Another seminary curriculum

I've been thinking off and on lately, what would have been the ideal seminary curriculum for me. It would probably look much like the traditional curriculum I had in seminary, except it might be more integrated within each course.

Almost impossible to do it. There's just too much. Here's a shot if we could still do 90 hour MDIV curricula (15 hours per semester). For maximum benefit and coverage, every course should have a view to 1) spiritual formation, 2) connecting to other disciplines and subject matter, 3) appropriation.

Year 1
Fall 

• The Life of a Minister (1 hour)
• Greek for Ministry
• IBS: The Gospel of Matthew
• History: The First Christian Centuries (2 hours)
• Christian Theology 1
• The Mission of the Church

Spring

• Intro to Spiritual Formation (1 hour)
• Greek for Study
• IBS: Romans
• History: Catholics and Protestants (2 hours)
• Christian Theology 2
• The Pastor as Leader

Year 2
Fall

• Supervised Ministry 1 (1 hour)
• Greek Exegesis: Philippians
• The Pentateuch 
• History: American Christianity (2 hours)
• Race, Class, and Gender
• The Pastor and Congregational Care

Spring

• Personal Spiritual Formation
• Greek Exegesis: Gospel of John
• Hebrew for Ministry
• Historical and Poetic Books
• The Pastor as Priest

Year 3
Fall

• Supervised Ministry 2 (1 hour)
• Hebrew for Study
• Luke-Acts
• Philosophy and Christian Faith (2 hours)
• Great Theologians of the Centuries
• The Pastor and Discipleship

Spring

• The Integrated Pastor
• Hebrew Exegesis: The Prophets
• Contemporary Theologians
• The Letters of the New Testament
• The Pastor as Prophet

16. Faculty share governance with administration. (2)

... continued from Saturday

4. When new faculty joined the team, they all faced the fact that, in many cases, they were being handed a curriculum and courses that already existed in some form.

• The Missional Church course was already sketched out and its components dictated when Dr. Arn arrived.
• Bob Whitesel had some MA courses that he had completely written from the Grad Ministries days, but now was handed a leadership course organized by a team. There were parts of it and books he would never have included if he had written the course on his own.
• When Dr. Safiyah Fosua came, she was given a worship course that had already been taught several times. She spent the first couple years trying to figure out which parts were core and which parts were open for modification.
• Lenny Luchetti and Colleen Derr probably came at a point when they could have a little more direct impact on the design of their courses, although even here they were handed a curriculum already designed by a team.
• John Drury was able to design his online theology class on his own, as I was able to design my own biblical interpretation class on my own. This was the luxury of having a domain whose main course was not one of the six hour praxis ones. Still, I suspect John was frustrated with the Bible-theology-church history-integration components of the praxis courses that he taught.
• Dr. Kwasi Kena was handed a set of books and a course design for Cultural Contexts that Elizabeth Drury had largely designed in cooperation with me, bringing the elements we had planned with Norm Wilson the very first time. As a free-standing course, he had more freedom than the praxis professors to redesign it as his own.

I suspect that this situation was as difficult for the faculty as it was for me. For me it was the question of what the core structure and vision of the Seminary curriculum was. In general, faculty control the curriculum in an educational institution. But (and this took some reflection), we determined that there were features of the curriculum that transcended the faculty's control. As an analogy, the people in a democracy are not allowed to vote out democracy.

The Seminary was founded with a certain identity, and in our case this identity extended down into the curriculum. We determined that these identity items were not under the purview of the faculty to change. To be crass about it, in this case, the "business model" of the Seminary, which is a matter of the Board and administration, extended down into the curriculum.

But what were those "identity set by the Board and administration" elements, the ones that the faculty as a whole--let alone the faculty as individuals--simply could not vote out?

5. I found myself in a role quite contrary to my personality, the role of gatekeeper. Again, none of us in academia were trained by way of the problem based, practice-focused, integrated model that was determined to be part of the non-negotiable core of our identity. This is tough, because a lot of us were drawn to teaching because we enjoy being a "sage on a stage" or at least the king of our castle. The idea of sharing a class is not just complicated but generally undesirable to many of us who went into teaching, it seems to me.

So there was one voice that was quite adamant in Year 4 that we needed to have one professor-one course. I have pondered long and hard if in the end that is how it will inevitably end up for pragmatic reasons. You can't legislate that two people enjoy teaching together or gel well together. Nevertheless, I haven't heard that voice much lately. Other innovations have released some of the pressure we were feeling at that time.

In this same vein was another voice I heard in Year 4. In so many words, "The designers of this approach aren't here any more. They designed it and left. Is it fair to expect someone else to teach on a model built for someone else?" Again, I take there to be some truth to this comment. It is possible that the curriculum was designed for a particular personality of teacher?

Was our curriculum designed for the personality types of Keith Drury, Russ Gunsalus, and Ken Schenck? How many professors are there out there who actually like these features that made the Seminary curriculum most unique? To what extent was it reasonable to expect to hire professors who were wired like us?

6. I don't have a crystal ball to predict what the future holds. At one point, at what felt like a low point on these matters, I was open to splitting the 6 hour praxis courses into two three hour courses, each with a dedicated professor. They could still be "integrated." It would just take some coordination and intentionality between the two professors. In this scenario, the "integration" professor would need to teach some practical components. And to keep the concept, the praxis professor should probably teach some "foundations" components.

Ideas swirled. I am known for sending long emails to the faculty trying to process problems like these electronically. I gather my thoughts by writing, as this blog embodies. Not everyone likes this style. Shouldn't we schedule meetings to discuss things face-to-face? There was a fear that decisions would be made without everyone getting in a room together.

That certainly was never the intent. I know universities where it takes months to get the smallest movement on the needle because nothing is done apart from monthly meetings where no decisions are ever made (one professor personality loves to discuss and discuss and process and never comes to a decision). With the Seminary being so small, I wanted to brainstorm electronically so that any face-to-face meeting to make a decision was almost ready to take action.

And some personalities tend to overlay others in a meeting. It's easier for the silent to be heard in an email conversation. Email is more egalitarian, as long as everyone is participating. True, not everyone likes email. But then again, this is the twenty-first century. It is a fundamental responsibility in the modern age for people in an organization to read their email regularly and respond accordingly.

7. Another possibility would be to split our six hour praxis courses into two courses with 10 weeks of praxis and 6 weeks of integration. But this just isn't practical. 16 divides neatly into two 8 week slots.

When I started toward being Dean, I had hoped perhaps to lengthen the Graduate Ministry courses to 10 weeks. You can get 15 week's worth of traditional material into 8 weeks, but it's hard for students to handle it, especially adult students who are working. But 8 weeks is practical. 10 weeks doesn't fit well on a calendar. Two MA courses each semester fit exactly into the time slot of one 16 week praxis course.

Early on I synchronized the course starts of the Seminary into 8 week blocks, except for the summer. Following the adult model, courses started all over the calendar when I came. With 12,000 students, there were new cohort groups starting every week in the College of Adult and Professional Studies. But with just 100 students or so to start, it was helpful to have designated cohort starts in the Seminary--January, March, August, October, and summer.

8. Another feature that we considered core to the Seminary's identity and thus unchangeable was the practical emphasis. This is embodied in the notion that our praxis courses are roughly two-thirds practice of ministry, one-third the "foundations" of Bible, theology, and church history. It is also embodied in the fact that the majority of our electives and degrees are practical in focus.

However, the gravity of academia seems to be toward the theoretical and the theological. Let me be clear, I strongly affirm the validity of these domains and that they are an essential part of a minister's education. Education is not just mere training or tactics. It includes the "why we are doing ministry" in the first place.

But it is, in my opinion, part of the essence of Wesley's identity that the curriculum cannot be voted to become even half-praxis, half-foundations. Indeed, the foundations are not even really foundational, at least not foundational for the praxis. We just couldn't come up with a better word. John Drury once suggested "theoria," to go alongside praxis, but it didn't stick.

9. One voice asked whether what was initially designed was really integration. Were we just doing Bible, theology, and church history in proximity to the practice of ministry, not really integrating them? Frankly, I'm not too worried if this is sometimes the case. I believe it should be okay for many "foundation" assignments only to be relevant rather than directly connected, because the Bible is more than a slave to practice.

I have feared that the Bible, theology, and church history would lose their own voice in this model. I only wanted to right-size the emphasis of the traditional seminary, not castrate these disciplines. We wanted to eliminate the old voices that used to say, "I never learned anything in seminary that I actually needed to know in ministry."

But my goal was never that the Bible should only be a slave to the practice of ministry. A theological truth can be relevant to the practice of ministry and yet not have an immediate application. My goal was never to eliminate the study of the Bible in its own right... or theology or church history. It was only to redress the balance and bring them into conversation.

The reason why I initially wanted a dedicated church history expert for church history assignments and Bible professor for Bible assignments is because I wanted students to get real Bible, not the bastardized versions of Bible and theology that I remembered from some practical professors at Asbury, trying to justify a practical truth with some proof text from the Bible.

(The most memorable was the CE professor at Asbury who ignored the Bible faculty there and went on to write a book claiming that Adam was androgynous before God took Eve out of him.)

Most practitioners think that they are experts in these areas too, but doing church history is not just knowing church history. It involves training in historiography. And there are layers to my teaching of the Bible that I barely even mention, but they are there below the surface, influencing what I say on the surface. And I have glimpsed the profundity of John Drury as a theologian. It isn't always obvious to the rest of us, but there is simply no one else in the Seminary who has that well from which to draw.

In our case, this practice of a separate professor for the praxis and another for the foundations wasn't personal. It wasn't meant to dismiss anyone's Bible skills, for example. It was a principle to avoid a slippery slope. I preferred someone with a doctorate in Bible, theology, or church history teaching the foundations in those areas (so does ATS), even though many of our practical professors are quite skilled in these areas too, maybe even more helpful. But I at least wanted a distinct professor for praxis in a course and a distinct professor for foundations in a course, so that each voice had power and didn't blur into the other.

So a praxis professor might teach the foundations part of a course, but then I would want someone else teaching the praxis part, so that the praxis has a clear voice and the Bible/theology/church history have a clear voice...

Previously on Seminary take-aways:

Pre-Seminary
1. There are key moments of opportunity.
2. You need the right people.
3. Good leaders collaborate and navigate.

Year 1: Launch Year
4. Innovation requires some trial and error. (1)
5. Innovation requires some trial and error. (2)
6. Innovation requires some trial and error. (3)
7. New leaders bring new strengths. (1)

Year 2: Growing Pains
8. Administration never ends.
9. New leaders bring new strengths. (2)
10. New leaders bring new strengths. (3)

Year 3: The Year of Maturity
11. Complexity works against sustainability.
12. There are advantages to being embedded in a broader university. (1)
13. There are advantages to being embedded in a broader university. (2)
14. Our guinea pigs survived.

Year 4: The Year of the Faculty
15. Faculty share governance with administration. (1)

Last Seminary Praxis Course in the shoot...

Spent the better part of the day with a group of friends laying out the scope and sequence of the final praxis course of our MDIV curriculum, "Congregational Relationships."  I think it looks to be a good course.  In fact, I'm quite proud of all our core courses. ;-)

Online Spanish Ministry Courses Begin!

Today we have two online Spanish ministry courses opening: La Iglesia Misional (The Missional Church) and Cambio y Transformación (Change and Transformation, a spiritual formation course). These correspond to the first full semester courses of our Anglo program as well.

Team teaching La Iglesia Misional is Dr. Victor Cuartas of Regent University (focusing on the practice elements of evangelism, service, church multiplication, and global mission) and Dr. Pablo Jiménez (focusing on the foundational elements of Bible, theology, church history, and integration).  Teaching the one hour spiritual formation course is our Directora herself, Joanne Walker.

As I wrote before, this is the first MDIV degree in Spanish to be (primarily) online and contextualized.  It's an exciting day in the ministry of Wesley Seminary at Indiana Wesleyan University, in fact the very first courses to be taught in Spanish at the university itself.

Thanks to all the many hands, including the pilot cohort of students, who have made this day possible!

IWU MDIV: Open for Business

The brochure with application forms are now available and open for business! The full pdf with application forms included is available here. You can also apply online here.

IWU MDIV Announcement

IWU Unveils New Master of Divinity Degree Program

MARION, Ind. — Indiana Wesleyan University announces a new Master of Divinity program,
an innovative model for ministerial education created from the ground up as an “in-ministry” degree. Designed for men and women active in professional ministry, the 75-hour program can be completed online with some onsite intensives or completely onsite at the main campus in Marion, Ind. The first class of students will start in August 2009.

Unlike M.Div. programs where courses in Bible, theology and Christian history are often disconnected from courses in preaching, worship and congregational leadership, the IWU program will focus on skilled application of the best biblical, theological and practical scholarship. Core courses will be designed by a team of scholars representing multiple theoretical and practical disciplines. “This new M.Div. fully integrates theory and practice,” says Russ Gunsalus, the Chairperson of the IWU Graduate Studies in Ministry Department. “From day one, students will apply lessons from class to their ministry and will use action research from their ministry in their class.”

The curriculum consists of 60 hours of core courses and 15 hours of electives. Courses are offered in one-week intensives and 16-week formats. Currently two 15-hour concentrations, focusing on ministerial leadership and youth ministry, are offered. Some of the featured courses include:

• Pastor, Church and World,
• Cultural Contexts of Ministry,
• Missional Christianity,
• Congregational Spiritual Formation,
• Christian Proclamation,
• Congregational Relationships,
• Congregational Leadership, and
• Christian Worship

The theological, biblical and historical foundations of the curriculum will be integrated into each
course and into an additional foundational course in each area.

IWU’s M.Div. program will also offer a series of one-hour spiritual transformation courses throughout the curriculum. Dr. Ken Schenck, a chief architect of the curriculum, says that a founding goal of the program is to provide students with an experience that is spiritually formative. “Throughout the core of the program, students will take on-going courses designed to move them through a process of spiritual transformation that will lead them toward increased wisdom, self-understanding and holiness.”

The program climaxes with an “Integration Capstone” course that provides the graduating student with a synoptic assessment of personal progress and action plans for future ministry.
Online students must take a minimum of 18 hours in intensive onsite courses. The remaining 57 hours can be pursued either onsite or online. Onsite students can complete the whole program in Marion. A convocation service, coinciding with intensive onsite course offerings, will annually unite the entire M.Div. family of faculty, students and administrators.

According to Nathan Lamb, IWU’s Director of Graduate Ministry Recruitment, the university’s vision for graduate ministry education is to equip ministers to lead healthy, growing, missional churches. “As the demands of modern-day ministry continue to evolve, your on-going effectiveness will be directly linked to your commitment to grow spiritually and professionally,” says Lamb. “For pastors seeking an M.Div., this new program offers an affordable, convenient option from a school ranked by U.S. News & World Report as one of the ‘best Master’s universities in the Midwest.’”

For more information, email nathan.lamb@indwes.edu or call 1.800.895.0036, ext. 2089.

Instructional Videos: Observing Texts in Detail

I hope we will able to record this material professionally as resources for IWU's MDIV (cross your fingers, seminary). But for now, I've used IWU's Adobe Connect resources to create these four vidcast reviews for an assignment I have all my undergraduate Bible classes do.

1. What is a Detailed Observation?

2. Observing Key Words and Grammatical Features

3. Observing Train of Thought and Literary Features

4. Writing Up the Assignment

IWU Accredited to Offer Master of Divinity Degree!

Originally posted January 8, 2009

We received notification over Christmas break that we are now officially accredited as an institution to offer the MDIV degree at Indiana Wesleyan University. This is exciting to say the least, as we have been designing and preparing for several years now!

Pray for the President and Board of IWU this April as they make decisions on how to configure the degree within the university. There is an excellent chance that it will be housed within a seminary (under the overall umbrella of the university of course) with a dedicated building on the south side of campus. It is hard to imagine how it wouldn't turn out this way.

Regardless of the final decisions on those matters, the MDIV degree will be available for its first cohorts this Fall, starting in August. We have planned for 30 students--one online cohort and one onsite cohort. But I anticipate we will have so much interest we will allow for at least 15 more onsite if necessary. Final admission materials should be available later this month so be contacting the Graduate Ministry department as soon as possible if you are interested.

If you have a PhD or DMin in a field of practical theology, especially fields like evangelism, church multiplication, community development, service, discipleship, etc... we will be making two hires for next year, then at least two the following year, and so forth. We're wanting to hire major players in the practice of ministry, not just nerds like me.

I anticipate that Russ Gunsalus and I will probably be involved with the seminary/MDIV next year in some way (although nothing is certain at this point). Bob Whitesel will also almost certainly be one of our professors. Of course you should expect to see current undergraduate faculty teaching the odd course now and then as well, people like Chris Bounds.

Distinctives
Because we are not starting with existing academic turf, because we all recognize that ministerial education is about training ministers--not about training bible scholars or theologians proper or church historian experts--we have designed a truly revolutionary program that is what ministers want and need, rather than what you usually get at a seminary. In other words, it isn't a program for professors to do their thing whether it is useful in ministry or not.

If you want to go on to get a doctorate in Bible, theology, or church history, go somewhere else for now. We train ministers.

Here are our distictives:

Missional: ... focused on serving the kingdom and transforming the world both near and far, ministering to whole persons and addressing world concerns.

Accessible: You don't need to leave your ministry to retool or deepen your skills and knowledge. The MDIV will be conveniently available online and onsite, will be highly affordable (Lord willing), and will welcome ministers of any culture, gender, race, or class.

The onsite version will probably require one full day a week--from 9 to 5, probably Tuesday in the Fall. You could thus easily drive in from anywhere in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, or Illinois. You'll come to campus for two weeks in the summers and graduate in 4 years. One more course a semester and you'd be able to finish in 3 years (accelerated).

In Ministry: You take courses as you do ministry, taking your church with you to seminary. You get immediate pay off and insight where you need it most. If you are not at least doing 20 hours a week in a church (the precise amount is being discussed), we'll work with you to find a church, which of course should be near where you live.

The MDIV is for pastors and for people involved in church ministry. If you are a parachurch person or a layperson who wants to tool up in specific areas, an MA is more appropriate and we welcome suggestions for specialized MA's you think we should design and add to our program. One prognosticator among us pictures a seminary with far more MA degrees and students than MDIV students!

Application Oriented: The MDIV curriculum is shaped by the nitty-gritty goals and problems of ministry rather than the ivory tower concerns of the academy. We present theory in the service of the practice of ministry by way of adult education models.

Spiritually Formative: A process of personal and spiritual change follows the student through the degree, leading toward increased wisdom, self-understanding, holiness, and sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. This is not the myopic "go read your Bible and pray," highly individualistic Western spiritual formation program. We're Wesleyan here. We're interested in real change with a corporate twist.

Integrative: Other MDIV programs typically present Bible, theology, and Christian history in isolation from courses like preaching, worship, and discipleship. All the praxis courses of our MDIV involve problem based learning that involves a team of biblical, theological-historical, and practical experts. You'll do pastoral theology relevant to your on the ground ministry in every praxis course.

Residential Requirement
The default expectation of the MDIV program will likely be to take at least 18 credit hours of the degree in intensive onsite courses. The student could then take the remainder of the program (57 credit hours) either online or onsite. Intensive courses will likely be offered around a weekend of yearly convocation, during which all students and faculty in the program come to campus to worship and fellowship.

The Curriculum
Here's the normal curriculum:

August:
1. Pastor, Church, and World (3 hour onsite intensive)

2. Cultural Contexts of Ministry (3 hour onsite intensive)

Fall Semester 1
3. Missional Christianity (6 hours onsite or online)

4. Spiritual Formation 1: Change and Transformation (1 hour onsite or online)

Spring Semester 1
5. Christian Leadership (6 hours onsite or online)

6. Spiritual Formation 2: Self Awareness and Appraisal (1 hour onsite or online)

Summer 2
7. The Bible as Christian Scripture (3 hour onsite intensive)

8. Introduction to Christian Theology (3 hour onsite intensive)

Fall Semester 2
9. Congregational Relationships (6 hours onsite or online)

10 Spiritual Formation 3: Goal Setting and Accountability (1 hour onsite or online)

Spring Semester 2
11. Christian Worship (6 hours onsite or online)

12. Spiritual Formation 4: Mentoring and Spiritual Direction (1 hour onsite or online)

Summer 3
13. Global Christian History (3 hour onsite intensive)

14. Elective (3 hours online or onsite)

Fall Semester 3
15. Congregational Spiritual Formation (6 hours onsite or online)

16. Spiritual Formation 5: Personal and Corporate Disciplines (1 hour onsite or online)

Spring Semester 3
17. Christian Proclamation (6 hours onsite or online)

18. Spiritual Formation 6: Recovery and Deliverance (1 hour onsite or online)

Summer 4
19. Integration Capstone (3 hour onsite intensive)

20. 12 additional hours of electives (or concentration in leadership or youth ministry, 15 total hours of electives)

Totals
It's a 75 hour MDIV, with 15 hours of electives. It is likely that you would be able to transfer in up to 27 hours of prior graduate courses, including up to half the hours of a completed MA.

God will get the glory for any success, but let me just say that this is BIG. If God enables us, this will end up being, in my opinion, one of the best MDIV's that has ever existed. Pray for us as we continue the writing process this semester and summer.

This will be a heavily "outcomed" program. Individual professors obviously will get to teach electives (if it's something students will sign up for! no esoteric courses you can't attract students to take). But there will be carefully set out objectives for these courses to where a professor can't just blab about their stuff. In fact, blabbing is not an effective teaching method and shouldn't be more than about a third of the time. Courses will be more about action research in your local church, and we will use tested adult learning methods.

Pray for us!