    I learned the importance of Church history.

    There were also many things I learned outside of the classroom from friends. Preconceptions were challenged. It was a wonderful learning experience. And I can honestly say that there are still things I still from seminary friends.

    I learned that not every disagreement needs to be a theological hill worth dying on.

    Over the last several weeks, I’ve seen a new video series on the Gospel Coalition website entitled “what seminary didn’t teach” and it includes responses from many of the leading pastors and scholars in the Evangelical world.

    I was struck by John Piper’s response. He doesn’t like that question.

    Seminary can’t teach everything. Basic training and military training can’t teach a soldier everything there is to being in a war.

    I never had a professor in seminary who gave any false notion that seminary would fully prepare a person for every aspect of ministry. It’s too complicated of a job with too many hats to wear and too many plates to keep spinning. There are an infinite number of situations and scenarios a pastor can potentially face. And those situations involve different and unique people where the appropriate response is not always the same.

    I didn’t realize how much I didn’t know when I graduated. I feel like I have continued to study and learn since my time in seminary, and I realize I’m still really just scratching the surface on studying theology and the Bible.

    I didn’t realize the impact of sin and how it ripples through a church and family.

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

  • The first time I ever went to church (10 years ago)

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    For a long time, I had considered going to church. As someone who had never gone before, religion fascinated me. As someone who was always a thinker, I always believed that there just had to be something out there. We had to have come from some sort of Surpeme Being.

    For part of high school, I had made a deal with myself that I’d start going “when I got older.” At least when I had a car, and could take myself.

    Then, one week as a senior in high school, it dawned on me, “I have a car.” And I decided to go that Sunday. That first church service was ten years ago this weekend (February 29, 2004).

    The year before, I had taken a humanities class where we spent a quarter of the year talking about the various world religions. I wanted answers. I wanted to know what was true. I was in a group that ended up getting B’ahaism (which I was pretty sure wasn’t true). I pretty much wrote off the eastern religions, because I questioned “if reincarnation were real, how are there so many more people now than there used to be?”

    Before you argue that logic, let’s just remember that I was 17.

    (more…)

  • My most important leap: 8 years (or two leap days) ago today

    My family never went to church when I was growing up. But I vividly remember, from a very young age, believing that there had to be some sort of higher power. To me, it always seemed logical.

    When I was in high school, I started to do some reading on various religions. Judaism really appealed to me. I took a humanities class where we spent a quarter going over comparative religion. It was an interesting experience. (more…)