lifeasmission
exploring the mystery of life and mission as one and the same
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Toward A Missional Vision of Theological Education: Conviction Shaping
Previous posts in this Series:
Preliminary Thoughts | The Root of the Problem | The Fruit of the Problem | New Soil | Community Rootedness | Character Formation
One of the greatest needs of missional churches is leaders who have been trained how to think as opposed to what to think, who are able to equip others for deep incarnational witness, and whose character and giftedness has been practiced and affirmed in the context of a local community. This was the point of my previous post – the centrality of character formation in a missional vision of theological education.
From here, I want to go on to say that a missional vision of theological education will emphasize the shaping of Kingdom convictions in leaders.
No one is more responsible for my appreciation of this dimension of a missional vision of theological education than the late Dr. James Wm. McClendon. His work was the center of my masters thesis and continues to shape my life as a disciple of Jesus is all its forms.
The most admirable Christian leaders are not those men and women who have sought to do great, big things for the Kingdom, but who have faithfully responded to that which God has done in their lives. They were and are men and women of conviction and as McClendon points out,
Convictions are not so much things we have, but things which have us.
Christendom, as a system of coercive power, naturally emphasizes control. This emphasis has resulted in two dominant emphases in the shaping of leaders – the passing on of systems of belief and/or the training in particular models of ministry. I am against neither of these things in themselves. I am merely suggesting that they need to be peripheral, not central to the training of missional leaders. I advocate for the centrality of conviction shaping for three main reasons.
1) The shaping of Kingdom convictions is primarily the Holy Spirit’s work.
We have fooled ourselves into believing that the passing on of right doctrine or refined training in ministry models are of prime importance in theological education. When these are our emphases, not only do we create one-dimensional leaders, but we run the greater risk of making Christian leadership development primarily a human enterprise – like training a mechanic or a sales person. The shaping of convictions in correspondence with the reality of God’s Kingdom is much more fluid and finally contingent on the work of the Holy Spirit. We need leaders who not so much “get God,” but ones “God’s got.”
2) The shaping of Kingdom convictions is more in accord with missional theology.
We all see and interpret things through various lenses depending on our background, experience, education, culture and so on. Thus, missional theology is never fixed, but exists in constant interaction with Scripture, our community & its tradition, and our broader context & experience.
As I’ve said before, theological convictions are not the same as theological foundations. Churches built on theological foundations and hell bent on being right are brought low when those foundations are assaulted. Missional churches on the other hand, more concerned with being faithfully responsive, embrace the notion that,
The convictions that cohere within any community are in principle always subject to rejection, reformulation, improvement or critical revision, and the church is no exception to this principle.
We desperately need leaders who are more convicted about a way of believing, living, and following, than they are a way of knowing or structuring.
3) The shaping of Kingdom convictions naturally flows from community rootedness and character formation.
Convictions are the result of the work of the Holy Spirit in the midst of our community-rooted character development. As McClendon has shared, the shaping of Kingdom convictions are not
…so many ‘propositions’ to be catalogued or juggled like truth-functions in a computer, but are inextricably interwoven with ecclesial practices such as baptism and eucharist, hospitality and reconciliation, peacemaking and the mutual bearing of burdens, where they ‘give shape to actual lives and actual communities.’
They are,
generated by ‘a shared and lived story, one whose focus is Jesus of Nazareth and the kingdom he proclaims.
This is what we see when we look at the relationship of Jesus to his disciples. The cultivation of a community of followers who, dense as they were, and prone to weakness, were convicted of Jesus’ Messiahship, his judgment and triumph over the evil powers at work in the world, and the beginning of the renewal of all things in his resurrection.
Think for a moment about the people who most inspire you and you enjoy following. Chances are the reason is that something has gripped them, you sense it in all they say and do and you’re interested, if not desperate, to know it for yourself. This is what I am saying, for the Christian leader, is the work of the Holy Spirit in accord with a missional theology that finds its home in the midst of community of people following Jesus on mission together.
Can you offer examples of this? Anyone who has counter-examples? How have traditional approaches to theological education helped or failed you in this regard?
Next up – the place of contextual training in a missional vision of theological education.
Some quotes and ideas stem from: Harvey, Barry. “Beginning in the Middle of Things: Following James McClendon’s Systematic Theology. Modern Theology 18:2, April 2002.
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Hey, I'm JR - welcome to the blog.
I'm just an average guy trying to shape his identity around God's dream for the world and his place in it. This blog is a place for me (and you!) to reflect on and discuss all that might mean. Looking for a bit more on me? Check out the about me. Peace.
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Jason Coker said...
1I know I'm reading something good when I have a hard time focusing on it because it's making me think about my own context more deeply.
One of my mentors in early adulthood embodied this well. He had his own pet doctrinal positions, but he created an atmosphere of safety for exploring ideas which was injected with his own passion for learning. It was contagious.
On the flip side, one of my younger brothers is a sophomore at a prominent private Christian college in the LA area and his professors are commonly strike down students ideas as heretical.
This is an important series you're writing here JR. I hope you have an opportunity to participate in fleshing some of these things out in a local context.
12/9/09 5:27 PM | Comment Link
jrrozko said...
2That's great to hear Jason, glad there was some resonance. Sorry to hear that about your brother. This is exactly the point at which I think we are missing the boat by focusing on the wrong thing – being right instead of being faithful. Changes the whole conversation.
Speaking of fleshing this stuff out in a local context, I am off to a meeting to do exactly that!
12/9/09 5:58 PM | Comment Link
joshuaelek said...
3So, are we permitted to say that something is heretical? Aren't there situations where what is right is faithful, and seeking to be right is in effect seeking to be faithful to the truth about God? I like a lot of what you've said here, but, and maybe this is because I read your post too cursorily, it seems like you throw up dichotomies between things that don't necessarily need to be there. While holding a position because you think it is correct in spite of the movement of the spirit around us is clearly something we should not expect from our church formers, I don't think the answer is to aschew training and education as superfluous or corrupt. Maybe we can be trained within a traditional backdrop, while remaining faithful, and upholding a commitment to the truth all while attempting to remain flexible to the manifestation of God's power around us?
I guess what I'm getting at is, sometimes telling a student that his or her idea is heretical is attempting to be faithful to God.
12/9/09 7:07 PM | Comment Link
jrrozko said...
4Absolutely we're permitted to say something is heretical. In fact, I'd go so far as to say we're commanded to do it! What I am looking for is a different set of evaluative criteria for orthodoxy – namely, the extent to which a particular doctrine helps or hinders our participation in God's mission in the world in the manner of Christ.
How you read this is interesting to me since most of my work aims at eliminating dichotomies by proposing alternative paradigms I had no intention to give the impression that I would choose to "askew training & education as superfluous or corrupt." I am instead advocating for a renewed vision of both for those who have in mind helping to lead local churches. For these people, traditional education (classroom stuff) is a part of a larger vision of spiritual formation as opposed to essentially the sum total of it.
Yes, perhaps we can "be trained within a traditional backdrop, while remaining faithful, and upholding a commitment to the truth all while attempting to remain flexible to the manifestation of God's power around us," but my contention is that our current system of theological education is not only not conducive to this happening, but actually works against it. Thus, the need for a new vision.
I take for granted that form should follow function. The function of local church ministry has changed and this calls for new forms of theological education.
12/9/09 9:48 PM | Comment Link
joshuaelek said...
5That helps a lot. Since I have never been in a place that was training pastors, I'll assume you're right that theological education is not preparing leaders of the church.
I think I was confused by: "We have fooled ourselves into believing that the passing on of right doctrine or refined training in ministry models are of prime importance in theological education." I guess in my mind, if one is going for an education, then learning right doctrine and being trained for a ministry seem like really good things for an educational system to focus on.
Of course, you know waaay more about this stuff than I do, so forgive me if I'm just not understanding what you're saying. All too often I think that someone is saying something that they aren't and this could be just such a situation.
I really like the idea of using "the extent to which a particular doctrine helps or hinders our participation in God's mission" as a litmus test for whether or not something is orthodoxy. But I wonder how we could educate people to do such a thing if we don't teach them right doctrine? And what use would it be if we never taught pastors to ply the trade of ministry? But maybe the problem is that pastors are being taught doctrine, and practice, but are not being taught to use those things in order to further the mission of God? Is that right? If so, then totally, we need to address it. But (and I think we're saying the same thing here) we need to do that while teaching pastors doctrine as well as how to ply their trade.
Then again, maybe I'm just not understanding. I'm always nervous about posting on blogs because I'm afraid that my comments come across sounding too confrontational and arrogant. If I come across that way, I don't mean to. I'm really curious.
12/9/09 10:29 PM | Comment Link
jrrozko said...
6"How can we educate people to discern whether or not a particular doctrine helps or hinders our participation in God's mission if we don't teach them right doctrine?"
This is exactly the point of this series. I don't claim to have all the answers to that question, but I am suggesting that rootedness in a local community on mission together is the only appropriate context for such education to occur.
"What use would education be if we never taught pastors to ply the trade of ministry?"
None at all, but we need to think about doing this in-context and cross-culturally. Sadly, the skills to do this are not offered in schools of theology. They are offered in schools of missiology, but the majority of our pastors are never exposed to the courses or practices which correspond to these skills. When Christendom is assumed, models, not contextually appropriate or culturally savvy abilities to ply ones ministerial trade, are what get emphasized.
I am saying that the very character of Christian doctrine is marred when we think it is something which can be known in abstraction from the life of a community on mission together. I am also saying that teaching ministers to ply their trade is tantamount to their education and formation, but again, that the character of this enterprise is damaged when we think of it more as giving a franchise model rather than passing on skills of indigenous expression.
12/10/09 5:20 PM | Comment Link
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