• Toward A Missional Vision of Theological Education: Preliminary Thoughts

    November 11, 2009

    After having given several posts to the consideration of bi-vocational ministry, its relationship to missional ecclesiology, defending it as a spiritually formative leadership model, and then commenting on its relationship to theological education, I have been thinking more and more about how we are equipping leaders to lead truly missional communities.  Though it’s in no way a brand new topic of interest to me (see here & here), I want to unpack, in a more focused manner, some of the shortcomings of our current system of theological education and begin sketching what I find to be a more faithful way forward.

    In anticipation of some things I want to say in future posts, I want to offer just a few preliminary thoughts that I think are important to have in mind as I write and as discussion (so badly hoping that some good discussion ensues!) takes place.

    1) Seminary is not evil.  Unless it changes and adapts it will be increasingly ineffective and irrelevant, but that’s not to say it has no positive effects.  I am a product of a Seminary education and I’m thankful for it.  In fact, I could hardly have a good grasp on the shortcomings of it had I not gone through it.

    2) There is no one, right, “biblical” way to come at this.  I hope to make a case for a missional vision of theological education that is more biblically faithful given our context than what is currently offered, but it’s not because I find it to be the only/universal approach.

    3) This is a huge topic.  I have no intention of addressing all the many dimensions of this topic that deserve to be touched on.  I am more interested in fleshing out some general thoughts for the sake of stoking the fires of imagination and creativity.

    4) I’m not writing from an ivory tower.  Not only would such a thing fly in the face of all I want to propose, but these reflections are born out of raw pastoral desire to see the church grow and flourish by being led well.  I am writing as one involved in a local church community that’s doing the hard work of making this uphill journey.

    That being said, I am looking forward to some hopefully spirited dialogue in the coming weeks as I try too deal with what’s wrong with out current system, what we ought to be aspiring to, how it relates to a missional ecclesiology, and what it might take to move us forward.  Genuinely interested for others to weigh in and fill in gaps.

    Links to the rest of the posts in this series:

    The Root of the Problem

    The Fruit of the Problem

    New Soil

    Community Rootedness

    Character Formation

    Conviction Shaping

    Contextual Training

    Cultural Pioneering

    Or, you can download a PDF of the entire series here.

    Posted in: church, Fuller Seminary, leadership, missional, spiritual formation, theological education, theology

Recent Comments

  • Josh Garrington said...

    1

    I'm looking forward to this series JR.

    I maintain that if I ever became independantly wealthy I would go to seminary and get an MDiv (probably with an emphasis in Church History). But it would be for my own knowledge and edification, not for the practical application. I think I learn more about practical theology working in my local church side-by-side with God fearing and love filled people. Now granted, I'm not in a 'Missional' church, but I do think that the Salvation Army is as close to Missional as traditional churches get.

    11/11/09 10:19 PM | Comment Link

  • Josh Garrington said...

    2

    (comment was too long)

    Having said that, I do think that all Christians need to be given as much theological training as their time and temperment allow. Without knowledge and understanding to backup your faith it becomes brittle and easily shattered.

    I have found many, useful theological resources and am infinately grateful for the internet (actually, I'm listening to a lecture from BiblicalTraining.org on Church History as I write this). I think learning by reading books and listening in isolation is useful, but is lacking some critical interaction of discussion. Even a great setup like The Theology Program from Reclaiming the Mind Ministries with online forum interaction for the classes can't compare to sitting in a room with someone, fellowshipping, conversing, discussing, and questioning theology.

    I really look forward to seeing what approach you take here.

    11/11/09 10:19 PM | Comment Link

  • Bill Kinnon said...

    3

    JR,
    I look forward to your posts on this. I'm married to a recent MTS grad (though she's almost as old as I am) and her studies were very helpful to me as I began to engage in the missional conversation – while she was studying.

    11/11/09 10:39 PM | Comment Link

  • wess said...

    4

    Sounds great JR. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

    11/11/09 11:05 PM | Comment Link

  • Jason Coker said...

    5

    There are several of us in the San Diego area who have engaged in this topic on and off over the past year and a half. I'm looking forward to getting your perspective.

    11/11/09 11:08 PM | Comment Link

  • jrrozko said...

    6

    Josh, I wonder, if indeed you became independently wealthy and went to school to study Church History, inasmuch as you are a committed Christian, could this endeavor really ever really be just for you? Would it not, of necessity, have some sort of means of working itself out in your life? If so, then I think there's more to be said on the subject. Certainly there is much to be gleaned from contextual co-laboring with other disciples, but I hope to go further here as well. While I think the broader Protestant church has a lot to learn from the Salvation Army about mission, I think it remains built on certain cultural assumptions that preclude it from being truly missional. Or, let me say it this way, even truly missional churches would do well to pay attention to the history and ministry of the Salvation Army.

    11/11/09 11:13 PM | Comment Link

  • jrrozko said...

    7

    I am no anti-intellectual to be sure. But, having increasing amounts of knowledge are often the very things that shatter faith rather than bolster it.

    Yeah, reading is always good, all the better if it leads to discussion and interaction, but the whole notion of the promise of classroom learning is a big part of where we've gone wrong.

    Thanks for the comments. Where I am going with this should get clearer in future posts. Dig in though man, I'm looking to be challenged.

    11/11/09 11:18 PM | Comment Link

  • jrrozko said...

    8

    Same here. Let the Quakerisms fly!

    11/11/09 11:21 PM | Comment Link

  • jrrozko said...

    9

    Anxious for yours as well, thanks Jason.

    11/11/09 11:21 PM | Comment Link

  • jrrozko said...

    10

    Glad to see you here Bill. Given the people you've had access to and stuff you write about, yours will be a helpful voice. Peace.

    11/11/09 11:20 PM | Comment Link

  • Josh Garrington said...

    11

    Ok, you caught me in a possibly outdated mindset. When I said "just for me", my implication was meant to be, 'as opposed to the obvious option of going into full-time paid ministry'. That might not be an obvious option these days, especially on this blog! Yes, that training would be put to use where applicable in my local church and elsewhere in my life.

    11/12/09 1:52 PM | Comment Link

  • Josh Garrington said...

    12

    Bill,

    I'm looking forward to your comments here. I don't know how you know JR, but I've found some of your stuff (via the Boars Head Tavern) and have enjoyed what I've read.

    11/12/09 2:05 PM | Comment Link

  • jrrozko said...

    13

    I don't know that it's an outdated mindset, but how I wish it was. The fact that we have created a two-tiered system in which some followers of Jesus, "go into full-time ministry" while others just lead "normal lives," is lamentable to say the least and the faster we can kill it the better!

    11/12/09 4:50 PM | Comment Link

  • jrrozko said...

    14

    Spoiler alert. Here's how I will probably come at those 2 things.

    1) Yes, this is true, but it necessitates a deep shift in how we understand church leadership. As it is currently/popularly understood it's impossible and when we try to make it more rapid w/o shifting our understanding of what it is, it has disastrous consequences.

    2) Theological education is EXTREMELY important for every follower of Jesus. We have to get beyond the two-tiered system of super-Christians who get all the education and regular Christians who can turn their attention to other matters.

    More to come.

    11/12/09 4:58 PM | Comment Link

  • Ben Sternke said...

    15

    I loved being able to talk briefly about this with you in Virginia a few weeks ago, and I'm excited to see where it goes.

    Just a thought about where I'm coming from with this… I have two convictions that seem to fly in the face of each other, but I think theological education has to take both seriously if it's going to remain vital.

    1) Church leadership should be rapidly reproducible so churches can be planted quickly and often.

    2) Theological education is EXTREMELY important for church leaders.

    I look forward to the discussion!

    11/12/09 1:58 PM | Comment Link

  • Josh Garrington said...

    16

    "having increasing amounts of knowledge are often the very things that shatter faith rather than bolster it."

    I disagree. Or, at least, I think that's the exception rather than the rule. I think for every Bert Ehrman who is disillusioned by study, there are 10 average Joes who are disillusioned when they can't reconsile their incomplete understanding of the faith with their suffering, or lose it when a pastor or similar authority figure stumbles, or just plain can't contridict arguments from apologists of other faiths or world views.

    11/13/09 3:45 PM | Comment Link

  • Josh Garrington said...

    17

    I pretty much agree with everything you just said.

    Yes, head knowledge by itself does not lead to a deeper or more vibrant faith. Conversely though, without head knowledge that deeper, more vibrant faith cannot be achieved either. It's one of multiple critical components required to gain spiritual maturity.

    Does every Christian need to know who Tertullian was or the difference between apaphatic and cataphatic theology? Nope.
    Does every Christian need to be able to offer up a basic apologetic of their core beliefs? Yes.

    My personal experience has been that western (post-modern?) Christianity has over-corrected the modern/rationalistic mindset. The emphasis has come to rest so far into the emotional and fellowship aspects (which are also important) that intellectual understanding of the faith has regressed to a remedial for the average Christian.

    I'm willing to stipulate that intellectual knowledge poses dangers for some people. Any time on leg of your footing gets too big the whole thing tends toward instability. Right now though, I think that leg is most often almost missing entirely, which guarantees the footing is unstable.

    11/13/09 9:01 PM | Comment Link

  • jrrozko said...

    18

    I am not sure head knowledge is the ultimate key to reconciling faith and suffering (Job?), the sinfulness of spiritual authority figures (Saul?), or inter-faith apologetics (woman at the well?). To me, these all seem like relational, not intellectual issues.

    It's probably fair to say that there is a direct correlation between the benefit of knowledge and spiritual maturity. As I said, I'm no anti-intellectual. I just want to get them in the right order. Let's give our time and attention to overall spiritual growth and development so that higher learning finds its rightful place in subjugation to relational faith in a risen Savior, embodied in a community bent on embodying the good news.

    To think that head knowledge is and of itself is efficacious for vibrant Christian faith is kind of like hooking a jet engine up to a prop plane. There just isn't the right kind of structure to support it and use it beneficially. Bound to do more harm than good.

    Bart lost his faith (if that's a fair way to say it) not because he got too smart, but because he didn't have the right spiritual framework to deal with what was getting thrown at him.

    11/13/09 7:11 PM | Comment Link

  • brad/futuristguy said...

    19

    Good comments, Ben and JR, and I think a better balance is there when the two are held together. Having been the victim of immature "leadership" of rush-in roulette, that's simply something that I don't think I'd want to see reproduced, rapidly or otherwise. Why the rush to create supersonic hydroponic disciples? And yet, I've also been frozen to dearth by non-risk-taking "leadership" also. Why the ruse to create supersafe disciples?

    11/14/09 11:36 PM | Comment Link

  • jrrozko said...

    20

    Hmmm. "Does every Christian need to be able to offer up a basic apologetic of their core beliefs?" I am with you on the answer, yes, but there remains the problem of the nature of that apologetic. I am of the mind that intellectual defenses are not the sort of "defense" that the Bible would have us make when our faith is questioned, since, in the end, our beliefs are a matter of faith and not intellectually provable (or perhaps even compelling!). For followers of Jesus personally and the Church corporately, our apologetic is always finally the lives we lead maked by faith and hope in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This was Jesus' "apologetic" and Paul spent the entirely of his post-conversion life trying to get these new followers-of-the-Way communities on that page as well.

    Of course I don't really know what your experience has been, but I think what you are describing, in terms of the over-correction is actually just the other end of the same modern spectrum. Anything that's truly Christianly post-modern will be marked by a third way, a truly alternative paradigm that is unintelligible to those locked in a modern one.

    This is the classic mistake that many people make when it comes to trying to understand the Emerging Church. Since they see the Christian world in terms of conservative-liberal poles, it has to be one or the other, but the best expressions of emerging churches transcend that dichotomy because their starting point and assumptions are of a different sort altogether.

    So, to try and encapsulate all that, the battle for me isn't about a balancing act between intellectual knowledge and emotional/fellowship dimensions of faith, it's a fundamental transfiguration of how we understand the very nature of discipleship such that these categories just don't work any more.

    11/15/09 2:40 AM | Comment Link

  • jrrozko said...

    21

    Right. But what I meant in my reply to Ben is that it's not so much a need for balance, but a new vision of leadership altogether that doesn't lend itself to such errors.

    11/15/09 2:49 AM | Comment Link

  • Josh Garrington said...

    22

    I agree, sort of.

    Saying our beliefs are intellectually provable would be an overstatement, but they are intellectually supportable. In fact, I'm convinced that if you put forth intellectual arguments for every world view, the Christian defense would be the MOST compelling argument. This is a tremendously important point for me (could be my Engineer's brain and training showing through).
    If I went as far as to say that the only defense of our faith required is intellectual though, I'd be neglecting all the other important and accurate points you are making.

    Personally, increasing intellectual understanding of the faith has been critical to my overall spiritual growth.

    3 years ago I would have called anyone who believed in predestination a wack job. 2 years ago I would have thought of anyone who believed in a rapture as a nutter. Simply because these views didn't agree with mine.
    Now, after study (naturally coupled with action and prayer), I can appreciate their contribution to the Kingdom and view them first and formost as fellow soldiers for God. Even if I still vehemently disagree with them.

    11/16/09 9:16 PM | Comment Link

  • jrrozko said...

    23

    I love your comment simply because you used the word vehemently!

    11/16/09 9:18 PM | Comment Link

  • Josh Garrington said...

    24

    Yeah, I said on my Facebook status the other day that I was "decanting" something and my wife made fun of me all day.

    11/16/09 9:21 PM | Comment Link

  • Doug Paul said...

    25

    Excited to see where you take this series. Bring the fire and the thunder!

    04/9/11 6:26 PM | Comment Link

Leave A Comment

Mail (will not be published) (required)