• Archive for May, 2011

    Tweets for the Week : 2011-05-30

    May 30, 2011 // No Comments »

    • shared: leadership, mission, and spiritual formation http://bit.ly/jLMNgN #
    • from the lifeasmission archives: Facebooking http://bit.ly/m7BzJm #FB #
    • from the lifeasmission archives: The Dark Knight http://bit.ly/kYprIu #FB #
    • The gravity of the problems that Americanism creates for grasping what it means to be a Christian in America can hardly be overstated. #FB #
    • Dear person who stole my phone at the public library, seriously? Geez. #FB #
    • Just to clarify, @amyrozko isn't in labor. Just the very beginning stages of her body getting ready. Due date is still June 29! #
    • Carved out the day to change this into a lit. review. Harder after learning @amyrozko is already dilated! #FB http://twitpic.com/53834s #
    • from the lifeasmission archives: Fun Weekend http://bit.ly/eWBysK #FB #
    • shared: Amazing guitar solo performed with only the GarageBand app and an iPad [video] http://bit.ly/izAgwc #
    • from the lifeasmission archives: Acting Our Age http://bit.ly/lGXtfq #FB #
    • Increasingly, hearing "good sermon!" compels me to believe I missed the mark. Spiritual preaching should elicit a very diff. response #FB #
    • from the lifeasmission archives: Midwest Missionary:Update http://bit.ly/9EnAzC #FB #

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    Tweets for the Week : 2011-05-23

    May 23, 2011 // No Comments »

    Posted in weekly tweets

    Two Battles of Emerging Missional Leaders

    May 19, 2011 // 8 Comments »

    In the midst of this reflecting and writing that I’ve been doing about missiology and theological education (The Emerging Guild of Missionary Theologians, The Missiological Future of Theological Education: Part 1 and Part 2), it occurs to me that I personally exist in the midst of the tension between two major battles that beset many emerging missional leaders.  They are not unrelated battles, but they are truly different.

    Battle 1: Seeking a Sustainable Vocational Life


    The scenario is darn near worn out.  Sincere and devoted youth pastor finds himself increasingly disaffected by the theology and/or ministry philosophy of the church in which he serves.  To the tune of thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in student loans, said youth pastor leaves that church (and maybe ministry altogether) for the greener pastures of seminary where he can get a handle on things.  In the midst of study and reflection, this poor soul either soon discovers that increasingly their theological education has rapidly diminishing market value, or, for missiological reasons, decides that full-time, paid, professional ministry is simply not an appropriate choice for them.  Either way, they have just invested years of their life and lots of money into an educational decision that actually led them away from gaining the standard return on that sort of investment.

    In many ways this is my story and I’ve stopped counting the number of times I’ve heard others tell me the same or something very similar.  And thus, the battle begins.  In the realization that I can’t get or reject the value of a FT, paid, professional ministry job, and with a couple Christian/theological degrees under my belt and a hefty load of debt that I am responsible for, what do I do?

    I won’t actually go into this now.  For more on this, go see Dave Fitch’s post here.  I simply want to name this as one of the main battles of emerging missional leaders.

    There is another major battle facing emerging missional leaders however.  This is actually an older battle for me, one that has shaped me and my direction in life even more profoundly than the battle I just described – significant at it is!

    Battle 2: Bridging the Gap Between Church and Academy

    In one sense this is like the other battle in that it still has to do with vocation – how are you going to spend your time, earn a living, dare I say, “live out your calling?”  But, in another sense it is a much different battle.  There are different concerns, different questions, and different factors to consider. (see a couple good posts by J.R. Daniel Kirk on this subject here and here).

    Even though I would say that the former battle is actually primary – a battle that every missional leader must contend with as opposed to this one which is more specific – it is this battle that began to shape and direct my life first.  Jarred by the glaring gap between my Christian education and my experience in the Church, I decided/felt called pretty early on to give myself to the bridging of this gap.  Ideally, I envisioned a life in which I would mainly be rooted in a local church context as some sort of a pastor and then I would teach on the side.  Granted, this is not an overwhelmingly creative idea.  At the same time, it is one that hasn’t seemed to find nearly enough expression.  By and large, those serving in the realms of church and academy do so on a FT basis in one camp or the other.

    Now, I’ve gone ahead and complicated things for myself by choosing to do a DMiss rather than a PhD.  Cause anyone will tell you, if you think you want to teach, you need to get a PhD.  Competition is stiff enough without throwing a non-traditional degree into the mix.  Be that as it may, I’ve never been one to be driven by what “conventional wisdom” says.  In this instance, I did my best to wrestle with what I believe the needs of the church in Western culture are and are becoming, how God has seemed to be guiding and directing me personally, and the realities of ministry and life as they actually are right now (not some idealized future), and came to the conclusion that given all that and my lingering sense of calling to the battle of redeeming the Christendom-inspired rift between church and academy, doing missiological work at the doctoral level was an appropriate next step.

    I may have indeed made things more difficult for myself in terms of my engagement in the first battle I described, but (and I hope that you can read this in its non-cliched intent) this is simply something I am attempting to trust God for as I try and remain faithful to what he has been and is doing in me. While I wholeheartedly agree that we need way more followers of Jesus willing to seek both an advanced theological education as well as a bi-vocational lifestyle in which they work a “real job” (ala Fitch), there is another battle raging that I am convinced is worth fighting that seems to mitigate against a full-scale engagement in this other battle.

    Am I reading/thinking about that right?  Anyone else find themselves caught in one or both of these battles?  What’s your thinking?  Plan?

    Posted in anabaptist, bi-vocational, christendom, church, DMiss, Fuller Seminary, missional, missional theology, post-christendom, theological education, theology, western culture

    The Missiological Future of Theological Education (Part 2)

    May 16, 2011 // 6 Comments »

    Alright, so at the beginning of March I offered some thoughts on what I’m calling, “The Emerging Guild of Missionary Theologians.”  Then, a full month later, I followed up w/ “The Missiological Future of Theological Education,” which was little more than an attempt to say that my thoughts on this subject are largely tied to a series of posts that I offered at the end of 2009 entitled, “Toward a Missional Vision of Theological Education.”  I’ve finally got a little bit of breathing room and wanted to flesh out some further thoughts I’ve had.

    Perhaps the best way for me to encapsulate my perspective here is to say…

    I’ve come to a point where I so thoroughly understand the church in missional terms that by implication, I see no point to theological education other than its ability to come alongside the Church as it attempts to identify, educate, train, and mobilize disciples for mission.

    Let me briefly pick that statement apart and clarify what I mean.

    Come Alongside the Church…

    In a sense, theological education, as a stand alone enterprise, is a modern novelty.  Theological education/formation has always been (theologically if not experientially) the responsibility of the Church.  I’m not compelled to spend time here delving into the merits or detriments of the Church farming out the bulk of this responsibility to Christian colleges and seminaries.  Rather, I just want to indicate that where and when this has happened, there is still a fundamental sense in which it has been “the Church” doing this work.  A central problem in my mind, is the newer reality of theological schools educating those who have self-selected themselves for theological training.  This ought not be the case.  Rather, we increasingly need to see centers of theological eduction become full partners in the Church’s corporate task of cultivating disciples for mission.

    Identify…

    While I wholeheartedly believe that one of the greatest needs in the Western church is the recovery of a missional vision of discipleship (every follower of Jesus is called to inhabit a reality in which they exist as resident aliens… ambassadors of the Kingdom… missionaries!), I still believe that there exists a simultaneous responsibility of identifying those who will serve others by advanced theological study and honing the skills and abilities that befit the (always servant-oriented) tasks and responsibilities of leading and equipping others within the Church.  This is the case even when (perhaps especially when!) there are fewer and fewer opportunities for people to be paid to do this sort of work full-time (see an important post by Dave Fitch on this here).  There is a way in which these responsibilities need to be taken up by a community, but there is another sense in which God has, does, and will continue to use communities to identify people/teams to lead these efforts as well. 

    Educate…

    As these people are identified, the task of educating them remains.  The study of Christian history and theology (to name just a few key areas) is no small task.  It takes focused time and attention as well as resources that typically extend beyond those of one particular congregation.  It bears noting that serving others in Christ-like humility, perhaps the most fundamental aspect of discipleship, doesn’t require an advanced theological education.  More than that, it has often been accused of undercutting this very thing.  But this doesn’t have to be the case.  Christian education, when done in conjunction with the life and ministry of local churches, can serve, rather than subvert, the aim of cultivating missional disciples.  To do this, however, will require the development of new delivery methods, paradigms of faculty involvement, and program designs.  Centers of theological education will need to abandon an isolated existence (the erosion of denominational fortitude poses another problem here) in favor of one in which they are intimately connected to the lives of local congregations. 

    Train…

    Another major problem facing seminaries is that by and large they have become one-trick ponies. They offer classes.  That’s it.  Ok, ok, sometimes they require internships or Clinical Pastoral Education, and these can be positive experiences, but more often they’re not, and this is to say nothing of the way in which they make up the periphery of a program as opposed to its core.  Bottom line, apprenticed ministry experience in local church contexts should be the focal point of a missional theological education.  But, like education, incredible amounts of value and perspective can be added to this sort of experience when external resources are brought to bear.  The faculty of many seminaries is comprised of people with not just advanced degrees, but decades of ministry experience.  Where this exists, we need to find ways to unleash and tap into the work of God in these peoples lives by bringing students into not just their classrooms, but their lives!

    Mobilize…

    This is an area that churches and centers of theological education are equally guilty of neglecting.  Not only do we often fail to show proper intentionality in the identification and support of future leaders – allowing them to self-select, but we seldom prioritize (if we even have!) strategies for mobilizing them.  Wouldn’t it make quite a bit of sense to develop programs of theological education, not only in conjunction with existing churches and ministry organizations, but around the actual practice of ministry so that when students “finish,” they not only hold some sort of credential, but also have been mobilized into the sphere of service that they were interested in to begin with? Beyond this, it seems reasonable to conclude that partnerships between centers of theological education and churches/organizations will result in the creation of  exponentially more ministry opportunities for which each party will have a share in the responsibility of producing disciples to help lead.

    This is the sort of stuff getting me excited nowadays and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to be investing in some of these dreams at Northern Seminary (see here for a vision of Missional Theological Education that we are working toward).  Doubtless, many centers of theological education will find ways to tweak and shift this and that in order to maintain institutional viability – they’ll stay alive, maybe even grow.  But that’s not really the issue is it?  We don’t want centers of theological education that find a way to just “make it” in our emerging Post-Christendom context.  We want centers of theological education that invite, even welcome and advance, the demise of Christendom along with its assumptions and values and lead out into the missiological future of the Church by following that simple gospel pattern of listening and responding, seeing and following, repenting and believing.

    Posted in bi-vocational, christendom, discipleship, missiology, missional, missional theology, Northern Seminary, post-christendom, spiritual formation, theological education

    Tweets for the Week : 2011-05-16

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    Tweets for the Week : 2011-05-09

    May 9, 2011 // No Comments »

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