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Northern Seminary & 3DM: Discipleship Oriented Theological Education

August 4, 2011

It’s interesting how things come together. I’ve been cultivating a growing interest in the future of theological education, especially under the direction of missional approaches to theology and ecclesiology since about the time I started into my own seminary experience, almost seven years ago now. Shortly thereafter, through a handful of professors and some involvement in Pasadena Mennonite Church, I was introduced to the Anabaptist tradition and its unique approach to theology and ecclesiology. I was especially taken with the way in which, for them, discipleship wasn’t something extraneous to “being saved,” but was the way in which we fully receive and participate in the good news of God’s salvation. Personally then, I’ve got these two passions, missional approaches to theological education and the centrality of discipleship for how we understand and practice being the Church.

Working at Northern Seminary, a school that is radically committed to exploring the best ways to come alongside the Church and Christian ministries to equip men and women for service and leadership in an increasingly Post-Christian context, sometimes affords me the opportunity to bring these two areas of passion together. This is especially true as I am in Pawley’s Island, SC working with my pal Doug Paul and other members of the 3DM team as we develop a partnership that will 1) Make it possible for participants in 3DM Learning Communities to earn seminary credit for the work they do over the two years of that journey and 2) Bring discipleship front and center as the focus of earning an Certificate, MA, MDiv, or DMin from a seminary.

Northern, in my opinion, has gotten quite good at creating partnership-driven programs that afford students the opportunity to craft degree programs that are both rooted in concrete ministry contexts and directly related to the area of Christian ministry and leadership that God has called them to. This partnership with 3DM is no exception. Over the course of two years, 3DM guides pastors and leaders through not just the ideas of creating a discipling culture, multiplying missional leaders, launching missional communities, and establishing centers of mission, but the nuts and bolts of those endeavors as well. This is what makes them so unique. They are not just content providers, they serve as mentors and coaches through two years of implementing these ideas. The nature and fruit of this process is more than enough to make someone scratch their head when comparing it to traditional models of theological education, which are almost always class based rather than ministry based. This partnership is a deliberate attempt to begin to rectify this shortcoming by creating a definitive bond between theological reflection and ministry experience with a view toward spiritual formation.

Crafting syllabi and shaping the contours of these various degree programs is just a part of what I’ll be spending my time on while I’m down here with the good people of 3DM We’re also working on a couple side projects that I think will add some value to the conversations and initiatives related to the reshaping of theological education and the place and practice of discipleship in the Church.

Related Posts

1. Northern Seminary & 3DM: Discipleship-Oriented Theological Education (Part 2)
2. A New Era of Theological Education May Be Dawning
3. The Missiological Future of Theological Education – Introduction

Posted in: 3DM, anabaptist, christendom, church, discipleship, Fuller Seminary, leadership, missional, missional theology, Northern Seminary, post-christendom, salvation, spiritual formation, theological education, theology