• Archive of "spiritual formation" Category

    The Missiological Future of Theological Education – Training Reflective Practitioners

    November 22, 2011 // 1 Comment »

    The post below (edited slightly) was offered as the 2nd in a series of 4 articles on the “Future of the Seminary” forum over at Patheos (1st article here).  If you haven’t already seen it, this video will give you a good introduction to the basis for the perspective being offered.

    Based on this perspective, we suggest that the task before us is to identify educational principles guided by a theological vision of the missio Dei as it relates to both the gospel and the Church that can give shape and substance to processes of theological formation that are able to help students develop Kingdom-oriented character and competency.

    We will explore two additional missiological principles that we believe ought to guide this vision of theological education in forthcoming posts, but here we would like to suggest that a vision of theological education that is guided and shaped by a missional vision of God, the Gospel, and the Church will be praxeological – given to the training of reflective practitioners.  While other changes are surely called for, we suggest that theological formation that is praxeological calls for elongated programs, training by missionary theologians, diversified learning environments, a high degree of attention to contextualization, and an emphasis on creating learning communities.

    Elongated Programs of Theological Formation

    Whereas many seminaries seem to be spending their energy trying to find ways to help students achieve degrees more quickly, a praxeological orientation calls for more integrated, and therefore elongated, programs. Obviously an elongated program delays the conferral of a degree, but under the vision of theological education suggested here, the idea isn’t getting a degree so that you can begin to do ministry, but beginning to do ministry so that you are rooted in the proper context for theological education and formation in the first place. If the end goal is not the conferral of a degree but actually becoming a certain kind of person, there simply are no shortcuts to be taken.

    Training by Missionary Theologians

    A praxeological orientation toward theological education will require a faculty composed not mainly of traditional academic scholars, but of missionary theologians – those whose ability to guide and shape others flows from their own praxeological formation. Again, we are not suggesting that scholarship does not have its place; we are simply saying that the right kind of scholarship will always be driven by and focused on its implications for the life and ministry of the Church. As Karl Barth has famously said,

    There would be no theology if there were no ministry specially committed to the witness of the word… If we abstract its origin in the ministry of the community, all its problems are either irrelevant or they lose their theological character… (CD 4.3.2, 879)

    Thus, we are compelled to ask whether or not those who are trained and formed by traditional PhD programs are the best candidates for the kind of mentors/teachers needed to equip those who embrace this vision of theological education.

    Diversified Learning Environments

    Learning theory suggests there are three ways we learn: the passing on of information, apprenticeship to learn certain skill-sets, and immersion. The best learning experience occurs when there is a dynamic interplay between all three. Driven by Christendom presuppositions, our current systems of theological education are designed to do the first, pass on information, but give no real attention to issues of apprenticeship or immersion experiences. A praxeological orientation to theological education will require that our seminaries create all three kinds of learning environments for their students. The issue here isn’t merely the lack of second and third environments, but the fact that that apart from them, the relevance of time spent in the first environment loses the impact it ought to have.

    Issues of Contextualization

    Ministry never occurs in a vacuum. Students don’t just need to learn what to apply to their ministry context, which under the current paradigm of theological education they may not even have; they need to learn how to apply it to their ministry context, which we are suggesting as a prerequisite. This implies not only the need for missiologically-driven advances in models of distributed learning, but calls for a greatly enhanced focus on the part of instructors and the designing of programs with regard to the application of theological learning to specific ministry contexts.*

    *Living into this sort of vision will mean that increasingly, centers of theological education will see having a ministry context as a prerequisite for admission into its programs. In addition, this value should compel centers of theological education to put significant amounts of time and resources into establishing truly meaningful relationships and partnerships with local churches and ministry organizations in which students who don’t have their own ministry context might not just do occasional internships, but root the entirely of their educational process.

    Learning Communities

    A core component of a praxeological orientation to theological education is the importance of learning in community. Whereas we wholeheartedly agree that there is a unique and important place for those regarded as experts in their field who can offer their wisdom, experience, and insight as they guide students in their formation as Kingdom leaders, there is an equally important and formative dimension to theological education that is rooted within a community of learning. In line with the realities of Kingdom ministry, which always call for a collaborative approach to tasks and problems, seminary students should increasingly develop a capacity to embody an open and discerning posture towards the insights and critiques of their peers. Flying in the face of traditional assessment criteria that are nearly exclusively predicated on one’s individual academic performance, a core component of assessing the formation of Kingdom leaders will have to do with their posture toward and interaction with others in a learning community.*

    *We suggest that where theological schools continue to offer residential options, they will do well to structure them around a more monastic model where students come to be immersed in an integrated program of sharing life, resources, learning experiences, and diversified endeavors in ministry and mission.

    At the heart of the particular suggestion is the simple observation that, “this is how Jesus did it” – calling disciples to him “that they might be with him and that he might send them out…” (Mark 3:14)

    Read the full white paper, The Missiological Future of Theological Education, here and join in the conversation below and over at thefutureoftheologicaleducation.com.

    Posted in 3DM, anabaptist, bi-vocational, christendom, church, culture, discipleship, God, gospel, Jesus, kingdom, missiology, missional, missional theology, post-christendom, spiritual formation, theological education, theology, video, western culture

    The Missiological Future of Theological Education – Introduction

    November 9, 2011 // No Comments »

    It’s been a few weeks since I posted about the groundswell of conversation that seemed to be happening around the topic of the state and future of theological education. Since then, a lot has happened.

    1) I joined Doug Paul and Mike Breen of 3DM in hosting a forum on this topic at Northern Seminary.

    2) We’ve launched a website that is hosting the white paper and video we produced as contributions to the conversation.

    3) A number of people have begin conversations in the discussion forums on that site.

    4) Dr. Craig Blomberg, Professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary, offered a response to the paper that is posted on the resource blog

    5) A slew of new posts, including the 1st of 4 from our perspective, have appeared in the online forum over at Patheos.

    6) And we have received a couple dozen emails from people who are asking everything from, “Can you keep me informed on how this goes forward?” to “Can you come and help lead a discussion on this in our context?” Which we are more than excited to do! (inquire here).

    I am actually quite a bit more interested in driving traffic over to thefutureoftheologicaleducation.com as a place where we can try and centralize some conversation and garner insight from as broad a population as possible, but just to generate some interest, I thought I would try and peak your interest with a few words from the introduction of the paper and the video that goes along with the initiative…

    The American Church finds itself in a precarious position. Based on current statistics, each year 2.7 million people cease to be part of a local church community and 4000 churches close their doors. Beyond this, 85 percent of all our churches are classified as stagnant and dying…

    …while we wholeheartedly agree that we are indeed in the midst of a cultural earthquake, we believe that these statistics are better read as symptoms of a deeper problem. Rather than working toward solutions aimed at helping the Church maintain or regain its position of power and privilege at the center of society, our contention is that a more faithful posture, in the midst of this cultural earthquake, is pausing to ask what God is saying and doing and how God is calling us to respond?

    The missiological crisis of Christendom not only affected the Church, but also bore corresponding implications for seminaries and indeed our systems of theological education in general. As such, we believe that a massive re-imagining of the nature, purpose, and practice of theological education is in order. Simply put, the guiding thesis of this paper is that to the extent that our current systems of theological education have been shaped by Christendom presuppositions, they have lost their missiological bearings and are wholly inadequate to prepare Kingdom leaders. Incremental changes and clever adaptations to these current systems only serve to distract from the opportunity we have before us to develop a Kingdom, and therefore missional, vision of theological education. At the heart of this vision is the conviction that the proper telos of theological education is an “accreditation” of students based not merely on the degrees they earn, but on the development and fit of their character and competency for life and leadership in the Kingdom of God.

    And here’s the video… Hope to follow up in coming weeks with other blurbs from the paper.

    Posted in 3DM, anabaptist, bi-vocational, christendom, church, culture, discipleship, God, gospel, Jesus, kingdom, leadership, missiology, missional, missional theology, Northern Seminary, post-christendom, spiritual formation, theological education, theology, video, western culture

    My (Ana)baptism

    September 7, 2011 // 19 Comments »

    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!

    Posted in anabaptist, chicago, christendom, culture, discipleship, DMiss, Fuller Seminary, gospel, kingdom, missiology, missional, missional theology, Northern Seminary, politics, post-christendom, preaching/teaching, salvation, spiritual formation, theological education, theology, western culture

    Northern Seminary & 3DM: Discipleship-Oriented Theological Education (Part 2)

    August 29, 2011 // 1 Comment »

    I mentioned a couple weeks ago that as part of my role at Northern Seminary, I was in Pawley’s Island, SC working w/ the good people of 3DM to flesh out how those who participate in a 3DM Learning Community can apply that experience toward a seminary degree. Let me describe Learning Communities briefly. (check here for more)

    Learning Communities are open to church planters and small (3-5) church staff teams. LC’s are structured around 4 intensives:

    1) Building a Discipling Culture

    2) Multiplying Missional Leaders

    3) Leading Missional Communities

    4) Establishing Centers of Mission.

    During these intensives, church planters and teams have the opportunity to learn from the experience and insight of church leaders drawing on decades of ministry experience in Post-Christian England, work through the details of this teaching for their specific ministry context, and build 6-month strategic ministry plans that members of the 3DM team will mentor and coach them through during weekly “huddle” calls until the following intensive. That’s just a basic sketch, it doesn’t even begin to get into the ways that they intersperse worship and ministry time with social time for connecting and building relationships. It’s really an all-around incredible experience as I’ve said before.

    So, we’ve been working on pairing this existing paradigm of training and formation with additional course work, i.e., books, writing (reflection & research) projects, and assessment exercises, to create something of a “Scholar Track.” Guess what excites me most is that as I have shared this with a number of people, including people who are thinking about seminary, are in seminary, or have finished seminary, the response has been the same, “Man, that’s what all of theological education should look like!” (By the way, if you’re one of those people, drop me a line directly via the contact page and I can share a little more about how you might be part of a growing initiative in this regard).

    On Northern’s end, we hope that new and existing students will want to take advantage of the opportunity to participate in a 3DM Learning Community as way to, on the one hand, bring the issues of discipleship and mission to the forefront of their education and formation, and on the other, to benefit from a learning experience that is rooted in community as well as a local ministry context.

    On 3DM’s end, we are hoping that making this option available will be not just an added incentive to those who are interested in working toward a seminary degree, but will bring a dimension to their experience that proves additionally valuable and formative. In either case, doing so will result in 9 courses that count as…

    1) The completion of an entire Certificate Program
    2) An emphasis of courses that count toward the completion of an MA or MDiv at Northern (or which can be transferred to another school’s program)
    3) The focus section of a DMin degree

    Maybe just me, but I happen to think this is a pretty exciting opportunity. Anyone have any thoughts or reactions?

    Posted in 3DM, christendom, church, community, discipleship, missional, Northern Seminary, post-christendom, spiritual formation, theological education, theology

    Northern Seminary & 3DM: Discipleship Oriented Theological Education

    August 4, 2011 // 5 Comments »

    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.

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

    “Going to Church” Is Not A Reality I Want For My Daughter

    July 26, 2011 // 6 Comments »

    I am one of those people who happens to believe in the importance of words.  While it’s a good thing to have a broad vocabulary, that’s not what I mean.  I mean that I think words are powerful.  Words aren’t just symbols and they certainly aren’t neutral.  Words actually DO things when we use them or hear them.

    Ever been called an idiot?

    Ever made a verbal promise?

    Ever double-dog-dared someone to do something?

    Yes?  Then you get what I mean.  Words are powerful tools.  I would even go so far as to say that words contribute to the shaping of our realities.  Just ask any teenager whose parent has told them on a consistent basis for years that they’re worthless.

    This is why I have abandoned the language of “going to church.”  This language reinforces a false reality.  A reality in which church is understood to be a place or an event rather than a Kingdom community or family of disciples.  I would submit that the idea of “going to church” is a chief hallmark of cultural Christianity, the sort of thing that, while having a ring of sincerity to it, actually reshapes our imaginations and our reality in ways counter to the biblical narrative and the purposes of God.  So, a few weeks ago, as Amy and I prepared to take our daughter to a gathering of our church community, she and I had one of our first father-daughter chats.

    I began to speak the kind of words to my daughter that I want her to grow up hearing – words that I want to shape her into the sort of person capable envisioning and receiving the story into which she has been born and invited – words that I hope will instill in her the sort of sorrowful/sick feeling that her father gets when he hears people relegate the Church to something we merely “go to.”

    I said to her,

    Daughter, you are a part of our family and our family is part of a very special group of people.  This group of people has a long, long history, filled with incredible stories that you will get to hear as you get older.  But here’s what you need to know.  God loves this world – everyone and everything in it.  He loves it more than we can even possibly imagine.  He loves it so much that he actually gave himself up for it – can you believe that?!  He did.  But lots of things are wrong.  Not everything is quite the way that it is supposed to be.  But don’t worry, God is at work.  He will see to it that in the end, all things will be made right again.  And guess what, God has invited us to join him on this mission.  He wants us to be a part of it with him as his people.  With God’s help we try to live out God’s dream for the world.  And because God’s own son, Jesus, did this better than anyone else ever did, we always try to follow his example.  That means that in many ways, the way we live is very different from the ways that other people live.  In fact, and this is difficult for me to say to you because I love you so much, it means that the more you live your life for God, the more likely it is that some people will not like you, maybe even hurt you like they did Jesus.  Even still…

    Like Jesus, we talk to God and listen as he speaks to us rather than living life on our own terms.

    Like Jesus, when people do mean and bad things, we offer forgiveness rather than hold grudges or try to get even.

    Like Jesus, when people are hurt or in need, we offer to help rather than let them suffer or assume that it’s their own fault.

    Like Jesus, we go out of our way to be friends with people who don’t like or make fun of rather than ignore them or do the same.

    Like Jesus, we give our money and things to people who need them even if they can’t pay us back rather than keeping everything for ourselves.

    Like Jesus, we will lay our lives down for our enemies rather than try to injure or destroy them.

    And that’s just the beginning!  These are just some of the ways that we get to enjoy God’s dream for the world.

    Now listen, there’s a special name for people who live this way together, they are called “Church.”  They are the people who have been called out of the ways of the way the world is, in order to live out God’s dream for the way the world should be and will be someday.  Some people think that Church is some thing that you go to, like going to a movie or a restaurant, only religious.  But that’s not what it is, not at all!  I know you won’t really understand all this quite yet, but the Church is a group of people who embody a whole new world!  Nothing you ever do will be more important than being part of this people and adventure.  Now, let’s go meet some of the people we’re on this mission with.

    The first of many more conversations I hope to have with my precious daughter along these lines.

    Posted in Amy, christendom, church, culture, discipleship, God, gospel, Jesus, kingdom, LOV, love, narrative theology, parenting, reconciliation, salvation, spiritual formation, stories, theology, truth

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