Nobody becomes a pastor by announcing it. A church recognizes the gifts, tests the man's life against Scripture, and sends him to be trained. This guide walks through those steps in order, with what we know from training pastors in a local church.
What a pastor actually does
The New Testament uses three words for one office. "Pastor" means shepherd, "elder" points to the maturity of the man, and "overseer" (sometimes translated "bishop") names the work of watching over a flock. Our doctrinal statement says the church has two offices, "pastors (also called 'elders' or 'bishops' in the NT) and deacons."
The work is feeding, protecting and caring for a congregation. A pastor preaches and teaches the Word. He prays with the sick, sits with the grieving, corrects the wandering gently, and trains other men to do the same (2 Tim. 2:2). Much of it is unglamorous: a hospital waiting room, a marriage that has stalled, a Sunday sermon written on Thursday night because Wednesday went to a funeral.
Paul describes the aspiration as a good one: "If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task" (1 Tim. 3:1, ESV). Wanting the work is fine. The next six steps are about what has to be true before the wanting counts for anything.
Step 1: Test the calling with your local church
Most men describe a calling as a growing weight: a desire to teach, a concern for people that will not go away, a sense that other work is not quite their work. That sense is worth taking seriously. It is not self-authenticating. A man can be wrong about his own gifts in either direction, and the Bible gives the final check to others.
Why the church, not you, confirms the gifts
Paul tells Titus to "appoint elders in every town" (Titus 1:5, ESV). Elders were appointed by the church, not by their own announcement. A pastor serves a particular congregation under particular people, so it makes sense that a congregation and its pastors are the ones who say whether the man is ready.
We hold to this in our own admissions. The M.Div. is for men called to pastoral ministry whose local church has recognized their gifts for full-time pastoral ministry. We ask for a pastoral reference letter and three letters about your spiritual life. If your pastors have not yet said you are ready, wait.
Testing is ordinary. Serve where you are needed: teach a class, lead a small group, visit the homebound, and take correction when it comes. Ask your pastors to evaluate you honestly. Over a year or two, their answer will usually become clear.
Step 2: Meet the character qualifications
Scripture gives two lists. Paul wrote one to Timothy and one to Titus, and they overlap closely, which suggests a settled standard. Read 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9 in full before you read anyone's summary of them, including ours.
An overseer "must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach" (1 Tim. 3:2, ESV). He manages his household well: "if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church?" (1 Tim. 3:5, ESV). He is not "a recent convert" (1 Tim. 3:6, ESV), and he is "well thought of by outsiders" (1 Tim. 3:7, ESV).
Titus adds a line about doctrine. The overseer "must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it" (Titus 1:9, ESV).
Only one item on these lists is a skill: the ability to teach. The rest is character and doctrine. That is why a seminary cannot produce a pastor. It can teach a man to handle the Word, but it cannot give him a quiet temper or a faithful marriage. We require students to hold to the character standards of 1 Timothy 3:1-7, and a man who does not meet them is not ready at any level of education.
Read the lists honestly, with your wife if you are married, and with a pastor who knows you. If you find a gap, that is not a verdict on your calling. It is a thing to work on, and some gaps close in a year while others take longer.
Step 3: Get the education
Scripture asks the pastor to "give instruction in sound doctrine," and nobody gives what he does not have. Some men learn the Bible and theology under the pastors of their home church over many years. Others study in a formal program. Both routes can work. The formal route compresses the study into a few years and puts it under teachers who have given their lives to it.
Bible college or seminary
A Bible college grants an undergraduate degree, and a seminary grants a graduate one. A man who feels called at eighteen usually belongs in a bachelor's program and a church that will put him to work. A man who already has a bachelor's degree, in any field, and whose church has affirmed his gifts, is ready for seminary. Several of our own faculty came to pastoral ministry from engineering or accounting.
Do you need a degree?
Scripture does not require one. Many churches do, in practice, and a number of them will not call or ordain a pastor without a master of divinity. The usual reason is that the degree shows a man has done sustained work in the biblical languages, theology and church history, and been examined on it. Before you spend three years on a degree, ask the church you hope to serve whether it expects one.
The M.Div. is the graduate degree built for the pastorate, and it is the one most churches mean when they ask for "seminary training." Ours is 86 credit hours over three years. It covers eight areas: New Testament (22 credits), Old Testament (19), Systematic Theology (13), Biblical Counseling (10), Practical Theology (9), Biblical Interpretation (5), Missions and Evangelism (5), and Church History and Christian Thought (3). There are no electives. Forty-one of the 86 credits are in the Old and New Testaments, because a man who will preach the Book needs years with the text. The Master of Divinity guide covers the degree in full, including how it compares with shorter master's degrees.
We admit men to the M.Div.
Step 4: Get supervised ministry experience
Preaching to a room is a different skill from writing about preaching. Visiting a dying man teaches what a lecture on grief cannot. A young pastor with no supervised experience learns these things on a congregation, and the congregation pays for his education.
Internships and residencies
Many seminaries and churches arrange a supervised placement, often a summer or a year, and they vary widely in how much real responsibility the intern carries. When you evaluate one, ask how many hours a week you will serve, who will watch you, and whether the church will tell you where you fall short.
The church-based alternative
We took a different approach. Our M.Div. students serve in a church for the entire three years. The church internship is "half" of the education: students are in ministry three or four days a week and in class one or two. Our internship page puts it this way: "Each student will be involved half-time in ministry and half-time in academics."
There are two ways to do it. At Faith Church, interns hold partially paid, part-time positions. A partnering church hires the student as a part-time intern for three years, provides housing and a stipend, and directs his mentoring in consultation with the seminary. Each church balances strengthening his weaknesses, using his gifts, and meeting the needs of the church. The student is learning to pastor while real people depend on him, and the men who teach him on Tuesday watch him serve on Thursday.
The church internship page has the requirements for both. The church-based seminary guide explains what this means for a family, and Practical from Day One describes the weekly rhythm.
Step 5: Learn to preach and counsel
Preaching and counseling are the two things a congregation will ask of you most often, and neither comes from a book alone. Preaching is learned by preaching, being heard, and being corrected. Counseling is learned by sitting across from a person who is hurting and opening the Bible with him.
In our curriculum, nine credits are Practical Theology and ten are Biblical Counseling. We included counseling in the pastor's degree because the people you shepherd will bring you their marriages, their grief and their sin, and a sermon alone will not carry them. Students practice both in the internship, where a pastor who has done the work for years is close at hand.
If you want to go further in counseling later, our Master of Arts in Biblical Counseling is a separate 39-credit degree that trains men and women as biblical counselors. Some pastors take it after years in the pulpit.
Step 6: Ordination and the call process
Ordination is the church's public act of recognizing and setting apart a man for pastoral ministry. The practice varies. In some churches a congregation votes after an examination by its pastors or a council of pastors from neighboring churches. In others a board of elders decides. Most examine the man's doctrine, his character, his marriage and his preaching, and some require a particular degree first.
A degree does not ordain anyone, and an ordination does not fill a pulpit. After he is affirmed, the man still needs a church to call him. Some men are called by the church where they trained. Others send a résumé and recorded sermons to a church that is looking, then go through interviews and a trial sermon, and the congregation decides.
Because practices differ, ask your own pastors early how your church ordains and what it will expect of you. Do not assume your seminary's graduation is the end of the process.
Our graduates have taken this path. Of the 102 graduates of the five M.Div. cohorts from 2007 through 2019, 24 have served as senior pastors and 49 as assistant pastors. Twelve are in other full-time ministry, seven are missionaries, and nine are in non-vocational ministry.
Step 7: Count the cost
Becoming a pastor costs money, time and some peace in the family, and it is better to count all three before you start. Jesus makes the same point about building a tower in Luke 14:28.
Money
Students in ministry or a church internship pay $2,000 a year in tuition. Students who are not pay $250 a credit hour. Over three years that is $6,000 in tuition, against $21,500 for the full 86 credits at the per-credit rate (our arithmetic; fees are separate). The seminary does not offer direct financial aid; the lower rate is available through ministry involvement. We ask that students be relatively debt-free when they enter and when they leave, because a pastor with heavy debt cannot always accept a small church. The paying for seminary guide and our tuition page break down the other fees.
Time
Plan on 50 to 60 hours a week, year-round, for three years. We ask students not to hold outside employment, except by special arrangement. That is why the internship carries housing and a stipend. If you are already serving in ministry, you may be able to enroll without the internship. We decide that case by case.
Family
Seminary falls on a household. Married students are asked for a spouse's testimony in the application. There are no formal requirements for wives. Spouses of Faith Church interns serve about 20 to 32 hours a week, depending on whether they have children. The faculty provide flexibility for marriage and children. Count that cost with your wife before you apply, not after.
How Faith Bible Seminary trains pastors
Faith Bible Seminary is a graduate-level institution and a ministry of Faith Church in Lafayette, Indiana. It began in 2007 and is accredited by the Association for Biblical Higher Education Commission on Accreditation, initially on February 20, 2019, and reaffirmed in 2024. The M.Div. meets in person at the Northend Community Center, 2000 Elmwood Ave, Lafayette. Fifty-three students were enrolled in the M.Div. in 2025-26.
Here is what to expect if you apply. We admit men to the M.Div. once every three years, and the next cohort begins in 2028. Faith Church internship applicants apply by September 1, 2027, and everyone else by July 1, 2028. You need a bachelor's degree with a 3.0 grade-point average, though up to 10 percent of a cohort may enter without the degree. You will write a personal testimony, and your pastor will write a reference. The application fee is $40.
If a church has already affirmed your gifts and you are ready to count the cost, request the 2028 cohort guide, or read the M.Div. page and how to apply. If your church has not yet affirmed you, go back to step 1. We will be here in 2028.