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    The Missiological Future of Theological Education – Training Kingdom Citizens

    December 9, 2011 // No Comments »

    Below is the fourth and final article that we’ve submitted to Patheos as a contribution to their forum on “The Future of the Seminary.”  I don’t believe it’s actually up over there yet and it seems like that forum has sort of run out of steam, so I thought I’d go ahead and post it here.  If it does make it up over at Patheos, I’ll update this post.  If this happens to be new to you and you’ve got some interest, here’s where you can find the first three articles:

    Shaping Students w/ the Character and Competency of Jesus (lifeasmission | Patheos)

    Missionary Pastors for a Missionary God (lifeasmission | Patheos)

    Ministers are Mobilizers, Not Managers (lifeasmission | Patheos)

    As I’ve noted in previous posts, this is some edited content from a more comprehensive white paper that I worked on.  You can find the whole paper here as a resource at thefutureoftheologicaleducation.com.

    I hope to round this all out with a (more brief!) summary post soon.  Thanks to those of you who have been following along and weighing in.  Engagement is the only way to refine these sort of ideas toward the creation of something truly new, helpful, and concrete.

    This is the 4th and final article in a series that we have been happy to offer related this Patheos forum on, “The Future of the Seminary.”  For our part, we have sought to call attention to the idea that inasmuch as theological education seeks to locate its purpose and aim in the missio Dei, its shape and future can be most helpfully understood from a missiological perspective.  This is the fundamental point of the white paper from which these few posts have emerged, The Missiological Future of Theological Education.

    We first offered a video, which summarizes the issues surrounding the way in which Christendom obscured our view of God’s missionary nature, thereby mis-shaping not only our theology, but our ecclesiology and the systems of theological education that we constructed to prepare leaders for these Christendom-shaped churches.  The video also suggests that…

    as we seek to re-imagine theological education along missional lines, the most important ‘accrediting factor’ for our schools lies in their ability to do their part in producing leaders who are able to demonstrate having taken on the character and competency of Jesus.

    If you haven’t seen it yet, the video is embedded below:

    After this initial post, we offered two more that sought to outline the missiological principles that we believe best contribute to creating processes of theological formation along these lines:

    1) Missionary Pastors for a Missionary God, in which we suggest that missional approaches to theological education will be praxeological – geared toward the training of theologically reflective practitioners.

    2) Ministers are Mobilizers, not Managers, in which we suggest that missional approaches to theological education will be mobilizational - geared toward the training of missionary leaders.

    In this final post, we’d like to outline a final missiological principle that we believe will guide a faithful re-imagining of theological education, that of being spiritual – geared toward the training of kingdom citizens.

    Spiritual, of course, can mean many things. For us, it simply means that everything about what theological education is and does, ought to be predicated on the centrality of a vibrant and growing relationship with the triune God and his work in the world.  In other words, just as Jesus’ efforts to train and form his disciples would have had no ultimate significance apart from their connection to God and God’s work in the world, so too are the efforts of seminaries wasted apart from this same connection.

    Having lost its proper missiological shape, theological education within Christendom made it possible to separate ones intellectual development from ones spiritual maturity. This is a dichotomy that our centers of theological education must repudiate if they hope to lend any support to the shaping of leaders for Kingdom ministry.  Moving forward will call for, at the very least, processes of theological formation that shape convictions, impart spiritual knowledge, re-frame our relationship to Scripture, and embrace the irreplaceable role of the Holy Spirit.

    Shaping Kingdom Convictions

    As theologian James McClendon once said, “Convictions are not so much things that we have but things that have us.”  As important as we believe Christian doctrine and truth are, if we fail to cultivate leaders who are as convicted by them (as evidenced by life transformation) as they purport to be convinced of them, we will only continue to contribute to the collapse of Western Christianity. If seminaries are to make any sort of meaningful contribution to the mission and witness of the Church in Western culture, they must show primary concern, not only for the information that their graduates possess, but for the convictions that will shape, drive and sustain them through all the trials and tribulations of not only ministry in a Post-Christian context, but amidst the sort of suffering and persecution which the Bible tells us always accompanies faithful witness.

    Imparting Spiritual Knowledge

    Seminaries and churches are full of people who know plenty of things about God. What our seminaries and churches seem in desperate lack of are people who truly know God in the way the Apostle Paul speaks of when he says, “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death…” What we have to accept is that this kind of “knowing” cannot be manufactured or controlled. The impartation of spiritual knowledge is finally the work of the Holy Spirit as we live in relationship with God and participate in his mission in the world in the way of Jesus. Thus, it is incumbent upon seminaries to create environments where God can do this kind of work in shaping Kingdom leaders.

    Re-framing Our Relationship to Scripture

    It should go without saying that in the endeavor of theological education to contribute to the shaping of Christian leaders, there is no text more important or sacred than the Bible. Unfortunately, the experience of many a seminarian is that the Bible is reduced to little more than an object to be examined and dissected. However, when you abstract an engagement with Scripture from a predisposition towards inviting the work of the Holy Spirit, we miss God’s intention for this discipline. Therefore, in terms of truly honoring a spiritual disposition towards theological education, not only will the Bible occupy a primary place throughout the whole of our programs (as opposed to being confined to individual courses), it will increasingly need to be seen as the very story out of which seminaries derive their own identity, purpose, and function.

    Embracing the Irreplaceable Role of the Holy Spirit

    Our prevailing systems of theological education train and equip people to be leaders in such a way that they assume an ability to succeed based upon their own intellectual capacity and/or skill-set rather than upon their ability to discern the Holy Spirit’s leading and therefore upon the Holy Spirit’s power rather than their own. We suggest that to the degree that centers of theological education want to contribute to preparing leaders for faithful service as Kingdom citizens, they must re-imagine theological education in such a way that the work and role of the Holy Spirit in the theological formation of leaders, as well as in the world, will be given primary attention.

    Concluding Thoughts

    One of the great travesties of our current Christian landscape is that emerging leaders often feel like they have to make a choice between “going to seminary,” because it will provide the sort of “accreditation” that many denominations and organizations require, or “going into ministry,” in order to give themselves fully to the sort of life & labor they feel like God has called them to.  As we re-imagine theological education along the lines of God’s Kingdom and God’s mission in the world, our hope and prayer is that these emerging leaders wouldn’t feel like this is a choice they have to make. Instead, we envision truly missional systems of theological education, so radically committed to a Kingdom vision of accreditation and to commissioning Kingdom leaders on account of their character and competency rather than their GPA, that ministry becomes the context for all our education and formation as we train reflective practitioners, that the aim of our education would become the mobilization of God’s people for loving and faithful service as we train missionary leaders, and that all of this emerges out of a vibrant and growing relationship with the triune God as we train Kingdom citizens.

    Posted in 3DM, anabaptist, bible, christendom, church, culture, discipleship, doctrine, God, gospel, Jesus, justice, kingdom, leadership, missiology, missional, missional theology, narrative theology, post-christendom, preaching/teaching, spiritual formation, theological education, theology, truth, western culture

    Depersonalized and Taken Advantage Of

    March 25, 2011 // 2 Comments »

    I had something happen to me last week that has never happened before.  I got dropped by my car insurance company, State Farm.

    I received a letter in the mail that said on account of the three claims that I have reported in the last three years, they were no longer willing to insure me.  I looked over the letter and thought about each accident.  As I did, I couldn’t help but feel depersonalized and taken advantage of and I began to reflect on how prone we often are to do this very same thing to others.  Here’s what I mean…

    Accident #1, The Fence

    The first accident happened while I lived in Memphis.  I was driving down a busy 2 lane road and a car, probably 4-5 cars in front of me, slammed on their brakes and turned left w/o signaling, cutting off traffic that was coming the other way.  The cars in front of me all braked rapidly as did I, but as I looked in my rear-view mirror, a car was barreling down so I decided to spin the wheel to the right where there was noting but grass and a fence in order to get out of the way.  Good thing I did, because the car absolutely would have slammed into me.  The result was a good bit of damage to the right front end of my car and a few broken slats in a fence.

    Accident #2, Moving

    The 2nd accident came just over a year later and happened while we were moving into our new apartment.  We had rented a U-Haul truck to move all our stuff, so I was driving that.  At one point I had to back the huge truck down a narrow alley and out onto a street.  Once I actually made it to the street I had a friend guiding me as I couldn’t really see behind me or keep an eye on traffic.  I could not possibly have been moving any slower, but as I was backing up to his direction, I heard a crunch.  The rear bumper of the truck had done some damage to the bumper of a parked car.

    Accident #3, The Deer

    The third accident took place, again, almost exactly a year later.  Amy and I were driving home to Ohio on the Turnpike.  We were in the right lane of a two lane portion of the Turnpike heading east.  All of a sudden, a woman in an SUV pulled up to our left and began honking her horn and waving her hands.  Obviously this took our attention off of the road for a moment and on to her.  As soon as we glanced back, we saw a couple deer on the side of the road very near our lane.  Since this lady was directly beside us, there was no room for us to move over to the left and with another car directly behind us, slamming on our brakes didn’t seem like the best idea either.  For some reason, one of the deer began running beside us and then jumped in front so that we gave it a good butt bounce.  Off the deer went, but we lost a headlight and had some minor paint damage to the bumper.

    In the event that you trust my recounting of these accidents, I hope you’ll agree that it would be hard to make a case for my being a bad or negligent driver.  Instead, upon closer examination, it becomes apparent that my ill state (the one who had to file a claim) actually came about by external factors (bad driver in accident 1, bad navigator in accident 2, and dumb deer in accident 3).

    My point in all this isn’t exactly to defend myself, but to point out how easy it is to depersonalize and take advantage of people when we aren’t willing to step into the details of peoples lives and circumstances.

    We do this all the time.  We depersonalize people and take advantage of them in making judgments and estimations based on appearances w/o being willing to step into the minutia of their lives, their circumstances and stories.   Doing so is not only a source of great injustice, but it short circuits the fundamental work of the gospel.

    Like insurance companies such as State Farm, it is so very tempting to just objectify people for our own purposes.  For insurance companies, getting personal and refusing to take advantage of a flawed system would adversely effect their bottom line, so they depersonalize and take advantage of people.  For us, getting personal and refusing to take advantage of the temptation to generalize and stereotype takes time, effort, and a willingness to have our most fundamental assumptions about the world called into question, so we follow suit.

    In the midst of a culture which inclines us to function with the utmost concern for efficiency and our own best interests, I believe that Jesus calls us to the inefficiency of incarnational living and the freedom of a life lived for the sake of others.  Insurance companies may take the bait, but I hope I/we don’t.

    Posted in culture, gospel, justice, money, stories

    Give the Gift of Hope

    December 4, 2010 // No Comments »

    I am a huge fan of redeeming the overly-commercialized holiday seasons for the purposes of the Kingdom.  One the best ways to go about doing that, in my opinion, is giving people gifts that exhibit something of eternal worth and significance.  All the better if that gift also equates to something life-giving to someone else.  I’ve written before about Advent Conspiracy and continue to love what they’re about.  But I’ve recently heard of another option along similar lines that I wanted to share as well.

    A while back I had the chance to conduct an interview with Scott Sabin, the author of Tending to Eden and the Executive Director of Plant with Purpose – a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to helping the rural poor through environmental restoration, economic empowerment, and spiritual renewal.

    Plant with Purpose has put together a Holiday Village Market.  Through the market you can buy or contribute toward..

    Animals

    Trees

    Eco Items

    A Family Garden

    Business Skills and Micro-credit Loan Management Training

    Spiritual Renewal

    I think it would be simply brilliant to buy one (or way more!) of these gifts on behalf of a friend or family member and give them some token of it as a way of stimulating conversation or even direct involvement with regard to the basic and urgent needs around the world.  Please leave a comment here if you plan to make use of this Holiday Village Market this Christmas.

    Posted in environment, justice, kingdom, stewardship

    Toward a Thepoetic of the Cross (Book Review)

    September 27, 2010 // 1 Comment »

    Every so often I get an invitation to read and review a forthcoming book here at lifeasmission.  Ocassionally, I get really excited about the book I’m asked to take a look at.  That’s how I felt when I was contacted by Jason Derr (see some of his articles for the Huffington Post here) and asked to review his first book, Towards a Theopoetic of the Cross.

    Most of that excitement stemmed from the fact that I had no idea what a theopoetic of the cross was!  Jason has helped me with that.

    After setting the stage for what he intends in the book, Jason turns his attention to describing theopoetics before he applies them to the cross and discipleship.

    I love theology, but I am no poet.  Few would find this to be a problem, but as Derr notes,

    There is no theology without poetry. (37)

    Poetry, like no other kind of writing, has the potential to enliven our imaginations.  As the author points out,

    The theopoet is never safe to have at dinner parties, he will turn the whole thing into a Eucharist, s/he will remind us of the spiritual possibilities of the 6 o’clock news. (42)

    Derr also points out that theopoetry is a realm of discourse for the “differently wisdomed,” a moniker which seems immeasurably more helpful in speaking of the theological contributions which might be offered by those we think of as having “learning disabilities.”

    We are reminded by the author that,

    The cross announces embarrassment to the church and to the world, that the unholy is holy, that it is revelation and that faith is not wrapped up in our neat moralities, our safe pleasantries. (58)

    In a footnote to this text Derr acknowledges that this reality can be pushed too far, but it nevertheless reminds us that the cross, despite its evolution as a symbol and icon, was, and always should be, seen as a scandalous event to regard.

    The cross, the author would have us remember, is an affront to our inclinations toward positions of power, be they “Christian” or not.  This idea flows into his final section on discipleship.

    As only a theopoet might, Derr encourages us to envision a praxiological kind of discipleship through the metaphor of meal:

    Te eat a meal, to be in love with its tastes is to enter into discipleship to it, to be transformed by it, to be driven into the school of the kitchen and to learn at its pots and pans, at its dirty dishes, at its spices and seasonings. (93)

    This brief overview hardly does justice to the book.  Derr engages with the work of theologians such as Jugern Moltmann, Gustavo Gutierrez, Douglas John Hall, Martin Luther, and others.  He talks often of the manner of our incarnational engagement with the poor and oppressed and offers his take on how the Church ought to think of the GLBTQ community.

    For those interested in sustained theological reflection and argumentation, this book will probably leave you wanting.  But, for those, not unlike me, who have to work harder to appreciate the nuances of what poetic language and thinking can do for our vision of God, this book is worth your time.

    Posted in art, christendom, church, culture, discipleship, gender, gospel, Jesus, justice, poetry, post-christendom, salvation, theological education, theology, western culture

    Tending to Eden: An Interview with Author, Scott Sabin

    March 3, 2010 // 2 Comments »

    About a month ago I offered a book review of Tending to Eden: Environmental Stewardship for God’s People by Scott Sabin.  Scott is the Executive director of Plant with Purpose.

    Plant With Purpose is an international environmental organization that transforms lives in rural areas where poverty is caused by deforestation. For over 25 years, Plant With Purpose has provided lasting solutions to heal the relationship between people and their environment by planting trees, revitalizing farms, and offering loans to create economic opportunity.

    Yesterday, I had the chance to actually interview Scott and ask him a few questions about the book.  Besides providing an overview of Plant with Purpose and the book, Tending to Eden, we spend some talking about the devastation in Haiti, one of the places where they serve, the vicious cycle of poverty and environmental degradation, and the relationship between creation care and the gospel.  The whole interview (~ 22 mins.) is worth the selection of the book that Scott reads toward the end.

    Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

    Download.

    If you’re reading this in a feed reader and don’t see the audio player, click through to see it.

    If you buy the book through the Amazon link on this page, a portion of the proceeds will directly benefit the rural poor.

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download

    Posted in books, creation, environment, interview, justice, stewardship

    2 Big Days

    January 20, 2009 // 4 Comments »

    Yesterday – Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Today – the inauguration of Barack Obama as the first African-American President of the United States, are two big days.

    Especially as a citizen of Memphis, where Dr. King was assassinated, the importance of all he stood for comes powerfully home.  Memphis is in many ways a broken and hurting city.  Racial division (if not tension) remains thick.  Systems and structures which perpetuate generational poverty and crime continue to plague us.  And the dominant expression of church here in the mid-south seems unable or unwilling to powerfully engage this sort of brokenness.  Memphis is a city desperate for the good news of God’s Kingdom breaking forth into the world.

    I caught a glimmer of this hope the other day as I was remembering King’s famous, “Paul’s Letter to American Christians” and came across this quote (from that sermon) on one of the walls of the downtown YMCA where I workout…

    Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.

    I am happy to stand with those who are excited about the progress we have made as a country, evidenced in our election of a black President.  I am even happy to stand with those inspired by the hope that this new President and administration aim to offer to a nation that has lost its way in war, economic crisis, and poor international reputation.  Yet I long for more.

    Yesterday we celebrated a man and his legacy of striving for racial reconciliation, care for the poor, and justice for all.  Today we celebrate the dawn of a new era for our country, an era (perhaps) to be marked by change for the better.

    But I long for the day that only God can bring about, a day when all our human striving and labor will be tested as with fire.  The chaff of our striving will be burned away and the precious stones of our striving will be even further refined.  On 2 days when it is so easy for me to get caught up in the acclaim of two good men, one who had a dream and another who represents, in part, the evidence of that dream coming to pass, I pause to remember the supremacy of the one man, who, at the height of his glory, was abandoned by all as he hung on a cross and proclaimed, “It is finished.”

    Posted in Jesus, justice, kingdom, memphis, reconciliation

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