Ordained minister & Higher Education

I had a question a few weeks back on becoming an ordained minister. There is the easy way….pay your money and get your piece of paper…and the hard way, do the work.

The program I took was 6 months. It involved not only the pastoral counseling end of things, but is one of the only schools that is truly accredited (and I will talk about that in a minute), and not only teaches you, but tests you, and yes you have to pass the test. It isn’t cheap (the good stuff never is), but it is worth it. They preferred people with a degree already in psychology or some type of genre that included counseling, social services or medical training. This was to prevent people from doing counseling that NEED a LOT of training and a counselor themselves.

When you are an authentic ordained minister you will have to fill out monthly reports as to what your ministry is doing, and you need to pay a fee, called dues. The fee is low, it is simply for processing the reports. You not only have to be schooled, and ordained, but current on your dues to be an authentic ordained minister. In other words, if you took the courses and then never registered, filled out reports and paid your dues, you are not an ordained minister.If you paid your dues for a year , and then let them slide, you are not an ordained minister.

When you are going to use this training to perform ceremonies, counsel or work in the metaphysical field, you best know what you are doing! There is MUCH to learn and that is why REAL courses take so long. There is usually also direct interaction, in other words, it is not all completed over the internet, most schools want to evaluate YOU. Are you capable, sane, realistic? They need to know YOU. There are some totally on line authentic sources, but they are very few and far between.

Back to the accreditation part of things. Being an accredited school means that the school is registered as a higher learning institution with the US government. They had to follow certain guidelines to register. The reason is that this authenticates your “piece of paper”, it also means that the school meets all the guidelines for an institution of higher learning. It keeps people frm paying for a useless degree.

The reason the government is involved is so that a person in California can know the guidelines in his school he attends in Georgia are the same. His degree isn’t just good for a job in Georgia, it is good all over the US. It also means that you can get government loans to attend that school.Most importantly you are getting a QUALITY education. Only accredited schools can get government student loans.

The National Council for Higher Education is the governing body. There are then regional groups that oversee their areas, like the New England Association. They make sure that the school, faculty, and materials are quality, authentic, current, and that admission requirements are followed.  It is important to make sure that your school is accredited. It makes that “piece of paper” something more than a tool to start a campfire, and it allows you to transfer credits to an accredited school, otherwise when you find out your school isn’t accredited, all the work you did is wasted.

There are many “schools” out there that say they are accredited, then when you read the small print, they will say that they really aren’t. They legally have to. Seriously. It is amazing what some places will try to get away with. Make sure that they don’t have in the small print, that they really aren’t accredited in Washington. You will see that frequently. They are hoping people won’t read it or understand what it means and gloss over it.

Major universities and colleges are accredited, and each school has to go through a program to obtain that accreditation. They also go through periodic review. A little side note, there is a difference between a college and university. A community college only offers certificates and two year studies. A college offers bachelor’s degrees, and a university offers higher learning, masters and doctorate degrees.

Please do not go online and get a degree that you cannot use. Most online schools are bogus. There are good college extensions online. A good example is The University of Phoenix. There are certain “hands on” classes that will not, and cannot be done online, for example, you can’t become a medical doctor or nurse on line. You need hands on. There is no quick, cheap and easy way to real education.

Check out your school before putting down a dime, many people have been ripped off recently by “schools” that have no accreditation, and therefore no standing in the community. They make that piece of paper worthless. Check with the U.S. Department of Education if you are not sure (http://www.ed.gov/).

Happy Learning!

Peshaui Wequashimese

(C) 2013 Dr. R M Wolf. May not be used, copied or reproduced without prior permission.