I have to admit, I am really struck by just how fervently conversations about the plight of seminaries and theological education in general seem to be bubbling up to the surface right now.

A few weeks ago my alma mater, Fuller Theological Seminary, went live with its, “Seminary of the Future” project that Andy Crouch (of Christianity Today) and Rich Mouw (the President of Fuller) have been collaborating on for the last year and a half or so.  You can follow the rolling out of their various Discussion Points at future.fuller.edu.  You can also follow them on Twitter @futureseminary or join a broader conversation using the hashtag, #futureseminary.

Then, yesterday, as I was running and getting caught up on my Homebrewed Christianity listening, I was struck by the closing discussion between podcast host Tripp Fuller and my friend, guest, Dr. (yeah, he finally finished) Tony Jones on the lingering problems of “residential seminary education.”  The whole podcast is worth a listen, though this wasn’t the topic throughout.  They just touched on it at the end.  Tony is nothing if not straightforward and provocative.  Check out this 4 minute clip.

Then, stuck in traffic on my way in yesterday, I noticed that Patheos, one of the most highly trafficked religious websites is convening a two-month online symposium on “The Future of Seminary Education.”  They have already solicited contributions from some great bloggers with more to be added.  This promises to be a fruitful conversation.

Clearly, this is an important conversation for a growing population of people.

As someone who has written on this topic from a missiological point of view (see sidebar on the blog), whose role at Northern Seminary gives me the opportunity to help develop programs, partnerships, and other initiatives along these lines, and who has been working with 3DM as they attempt to offer what they can to this conversation, I am really excited to see just how much momentum this conversation is gaining.

So here’s a final reminder about an event I mentioned a couple weeks ago, for those of you who are in (or who care enough about this to make your way to) the Chicago area, Northern Seminary is hosting a 3DM event on Thursday, October 27 from 7-9PM that will feature the presentation of a paper and video on the future of theological education.  These presentations will be followed by responses by those who can contribute from different perspectives (pastoral, student, academic), and then open discussion and dialogue.  The event is free, but you need to register here.

And feel free to stick around for the (also free) workshop that 3DM is hosting the next day on issues of discipleship and mission, and then the annual Missional Learning Commons.  More info and registration options for these events availabvle at missionalcommons.org.  I think God is going to do lots of great stuff during these events.  Hope you can join us!

Wrote this post for the blog of the good people behind the Anabaptist Missional Project.

I’m an Anabaptist.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not Mennonite, Hutterite, Brethren, or Amish and my name is Rozko for Pete’s sake!, but I’m an Anabaptist nonetheless.  I may have been baptized in an Episcopalian church when I was a baby, baptized again in a Church of Christ in high school when my faith became my own, ordained in the Christian Church tradition, and I may be part of a church community that is part of the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination and work for an American Baptist seminary, but I’m an Anabaptist nonetheless.

“How’s that work exactly?” you ask.  Good question.  In fact, it’s the question behind this post which is itself the result of a conversation I had with my good friend Dave Stutzman (he’s my Anabaptist passport for those of you skeptics out there

Well, here’s my brief answer.  It works because I’m one of thousands of seminary-trained people between the ages of 25 and 35 who have been orphaned by the Christendom-shaped theology and ecclesiology that raised us.  Like many, many others, left to fend for ourselves among the cultural wilderness that is Post-Christendom, Anabaptism has provided me with the theological and ecclesiological shelter and nourishment that I needed to sustain and guide me as I’ve sought to make sense of the world and my personal and ministerial place in it. 

To be a bit more specific, as Christianity has moved (been pushed?) from the center to the margins of our society, by and large, the responses of the Church have come in two types:

1) Fight – here I have in mind the typical right-wing Christian response of scraping and clawing through powerful maneuvering and campaigning to “take back America for God” in order to regain a place of power and privilege believed to be, if not rightfully ours, God’s ultimate aim for his people.

2) Ignore – here, there is either a complete lack of awareness (especially in the South) of the growing reality of Post-Christendom or an apathetic attitude toward what is simply dismissed as an inevitability.

Anabaptism, I believe, presents a third way, a posture more faithful to a biblical (at least through the lenses of Anabaptist theology & ecclesiology) vision of what it means to be the people of God living under the reign of God in the midst of a world that, while fallen, remains deeply loved and addressed by God.  It was this humble and hopeful vision that drew me in.

My initial touch points with Anabaptism came through a handful of professors at Fuller Theological Seminary such as Wilbert Shenk (anyone else think Wilbert needs to start a blog already?!), Nancey Murphy, and Glen Stassen (though there’s a palpable Anabaptist current throughout much of the school) and some time at Pasadena Mennonite Church.  These opened me up to the world of Anabaptist theology and (missional) ecclesiology, which has worked to powerfully shape both my identity and the contours of my life.

Anabaptist theology has had a profound impact on my thinking and practice with regard to, among many other things, missional church, politics, preaching, theological education, and the Gospel.  In fact, it was these touch points and their consequent exposure to the unique features of Anabaptism that inclined me to further study with Wilbert Shenk and James Krabill as part of DMiss cohort at Fuller focused on Anabaptist Perspectives in Missional Ecclesiology.

Interestingly, the one thing that my exposure to Anabaptism didn’t do, and I suppose this might be the real point of the post since it seemed to be one of the things Dave and I talked most about in our conversation, was incline me to seek out and join a (traditionally thought of) Anabaptist congregation.  I think there are 3 primary reasons for this.

1) There are only a couple “denominationally-Anabaptist” congregations near me and they are all incredibly introverted and insular – a startling reality in light of the fact that the inherently missional dimension of all Anabaptist theology was one of the things I initially found so freeing.

2) I have experienced and continue to understand Anabaptism as a theological and ecclesiological paradigm that defies denominational hegemony.  This of course relates to the first point, but personally, inasmuch as I have come to see Anabaptism as a theological (as opposed to denominational) tradition, I actually feel like I would be close to betraying my Anabaptist convictions to not seek to live them out in whatever other contexts it seems God has and is directing me.

3) Lastly, I am surrounded by people who share my story – people who, while having no official exposure to or experience with traditionally thought of Anabaptist congregations, have discovered, through any number of different means (books, blogs, classes, friends, conferences, etc.), that Anabaptism is the theological tradition that best expresses their core convictions. Thus, I am far more inclined band together with these folks to see the Anabaptist vision carried forth and lived out across an array of denominational and other contexts rather than I am to isolate myself to one of the few traditionally recognized contexts.

The point I suppose is this, there is a large and growing population of Christians who resonate with Anabaptist theology and ecclesiology.  It sure would be awesome if those who have been part of historically Anabaptist traditions were leading the way on this, but as of yet, that just doesn’t seem to be the case.  I don’t claim to have any divine insight or wisdom on this, but I think this much should be apparent: as Christendom continues to crumble, as denominational identity comes to mean less and less, and as more and more Christians/ministers have to figure out how to make sense of the world and their relationship to God and God’s work in it, there is a HUGE opportunity for those who espouse Anabaptist ideals to speak up and lead the way.  I represent a group of people who would gladly welcome the guidance!

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.

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?

Not so long ago I reviewed, Launching Missional Communities, by Mike Breen and Alex Absalom.  Then, some good conversation ensued, both on my post as well as on a post that Mike offered in response to my review. (Incidentally, Mike has recently followed up on this conversation with another post.  You can see my engagement with his ideas there.)

Mike helps to lead a ministry called 3DM (more on them here) that a good number of my church ministry/planter friends have been impacted by.  One of those friends, Doug Paul, and I have recently been having conversations about the relationship between the philosophy behind 3DM and the future of theological education.  In fact, you should check out a brilliant interview that Mike did with Dave Kludt of “The Burner Blog” through Fuller Seminary, especially question 5, on that subject.

A couple weeks ago, as a representative of Northern Seminary, where I work, I was able to participate in the first gathering of a new Learning Community that 3DM launched.  Essentially, this was a gathering of about 40 church teams (3-5 leaders/church) who were beginning a 2 year journey of learning together what it might mean to build a discipling culture, multiply missional leaders, launch missional communities, and establish centers of mission.  The structure of the event (Monday afternoon through Thursday afternoon) was unlike any other Christian conference/event I have ever been a part of and quite frankly, was more helpful than any conference/event I have ever been a part of.  This was the case for one simple reason, it took seriously the idea of praxis – engaging in an intentional rhythm of reflection and action.

The event was structured largely around a rhythm of “idea-driven” corporate times and “application-driven” community times.  Interspersed throughout the week were additional times for even smaller group engagement, shared meals, and prayer/ministry time.

I won’t belabor the point by going into a detailed description of how all these times looked exactly, but suffice it to say, the centrality of praxis (learning/engaging, ideas/skills, or hearing/responding), which drove our time together, set this gathering apart from anything else I’ve been a part of.  Whereas a good many Christian gatherings are predicated on drawing people to celebrity speakers or to a purely intellectual presentation of ideas (not that these are bad in and of themselves), I would hope that more and more Christian gatherings might choose to restructure themselves in the way described above.

3DM is doing good work.  I would go so far as to say they are doing some of the most needed work in helping people/churches get a handle on what it might mean, practically, to embody a missional ecclesiology here in the US as Christendom continues to crumble and we are led (forced?) to ask new questions about the nature and purpose of the church.

If you represent an existing church or are engaged/thinking about church planting, you should absolutely consider being part of a future learning community.

If you are reading this and have been part of a 3DM Leaning Community, please feel free to offer your thoughts and reflections for others.

An interesting thing was taking place when I began my graduate studies at Fuller back in 2004.  A surprisingly large number of students in the School of Theology, of which I was one, were either switching their degree program or restructuring it as best they could to take advantage of courses that were being offered out of Fuller’s School of Intercultural Studies, the school which has traditionally trained missionaries as opposed to pastors and theologians.  The reason was simple – more and more of us were realizing that if we wanted to be equipped for a future of ministry in and to Western culture, we needed to learn how to think and function as missionaries.

As Christendom continues to crumble and as the United States increasingly becomes a microcosm of the globe (it is predicted that by 2050 over 50% of our population will be comprised of minority groups), the work and supporting skill set of Christian leaders will undergo seismic changes.  Actually, I hate to say it that way.  It’s not that the work we should have been doing or the skill set we should have been operating out of all along will objectively change, but the shifting of our culture and context will smack us so hard upside the head that we will have no choice but to wake up to how we’ve gotten off track.

I want to suggest that the people we will most desperately need to help guide us into a faithful engagement with this sort of future are Missionary Theologians.

I say “missionary theologians” as opposed to “missional theologians” to differentiate between those who do theology out of their cross-culturally oriented lives and witness as missionaries as opposed to those who might simply articulate theology from a missional perspective (however masterfully).  The Bible, I believe, is the product of this sort of perspective.  The books, letters, and poetry of the Bible, and the theology they communicate, emerge from the missionary encounter of God’s people with God’s world.  We err when we read the Bible in any other way.  Our work is no different.  It is as we engage the world as the people of God that we actually develop the capacity to see God at work and the proper vantage point from which to do theology.

My friend Doug likes to say that “The Church in Western culture doesn’t primarily have a leadership problem or a missional problem, it has a discipleship problem.”  Inasmuch as a disciple is someone who seeks to know God by joining in on God’s mission in the world by following Jesus in the power of the Spirit, I couldn’t possibly agree more.  And who better to help us step forward into that future than missionary theologians?!

I don’t think my experience at Fuller was unique.  I think this guild is on the rise.  2 questions seem to stand out however.

1) Will we encourage and facilitate the rise of missionary theologians or stymie it by persisting in outmoded paradigms of education and formation?

This question will be answered, in large part, by whether or not schools increasingly make the field of missiology standard fare in terms of equipping Christian leaders for ministry in Post-Christendom.

2) Will we recognize and incorporate the unique contributions that missionary theologians can make in the equipping of leaders?

Here, I think we must look to whether nor not schools (or other training organizations) are making principle use of missionary theologians to train future leaders.

Bottom line, we still have a lot to learn from Mr. Lesslie Newbigin!

Way back in May of 2006 I wrote a blog post titled, “Things I Never Thought.” It was basically my own reflection on how the trajectory of my life had taken shape in ways that I didn’t expect or plan for. I had a number of friends mention that they appreciated the post when it was randomly retweeted from the archives so I thought I would do another post along the same lines, almost five years later now.

In May of 2006 I was in the Spring quarter of grad school. I was taking Pentateuch w/ Dr. John Goldingay, Theology of Christian Community w/ Dr. Ray Anderson and doing a Directed Study in Narrative Theology w/ Dr. Ryan Bolger. I had just one more quarter to go and then I was going to graduate. As I thought about my future, I imagined heading in one of two directions. Either I would move back to Canton and re-establish myself in the community I had left behind and missed like crazy, or, if God didn’t direct that way, I would look for a pastoral position in either the Pacific NW or in the Northeastern part of the US – some place that was further along in terms of being a Post-Christian context.

I never thought I would wind up working for Fuller’s MAGL program. I didn’t even know we had an MAGL program, but the opportunity presented itself and it radically altered my life. This will come into sharper focus below, but suffice it to say here, the model of theological education espoused by the MAGL and the relationships I made internally have had a tremendous impact on the contours of my life through to today.

I worked with the MAGL program for most of 2007 and then various circumstances combined to lead me back to Canton. As I tried to discern a future related to engaging the missional church conversation in the Midwest, I connected with Dave Fitch for the first time and visited Life on the Vine. I was giving serious consideration to simply moving to Chicago just to be a part of LOV as the first church I had been exposed to that I felt like was actually expressing missional theology in its communal life, rhythms, and practices.

I never thought I would get a call from a young church in Memphis, TN asking me to consider taking a position down there.  And I certainly never thought that despite my best efforts to dismiss it, that God would actually lead me to embrace the opportunity.

I had a good experience at Living Hope.  I loved the staff, enjoyed connecting and working with young adults, and made some life-long friends.  I moved into mid-town, close to the part of the city where it seemed like some people from the church would think about relocating to, and anticipated a long future of investing the future of the newer church community that was seeking to embrace a missional identity and a heart for the city of Memphis.

I never thought that I would reconnect (let alone marry!) with Amy Garrington, who had been a student in one of the MAGL cohorts that I was responsible for.  (See, told you that MAGL job was a big deal!)  But, as she was contemplating leaving Pasadena for a position at International Teams near Chicago, that’s exactly what happened.  We’ve been married for about a year and a half, have a baby on the way this June, and love where we live.  Amy and I both have some family that lives in the Chicagoland area, but…

I never thought my brother would leave NYC and join us here in Chicago!

There’s probably a bunch more “I never thought’s” that I could list out, but these are probably among the most significant of the last five years.  They serve as both a humble reminder and constant encouragement that when you’re more focused on listening and responding to what God is saying and doing than on ensuring the fulfillment of your own ideas and plans, life-changing surprises await you.

I simply can’t wait for the next series of, things I never thought!

I have a decision to make.  Several months ago I wrote a post about Fuller pulling together a DMiss cohort around the topic of Anabaptist Perspectives in Missional Ecclesiology.  I applied to this program and it is scheduled to begin this November.

In the meantime, I accepted a job here in the Chicagoland area at Northern Seminary which is pulling together its own DMin cohort around the topic of missional leadership.

Of course each program comes with its own features and benefits.  Both programs are cohort-based and non-residential, but let me lay out some of the distinctives of each program and see what sort of thoughts and advice you might have to offer.

The DMiss…

The DMiss, like a PhD, is a research driven program.  The program moves from theological/missiological considerations to issues of context and culture, and finally, to leadership and change dynamics.  The final year is given to integration, assessment, and dissertation writing.  The cohort will be led, primarily, by Wilbert Shenk and James Krabill.

The DMin…

The DMin is a course driven program, the topics such as, “The Church in Post-Christendom, The Gospel and Culture, Missional Theology, and Misional Leadership.”  The program culminates in the writing of a thesis.  David Fitch is leading the cohort while Al Roxburgh and Craig Van Gelder will be involved as well.

I think very highly of both of these schools and their programs.  I think both programs will do immeasurable good in equipping men and women for service in and to missional churches, but I go back and forth on which one is the best for me, at this time, given the larger scope of all that God is doing in my life.

What sort of questions would you be asking if you were me?  What aspects of doctoral level education do you believe are most important and relevant?

Jim Belcher, the author of Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional, and I have much in common.

We both did masters degrees at Fuller Theological Seminary.

We both have a heart for church planting.

I teach a class on the Emerging Church based on the intensive that he references in his book. (35)

We get frustrated when people talk past one another, defaulting to caricatured stereotypes rather than embracing a posture of openness.

And we both value looking for a “third way” to approach dichotomistic thinking.

He is right when he says,

It seems that every time someone criticizes the emerging church, they pick the worst-case scenario or the most extreme statements. (49)

He is also correct in noting,

It seems the emerging church, for rhetorical purposes, uses sweeping generalizations about the traditional church that are unfair. (76)

The larger Body of Christ would indeed be served well by discourse that is deeper, more specific, and marked by a sense of humble openness.  Belcher’s chapters on Deep: Truth, Evangelism, Gospel, Worship, Preaching, Ecclesiology, and Culture, are essentially his attempts  to facilitate just that – a worthwhile enterprise in my opinion.

While Belcher’s book is truly helpful in this regard, I’m not sure he really hits the mark in terms of articulating a true “third way” as a means of engaging these topics.  Very often, his conclusions in these chapters are a combination of a chastened version of the EC position he articulates and an expanded version of the traditional position he articulates (usually w/ reference to Tim Keller and his church!).  I suppose this is a kind of “third way,” maybe even precisely the one Belcher desires, but I’m not certain it’s the most helpful kind of third way for the Church to pursue.

The mistake, I believe, comes in the assumption that one can simply pit the positions of the EC against the positions of the traditional church.  The main problem here is that many in the EC camp are themselves trying to articulate and maneuver a “third way” between the modern categories of conservatism and liberalism, a feature that Belcher seems to either overlook or discount w/o comment.  An indication of this is his quick dismissal of the Anabaptist tradition from which many in the EC draw as one which is able to circumvent many of the dichotomies addressed in this book on account of its fundamentally, Christendom-rejecting, stance.  Belcher never seems to ask, “How might people in the EC camp already be searching for a third way in response to classic approaches to these issues?,” but assumes that their positions are simply reactions against the positions of traditional churches.

Belcher sets himself on this course in stating,

We need to define it [the emerging church] as a movement, particularly its theology.  The best way to do this is to look at what the emerging church movement is against – the things they are protesting and the rasons why they are calling for change. (38)

For the life of me, I can’t grasp why someone would want to define a movement by what they are against (even it it is a protest movement) rather than what they are for.  We certainly regard what the classic reformers were for as far more more important than what they were against!  But more than this, Belcher fails to identify missiology as a core motif for the EC.  For many, if not most, in the global EC movement, it is an attempt to participate with God and God’s mission in the world that is reshaping how they understand the sorts of topics that Belcher raises in his book, not vice versa.

These criticisms notwithstanding, I am glad that Jim wrote this book and don’t doubt for a second that it has an will continue to help many.

**Jim has recently decided to resign from his position as lead pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, CA.  You can read a letter he wrote to the congregation regarding this transition here and some additional discussion about this sort of trend here.

I am fortunate to get to instruct an online course entitled, “The Emerging Church in the 21st Century,” for Fuller Theological Seminary each year. Based on current discussions and publications, I try to make appropriate and helpful updates to the course each time around.  This year, I decided to make Brian McLaren’s newest book, A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions that are Transforming the Faith, an optional book choice (students have to read something by McLaren).

After I made this decision, a flurry of reviews of the book were published all over the blogosphere.  I was disappointed that a great many of them paid no mind to the life and ministry of the author and were virtually completely devoid of charity, something which ought to mark all Christian discourse.  More than this, I was thwarted in my effort to find reviews that offered reflections that were practical in nature.

Convinced that there is a better way to engage with the material of Christian authors, I created an alternative assignment, which about half of the class has chosen to participate in.  I created a blog, dearbrianmclaren.wordpress.com, and invited students to write a personal letter to Brian.  Here’s the criteria for the assignment and grading:

1) Letter must be addressed to Brian as the author of the book and should be between 500-600 words.

2) You must speak to the practical implications of Brian’s content for your own life and ministry – no abstract, hypothetical or theoretical speculation.  If taken seriously, what are the implications of Brian’s points and proposals for your church or how you live and minister?  Obviously, you will have to be selective and won’t be able to address everything in the book, that’s fine.

3) The degree to which you write with Christian charity.  You are welcome, even encouraged, to disagree with anything (or everything!) Brian has to say, that’s not the point.  The point is showing that you can disagree and respond to an actual person with Christian charity.

5) Included within the letter, or at the end, you should pose 2-3 questions to Brian that you are left with after reading the book.

4) Provided enough people are reviewing the book in this manner, you must comment on at least three other peoples letters/posts within a week of their being posted on the blog.

These letters have been posted and Brian has even been gracious enough to give some time to reading and responding to them. Though this is primarily a class assignment, the blog is public and I’d encourage you to read the letters and offerer comments if you choose.

Even better, if you’ve read the book, I’d invite to you respond along the lines of the guidelines above and leave a link to your letter in the comments below.

All good missional ecclesiology is owing to the Anabaptist tradition.  I came to understand that at some point in grad school and have only become more convinced of it since.

This is why I want to let everyone I can know about an incredible opportunity coming up this fall.  Ever heard of a DMiss? If you haven’t, you need to familiarize yourself.

The DMiss is an applied research doctoral degree designed for ministry practitioners as opposed to straight academics, but its focus is missiology – an increasingly vital dimension of study for those engaged in ministry within Post-Christendom.

This fall Fuller Theological Seminary is launching an “Anabaptist Missional Perspectives Cohort” for those interested in the DMiss program.  From Fuller’s page on the DMiss program…

The Doctor of Missiology degree equips leaders to effectively integrate theory into missional praxis within the global reality of the twenty-first century.  With this program, key leaders will continue their ministries in-context, attending a cohort-based seminar once a year for four years at Fuller’s campus, and interacting with a Fuller SIS faculty member.

The DMiss program is designed for leaders with a minimum of five years of missional experience who desire:
1. To assist mission leaders in context.
2. To have direct impact on practical ministry.
3. To maximize their leadership potential within their organizations.

If you’re interested in anabaptism or missional ecclesiology, have already got a masters degree, are looking for some more education, and are convinced, like me, that the best forms of education are those rooted in a learning community of engaged Christian leaders, you really need to check out this program.  Deadline for applications is the end of May and if you hurry, you might even be able to get a refund on your application fee!

Learn more about the cohort model of education here.

Learn more about the program structure here.

Let me know if you have any questions, I’d love to talk more about it.  And please forward this on to others you think might be interested.

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.

I think this will be my last post in a series on bi-vocational ministry.  If you’re looking to catch up, feel free to check out the earlier ones:

1) Bi-Vocational Ministry

2) Bi-Vocational Ministry & the Missional Church

3) Bi-Vocational Ministry & Spiritual Formation

4) Bi-Vocational Ministry & Support Raising

Thinking on this topic has stirred up a number of thoughts, ideas, and connections that I think will take shape in a next series of posts, so I won’t say too much here.

What I will say is this…

In 2004 when I began my education at Fuller Theological Seminary, I was on the fence about doing an MDiv.  I wasn’t sure that my future was going to be in professional, paid, church staff ministry.  I also wasn’t so sure that the structure of the degree was all that well equipped to prepare people for that sort of ministry given the trajectory of the Western church anyway.  To my utter shock, I soon discovered that these sentiments were widely shared and many of the people who would have been the best candidates for MDiv’s were opting for less traditional and more flexible routes. (FYI – Fuller has since done some major and commendable course correcting regarding all their programs, including the MDiv!)

My hesitations confirmed by the sentiments and decisions of my peers, I chose to do an MA in theology which gave me the ability to take 1/2 my classes out of Fullers’ School of Intercultural Studies enabling me to craft a degree that explored a missiology of Western culture.

In contrast to the average School of Theology student, many of the students doing degrees in the School of Intercultural Studies had widely marketable skills and trades.  Whereas the average SOT student was there to get an academic credential in order to get a job, the average SIS student was in school to learn how to be better a better missionary or to do more study regarding a particular area of interest.  Unlike their SOT counterparts, they weren’t looking for a degree to get a job.

Now, Fuller as a school didn’t create this reality per se, they were merely filling two different needs, augmenting on the one hand, and preparing on the other.

If, as I have tried to say, churches being led by a team of bi-vocational leaders is more sustainable, healthier for leaders and congregations alike, and all-around positively spiritually formative, then theological schools would do well to intentionally structure themselves for the sort of education that Fuller’s SIS was offering de facto.

There is a lesson to be learned here from Christian Liberal Arts schools (yeah Malone!) which prepare men and women of God for service in all areas of life… AS FOLLOWERS OF JESUS.  That people would “graduate” from this sort of education to one of specialized, professional theological training is a regrettable reality.  I say this as one with the highest of value for theological rigor and advanced training.  But, I also say it as one who thinks these things should never come at the expense of extending to Christian leaders the opportunity to lose touch with “the world.”

A missional ecclesiology calls for a missional approach to theological education that would be best described in terms of formational training.  This is what I hope to explore further in my next series of posts.

When I was a sophomore in college, I helped to lead a high school mission trip to Russia.  On the plane, I was reading a book someone had recommended, “Desiring God,” by John Piper.  Through the first 1/2 of the book, I was looking for a way to throw it off the plane – I thought it was crap.  By the end of it, I was transformed.  I had a completely different take on the nature of Christian faith and discipleship that has stood the test of time.

Once I started to get into Podcasts, Piper’s was one of the first ones I subscribed (iTunes link) to.  I still listen to it with some regularity and commend it to you.

When I was contemplating resigning my role as a student pastor in 2004 to pursue more theological education, I decided to take some time off to think, pray, reflect, and ask questions.  I traveled to Minneapolis, visited Bethlehem Baptist Church where John Piper preaches, and had the chance to talk with him for a while after one of the services.  An alum of Fuller Theological Seminary, I expected him to be encouraged that this was one of my options.  He wasn’t.  He said that they had gone down a dangerous to path toward Christian liberalism.

I went to Fuller anyway and discovered that John was wrong.

My idolatry of Piper broken, I began to notice some other aspects of his theology that I had a really hard time with.

I think he gets the issue of God’ sovereignty wrong – not because I believe the opposite, but because I think the whole Calvinist/Armenian debate is flawed at its core.  Both positions assume that salvation is something one can have and therefore argue about who secures our having it – God or man.  With good intention, some will attempt a middle road and say it’s a both/and issue.  It’s not.  It’s a neither/nor issue.  When you begin to understand that “salvation belongs to God” (Rev. 7:10) and is therefore something we can only participate in, never have, the whole debate changes.

I also lament Piper’s view on women. Again, he will argue the “conservative” side of the complimentarian/egalitarian debate, which I think begins with flawed premises.  Do men and women compliment each other or are they equal?  That question isn’t nearly biblical enough to be of any real value.  A more important question, at least as the Bible is concerned, is, how do men and women, who only together image God, as couples and singles, function together in doing and equipping others for ministry.  And the plain answer is that they serve as co-laborers – that each and every aspect of ministry, from preaching and teaching, to caring for children, suffers when not practiced by both capable and gifted women and men.

There was much bally-who in the blog-o-sphere last week when Piper connected a tornado in Minneapolis to a meeting the ELCA was having regarding the issue of homosexuality (here’s the original article and a follow up one).  I have listened to Piper enough that I think what he meant to say was that whenever natural disaster strikes it is an opportunity for us to remember and turn to God, but he seemed to be saying quite a bit more than that and it calls for some accounting.

Lastly, he’s got a bad take on the woman at the well (John 4).  Like perhaps the majority of preachers, he is quick to assume the moral degradation of the woman Jesus encounters, frequently noting that “she’s sleeping with her boyfriend.”  As I take into account the cultural factors at play in this passage as well as the fuller scope of Jesus’ ministry, I find this interpretation to be maddening.

Women had not rights in Jesus’ day; they had not power to divorce a husband; they were property.  Unless they were from a royal or extremely well off family, they had almost no hope of being able to provide for themselves.  As the Bible makes clear, the ability to produce children more often than not determined a woman’s worth.

While we might trip over some of the translated language, I think it’s much more faithful to the text to understand this Samaritan woman, not as a whore (essentially what Piper and others tend to d0), but as a shamed and broken victim of injustice.  When Jesus notes that this woman had had five husbands, he’s not digging her for her sin – when did Jesus ever do that except for the religious leaders?!  And when he says that the man she now has is not her husband, he’s not some *&$%^&# calling her out for “sleeping with her boyfriend”  – again, just doesn’t fit the Jesus of the gospels.  He is calling out the source of her shame and injustice so that he can heal it – something he did all the time.

I love John Piper as a brother in Christ.  His passion and zeal for the supremacy of God captivates and inspires me.  But here’s the final thing about John and this gets me more than anything else.  I have never heard him say (and he’s really public!), “I might be wrong.  There are other followers of Jesus who believe differently than me and they just might be on to something.”  Even if he has said something like this at some point – it is quite definitely not a theme in his teaching the way I wish it was.  I’m not talking about being wishy-washy.  I am taking about some good ol fashioned humility and firm trust in God’s work over his theology.

I am not writing this to disparage.  Beginning with myself, I would ask anyone who has some theological issues with another brother or sister in Christ, to think first and foremost about who they really are and what they have done for the sake of the gospel.  I am no anti-Piperian. I consider John a true partner in the gospel and would run to his defense on most occasions.  But this is just some stuff that I really struggle with enough to hope that others would as well.

If you are considering working on a masters degree in the areas of theology, missiology, or psychology I’d like to encourage you to consider Fuller Theological Seminary.  I graduated back in 2006 and have been an avid evangelist for the school ever since.

Aside from having a world class faculty, Fuller is one of the most ethnically and racially diverse seminaries in the world which adds a ton to the processes of learning and formation.  And let’s face it, you can’t beat the weather in So. Cal!

More than all this, the alumni of Fuller just received an email from the admissions department letting us know that they have received a hefty donation and are offering more scholarships than usual to incoming students.  So the timing is perfect.

If you are interested in going to seminary, but love the idea of a more integrated approach to education where you are studying while you’re engaged in a specific area of Christian leadership, you really need to check out the Master of Arts in Global Leadership program.  In my opinion, this is one of the best programs being offered in the entire landscape of graduate theology/missiology.

If you are looking for any more guidance, have any questions, or would like me to help connect you with some people who might be valuable to the ends you have in mind for seminary, just let me know.

Oh, make sure you take something with Mark Lau Branson