"Why Westminster?" (part 3 of 3)

Teresa and I applied to 3 seminaries before deciding to attend Westminster (see earlier posts for which ones we considered). The applications themselves were pretty time-consuming given the fact that we were working at the time and serving as volunteer youth directors at Rock Chinese Church. Between work, church, ministry, family, and friends, we somehow squeezed in seminary apps also! The applications were straightforward:

1. Provide info about personal and ministry history
2. Write an essay about how we became followers of Christ and how that affects us today. Also discuss why we want to go to seminary and what we think God wants us to do afterwards
3. Collect letters of recommendations. All schools required at least one from our pastor. One school had about 5 recommendation forms, including one from our spouse. One school only needed 2.
4. Apply for financial aid. This turned out to be more work than we expected. In many cases, we had to repeat steps 1-3 above.
   

Teresa was a big help in this whole process- collecting and filling out forms for both of us!

We applied to 3 schools: Phoenix, Southern, and Westminster.

We chose Westminster for several reasons. They all ended up starting with the letter "S" for some reason....

1. SAME THEOLOGICAL OUTLOOK FOR ALL CLASSES
Westminster is based on the Westminster Confession (http://www.pcanet.org/general/cof_chapi-v.htm), which goes into considerable detail on Christian beliefs. There are some statements on the nature of God's word, God's power to choose who will be saved, etc... that are not accepted by all Christians. While any system of theology is man's attempt to understand what God's Word says, we agree with the vast majority of the confession and see its value in giving some consistency to theological training. We don't expect to enter a classroom to have one prof contradict what was said by another one.

One seminary we looked at had a very generic statement of faith, and this allows for a greater diversity of views. This has the benefit of giving students greater exposure to different ideas within evangelical Christianity. However, professors may take different positions on different points of doctrine. So, a student may go to one class hearing one thing and then go to another class and hear something completely different. Students are then left to pick and choose which doctrines they like or which ones they don't.

2. STRENGTH IN THE LANGUAGES
Westminster believes very strongly in training up "specialists in the Bible", so it requires 3 semesters of Greek and 3 semesters of Hebrew so that graduates will be equipped to read God's Word in its original languages. This means fewer classes in other areas, though. We felt that other subjects can be learned in-depth by reading good books (e.g. church history). It's not as easy to pick up a book on Biblical Hebrew and teach yourself.

3. SPOUSAL SCHOLARSHIP
Westminster has a 2-for-1 deal if you are married. The spousal tuition waiver means that spouses get to go for free! Teresa still had to apply and get accepted to her MDiv counseling program. But once she did, she is able to take as many classes that I'm taking.

As an added plus, Westminster is well known for training up counselors, and counseling is a field that Teresa wants to learn more about.

In summary, there are lots of great seminaries out there, and there's not a one-size-fits-all. Different seminaries are better suited for different kinds of ministries. This is the journey God led us through, and if any of you have more specific questions, do send us an email or post a question.