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

Bishop 2

This is my second week reading William Willimon's, Bishop.  You'll find last week's post here.   Chapter 2 is called, "Summoned to be Bishop."  Here are just some things that jumped out at me.

1. Ministry is God's idea before it's ours (13).

2. Those who are most reluctant to be bishop should be (15).

3. Wesley and Asbury really tussled over the idea of bishop.  Wesley despised the idea. Asbury thought of it in apostolic terms. Asbury saw itineracy as the heart of being a bishop, moving around giving oversight. Quite interesting.

4. So Methodist episcopacy claims to be different from the Episcopal "monarchical episcopate."  Willimon calls it a "managerial episcopate."  Willimon tries to look at ministry in general as practical rather than "ontological," as if the office of minister or bishop itself makes a person intrinsically different in weight.

5. He mentions "evangelical whiners" who want the bishop to do more but would never give the bishop real power to do it.  You get somewhat of a sense of disempowered bishops, from his perspective. They make ministers and that's about it, you get the impression.

6. He has restorationist tones now and then. So the early church was "connectional" rather than "congregational."  He finds no evidence that it was democratic.

7. He believes the Methodist system is biased to pick ministers who, "follow instructions, preserve rigid rules, keep information sharing to a minimum, and develop a clergy system that privileges experience and credentials over God-given talent and sacrifices creativity for conformity" (25).  At one point he suggests that a bishop is more likely in the UM church to get in trouble for not meeting diversity quotas on boards than for not believing in the Trinity.

Willimon thinks it's a system prejudiced toward "uncreative bean-counters" (26). I had a brief conversation with someone at IWU recently who said bureaucracy was indicative of a declining organization, one that has passed its peak. Someone else told me that policies sometimes are meant to replace good leadership, so a system will run itself and you don't have to count on gifted individuals.

8. Willimon has an interesting take on seminary education, in fact one very similar to Kevin Myers' talk at our Wesleyan general conference.  Willimon believes it is the church conference's job to train ministers at practical tasks.  The job of the seminary, he thinks, is to be a seedbed of biblical interpretation, sermon preparation, theological discernment, biblical languages, etc. Basically, he sees seminaries as giving the theory and the annual conferences teaching the practice.

Kevin Myers said something similar when he said that the local church (or in his case the large church) is the place to train ministers. The implication is then that colleges and such would give the Bible, theology, and theory, but the local church would provide the training.  This is a model that certainly would improve on the predominant models, and Russ Gunsalus at HQ has taken up the offering quite vigorously.  IWU undergrad has been working with the KERN foundation to set up a similar model that would get a students to something like "MDIV equivalency" in competency in 5 years out of high school.

Meanwhile, Wesley Seminary at IWU has reformulated its MDIV around a practical focus and training as well. We try to do a critical mass of both training and classic theological disciplines in an integrated form. The key is that we require a person to be in connection with a local church as they go through our MDIV. Surely there are many ways to get to the goal. All these models agree on the competencies a minister should have. They just try to get there in different ways.

Wesley Seminary: FAQ

Wesley Seminary at IWU is about to graduate its first cohort of MDIV students. A lot has happened in these first three years. I'm drafting a quick FAQ sheet not so much for potential students--you have your own set of questions--but for other seminaries.  Here are some questions I think some other institutions might be asking.

1. What is unique about your program?
In this first stage of our existence as a seminary, we are offering two degrees.  The first is an MA in Ministry that we have offered for several decades, with concentrations in Leadership and Youth Ministry.  The second is of course the MDIV.

Following the trend of several seminaries, Wesley's MDIV is a 75 hour degree with the possibility of doing two-thirds of the degree online. The curriculum has been carefully and collaboratively designed down to the level of every week to avoid accidental repetition and to ensure that all the desired outcomes of the degree are achieved. Students proceed through the degree together in a cohort and take a (1 credit hour) spiritual formation course every semester alongside a (6 credit hour) course on a key area of ministry. Meanwhile, they take core courses in Bible, theology, and church history, as well as many electives, in an intensive, one week format.

2. What kind of student are you attracting?
While we also attract the usual gamut of typical seminary students, our passion is to bring theological education to the silent majority of ministers in the world who will never darken the door of the traditional seminary. When you consider the tens of thousands of Christian denominations in the world, not to mention the rising dominance of two-thirds world Christianity, it is clear that the traditional model of seminary education is only serving the smallest portion of ministers in the world. In addition, since most denominations do not require seminary education, there are numerous ministers in North America who want to get into ministry immediately and, while not opposed to seminary education, will never move somewhere to study for three years.

Wesley is attracting this silent majority of Christian ministers. We come alongside them in their ministry setting and "learn by doing." On most weeks they do assignments that involve both research on their local ministry setting and strategies for improving their ministries there. Each "praxis" course on a key topic in ministry culminates with an "Application Paper" in which the students set out a multi-year strategy for their ministry in that area, and in the Capstone course they evaluate how well they are doing up to that point.

3. Where's the Bible, theology, church history in your curriculum?
Approximately 24 credit hours of the core requirements, about a third of the MDIV degree, is dedicated to the "foundational" disciplines of Bible, theology, and church history. This fact is often missed because we have woven half of these hours into the 6 large (6 credit hour) ministry courses in mission, leadership, worship, proclamation, congregational formation, and congregational relationships. However, these courses are team taught with a practitioner and an expert in one of the foundational disciplines (Bible, theology, church history). A third of the course (2 credit hours) is devoted to foundational assignments that in some way relate to the ministerial topic of the course.

With the degree now fully designed, it is satisfying to see how these assignments engage students across the whole canon, the whole gamut of systematic theology, and the whole of Christian history. Another key assignment in each of these six courses is what we call the "Integration Paper."  In this sequence of assignments throughout the course, students pick a relevant pastoral issue and examine it from the standpoint of biblical theology, theological sources, and church historical precedents. The culmination of the project is a position paper in which they formulate a pastoral response to that issue.

4. Can you do spiritual formation online?
There is a prevailing intuition that spiritual formation cannot be done online. However, these intuitions often are based on a certain picture of online education that would not be true of our program.  For example, the cohort model means that students get to know each other over the course of three years incredibly well.  Because they start and end their program together onsite--and also come together once a year for two weeks of intensive classes--these cohorts develop close-knit community and take their face-to-face experience of each other with them into the intervening time online.

The courses themselves are sequenced in such a way as to lead students both individually and corporately through a process of change and development. Every other week involves an act of worship of some sort, so that they are growing affectively and spiritually in addition to the usual cognitive fare. If student testimony is any indication, spiritual formation can take place online.

5. How does Asbury feel about you?
The Wesleyan Church has and continues to enjoy a close relationship with Asbury Theological Seminary, which prior to the founding of Wesley was the primary place for Wesleyan ministers to get a seminary education. Asbury continues to serve Wesleyan students faithfully and indeed has a number of Wesleyan professors among its faculty. We anticipate that Asbury will continue to be the favorite seminary for Wesleyan students looking for a strongly residential program in the traditional model.

Accordingly, both Asbury and Wesley have come to recognize that we each focus on a different segment of the ministerial population. Wesley focuses primarily on those who are already in ministry or who want to learn how to do ministry "on the job." Asbury's program targets those who want to prepare for ministry in a setting where they can focus entirely on that preparation in a residential community.

Asbury also favors those who want to approach the foundational disciplines of Bible, theology, and church history for their own sake.  While Wesley hopes to serve this group as well, our MDIV favors those who primarily want to study these disciplines with a view to their relevance for ministry. The two institutions thus serve complimentary roles for Wesleyan ministerial students.

The Future of Seminary Education

Over at Patheos, they've asked a cross-section of their bloggers to respond to a series of questions on the future of seminary education.  I thought I would give you the kinds of answers I would give for Wesley Seminary at IWU.

What is the purpose of a seminary education?
The purpose of a seminary education is to equip a wide variety of "ministers" to participate as fully and powerfully as possible in the mission of God in the world.  There are a host of such ministries, among which ministry to a local worshiping community (i.e., a church) is the primary one.  There are also ministries to the sick, the poor, the imprisoned, to those in military service (chaplaincy, urban ministry, etc).  There are specialized ministry skill sets to particular age groups, locations, and demographics (youth ministry, classical missions).  There is the ministry of knowledge for those who resource the church as educators.  And seminaries might very well train a host of lay ministers and parachurch ministers.

What are the challenges seminaries face?
I see three primary challenges for seminaries in the days ahead, two practical and one ideological.  I am convinced that the biggest challenge seminaries have faced in the last decade is accessibility.  There will always be some who are willing to go live somewhere for three years but this number is in sharp decline.  The real demand for seminary education now is by some sort of distance education, whether it be online or through satellite campuses.  Cost is another major factor, especially in these economic times.

The ideological challenge is America's move toward a post-Christian society.  Whether one agrees with their thinking or not, evangelical seminaries remain in demand because their students sense something living there, something that might make a difference.  The question is whether these answers have staying power.  What institutions will future ministers perceive to be able to best address the issues that our culture is raising?

I want to throw in a challenge related to this last one, a complaint you hear often from pastors--"Seminary didn't actually teach me the things I needed to know to do ministry."  I don't actually think this is entirely the case.  I think the problem is more that seminaries do not typically do a good job of showing seminary students the relevance of what they are learning.  Seminaries usually lean heavily toward the theoretical and do less to exercise skills in applying theory to practice.

How are you preparing for those challenges?
Wesley Seminary at Indiana Wesleyan University was founded with these trends in mind.  The university made a large commitment to the seminary so that it would be affordable.  The university is particularly good at online and distance education, and we have transferred these strengths to our MA and MDIV programs.  We have an onsite option, but the demand has clearly been the over 80% of our students who take two-thirds of their program online.  In two years, we have over 200 students.

The most distinctive feature of our program is the way we have gone about integration in our curriculum to address the perceived disconnect between seminary and ministry as it really is.  We require our MDIV students to be in a local ministry at least 20 hours a week, so many assignments are real church work.  We have folded Bible, theology, and church history into the practice of ministry courses (a third of each praxis course is "foundational").  Students also do spiritual formation every semester.

That's integration of theory with practice, foundations with practice, and the affective with the cognitive.

What is the future of theological education?  What will a seminary education look like 10 years from now?
Seminaries will continue to move toward distance education.  The online platforms get better and better and, while I do not think students want it, we are at the point where we could even have real time classes online where you could see all your fellow students.  Only niche seminaries will survive in the future without a significant distance component.

I believe seminaries will get more and more practical.  The days where professors are unaccountable for what they teach--meaning free to teach things perceived to be of no value by the students--are numbered. Whether we like it or not, seminaries are businesses in a competitive market.  Those seminaries that don't scratch the itch of some set of students won't make it.

One direction the above trajectories point toward is onsite ministerial training.  We already seeing the rise of large church ministerial training grounds here and there.  There's a good chance this trend will continue.

What new initiatives and/or creative conversations are shaping the life of your institution?
An immense amount of creativity went into the creation of the seminary and its fundamental design.  Our leaders continue to think outside the box.  We have started a Spanish version of the MDIV that is entirely in Spanish and two-thirds online.  We are in the middle of global conversations about the possibility of serving other constituencies around the world as well.  The leaders of the university are also dreaming another innovative plan for church planting where undergraduate students in various disciplines (e.g., nursing) pair up with ministry students (undergraduate or seminary) to plant new churches around the country and world.

To Get in Seminary...

Three times this morning I found myself giving feedback to students along the lines of "I would be very happy if by the time you graduate you know..." so I thought I would capture those three things here (there are more, but this is part of such a list):

1. A seminary graduate should be able to tell the difference between what one biblical text says and what another biblical text says and be able to distinguish between the two.

(So Matthew 28 says nothing about Paul's "over 500 brothers" in 1 Corinthians 15. Is this the same event? It could be, but make sure you understand Matthew in its own right before splicing things from other books into it. Matthew "knows" nothing about the 500 in its self-contained story)

2. A seminary graduate should be able to tell the difference between what a text actually says and interpretations that fill in gaps left by the text.

(This is closely related to the first one, but this one has more to do with the distinction between us as readers and the text, while the first one had to do with the distinction between one biblical text and another. Many legitimate Christian readings infer Trinitarian understandings into texts long before God unfolded those understandings in the first five centuries of the church)

3. A seminary graduate should know when they are reading a text "more than literally" and when they are reading it in its plain sense.

(So Moses' calling might be a model for God calling us, but this is a metaphorical use of the text, not something the text actually says).

Greek and Hebrew in Seminary

Let's say there was a surgical procedure that was ideal for a particular kind of surgeon to know, but not essential for patients to survive and indeed do quite well without. Let's say that this procedure was very difficult to master, and it took a tremendous amount of time to teach. Let's say also that even after one to two years of studying the procedure, only about 5 out of every 100 med students could actually learn it well enough to perform it with any benefit at all. Let's say that 80 of those same 100 students never really "got" the procedure or forgot it within a month of learning it--even after two years of study.

Further, let's say that the other 15 out of 100 tried to use it, but actually did more harm to the patients they tried it on than good. Finally, let's say that there were other skills that those surgeons would use practically every surgery that their teachers were having trouble finding room to fit into the course of study. Now, I ask you, would you require the med students to study this procedure... or would you offer it as an elective for those who truly had the potential to master it?

Such, my friends, is the nature of Greek and Hebrew in the typical seminary curriculum.

The Future of Ministerial Vocation: Greg Jones

We were delighted to have Greg Jones, Dean of Duke Divinity School, and Dorothy Bass of Valparaiso on campus tonight to talk about the future of ministerial vocation. Russ Gunsalus, Acting Chief Operating Officer of our new seminary, gave an excellent response alongside Dr. Bass.

My take-away from Dr. Jones was:
1. Ministry is a calling, but not about personal therapy.
2. Ministry is a profession, but not a way to earn money.
3. Ministry is an office, not a chance for power.

There was much monkey imagery tonight. Dr. Jones about monkeys who learned not to reach for bananas, even long after they could. Dr. Bass' response suggested that we might be monkeys who help other monkeys come to piles of bananas. And Russ Gunsalus warned the students to be careful what monkeys they hang around and to break open the cage and go out and take the bananas to other monkeys.

I had another book idea tonight (happens regularly, usually with no issuance).

"Faith in a Mystery: Christian Faith in the 21st Century"
Chapter 1: Faith is a Disposition (including how we process experiences)
Chapter 2: Faith in the Word (dealing with faith in Christ, processing questions about the Bible)
Chapter 3: Faith in Creation (dealing with how we process questions about science, time, space)
Chapter 4: Faith in History (dealing with problem of evil, minority of Christian faith)
Chapter 5: Faith in Destiny (dealing with processing questions about soul, afterlife, psychology)
Chapter 6: Faith in Action (the positive impact of people of faith in the world)

What Colleges and Seminaries will survive?

I was talking to a seminary student on Friday who chose Wesley Seminary @IWU because of the online option. The competition was another seminary in the region that has no online programs. The President of the seminary has pretty much refused to look into it. I know of other colleges who are only now thinking about online. Some aren't interested in the name of principle.

I strongly support small, quality programs. Hittite studies? Why not--even if you only have 2 students. But you had better have a whole lot of other programs that are making money. You can have any degree of quality with sufficient quantity, but you'll close if your priorities are some idea of quality with or without sufficient quantity. And thus I administer last rites to all those stubborn traditional faculties out there who would rather go down with the ship than take a lower rank among the crew. They're like that guy in Dr. Strangelove who proudly waves his cowboy hat as he rides a nuclear bomb down to the ground, about to start the annhiliation of the earth.

IWU would be struggling financially right there with all the other traditional colleges if it did not have online and extension programs. They say you don't close because of decisions you make today but because of decisions you made 7 years ago. It may already be too late, but my advice to other colleges and seminaries is to get into distance education right now if you're not into it. Otherwise, you may be signing your death warrant before the next decade is over. Don't make me a prophet.

P.S. I strongly disagree with the idea that you cannot learn as much in an online course as in an onsite one. I would strongly contend that the average learning of a well designed class online is greater than the average learning of most onsite classes.

Professors think they cover more content, but they only think this because they are transmitting more--standing up in front of the class enjoying themselves talk, usually. The students, on average, are not receiving more. The professor thinks the two or three students that engage them are representative? Not so. The rest are on Facebook.

A well designed online class, because all the students have to participate, not just only the two or three who will remember even having the professor, will end up with a greater average learning than the vast majority of onsite classes. Babbling doesn't equal learning.

MegaChurch Seminaries

There was a piece today in Christianity Today online about the trend for some megachurches to start in house seminaries. Very interesting. I connect it with two other trends going on right now 1) the decentralization trend, away from centralized denominations and organizations and 2) the trend toward training in a ministry context.

Oops, the second one isn't actually a trend yet but I'm strongly predicting it will be. As far as I know, while other seminaries are increasingly making it possible to stay in ministry while going to seminary, we are the only ones actually capitalizing on it by requiring our MDIV students to be in ministry and fashioning our weekly assignments around it. I'm predicting that the real leaders in seminary education will soon follow our example. If any seminaries would like us to come consult with them, we'd be glad to :-)

The first, decentralizing trend is very interesting and I'm very curious to see where it ends up. However, in a very real sense, we are enabling decentralized seminary education more than a megachurch can. We have an IT, online infrastructure (about 6000 students taking classes online) that a megachurch would have difficulty matching. I suppose most seminaries end up serving subcultures anyway.

Mark Driscoll and John Piper clearly serve a different segment of the Christian scene than we will. While we would welcome anyone from their circles who will play nice, they would have trouble at their seminaries with anything but nominal Wesleyans. Someone with more than a superficial Wesleyan theology would feel like a major fish out of water in their programs, which are predestined to offer the most extreme form of Calvinist teaching. Remember when Piper, at Driscoll's church, urged truly evangelical colleges and seminaries to expunge any Arminian faculty they might have?

And since they don't believe a woman can be a senior pastor, no woman should even have a fleeting thought of going there.

THE WESLEYAN CHURCH HAS A SEMINARY!

The Board of Trustees of Indiana Wesleyan University today unanimously approved the founding of a Wesleyan seminary at Indiana Wesleyan University!

It had already approved the offering of an MDIV and we had received accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission. We will now, however, house that MDIV within a new seminary that will, Lord willing, have its own building in the next three years.

None of the criticisms of seminaries apply to this new seminary:

1. You don't have to move somewhere for three years.
In fact, you don't have to move at all. You can do the degree in four years (three in an accelerated format) mostly online while coming to campus for two weeks a year in August.

2. You have to be at least part time on staff at a church (20 hours a week).
So gone are the criticisms of impractical, ivory tower learning away from the real world. You're taking your church to seminary. And if you mess up, it's not a grade on the line but your job.

3. Spiritual formation is wed to practical and theoretical formation.
Each semester is accompanied with a 1 hour spiritual formation course that makes sure you are not emptying your heart while you are filling your head.

4. Bible, theology, and church history are integrated with the practice of ministry.
The Donatists--who were they? I bet most seminary students don't remember or care. In this curriculum, you'll learn about them while studying how to handle church splits.

5. When you take into account scholarships, it will be one of the cheapest seminaries around--especially for Wesleyans.

We've already accepted our first students. It's looking good already to fill up the 30+ spots we have allotted for the first cohorts this Fall.

Interested? Email: nathan.lamb@indwes.edu

Pagan Christianity 11: Christian Education

Only one chapter from Frank Viola's Pagan Christianity today. I've lost my will. Every post is an effort.

The previous posts were:

1. Viola's Preface
2. Barna's Introduction
3. The Church Building
4. The Order of Worship
5. The Sermon
6. The Pastor
7. Sunday Go to Meeting Clothes
8. Music in the Church
9. Chapters 8 and 9: Tithing/Paying Ministers (8) and the Sacraments (9)

And now chapter 10: "Christian Education: Swelling the Cranium."

There's little doubt that Viola relays a common sentiment that much in ministerial training seems out of focus. We have launched an MDIV program here at IWU for the Fall (we've officially accepted our first two students) and, Lord willing, will officially call it a seminary in less than two weeks. We have launched it recognizing some of the things that Viola mentions in this chapter.

So Viola thinks training should be "hands on" rather than merely intellectual (200). He critiques the notion that "the teaching of knowledge is the teaching of virtue" (215). "Contemporary theological learning is essentially cerebral" and "In the process, our theology rarely gets below the neck" (216).

OK, there's the good in the chapter. But as I've read through this book, here is my fundamental critique. It is not simply that Viola consistently throws the baby out with the bath water. Of course I completely think he does. My critique is that he could have actually done something edifying with this book. At least to some extent, he has correctly identified the superficialism and myopic traditionalism that no doubt pervades and predominates in the church today.

But instead of urging authenticity and genuine spirituality in each tradition, he has insisted that we burn all the institutional churches down and start a house church. For this reason, his book on the whole is not helpful for God's people. It will only appeal to the angry (and feed their angry) and confuse the innocent.

His view of seminaries is stereotypical and unbalanced. Take this statement: "contemporary ministerial training can be described by the religious talk of Job's miserable comforters: rational, objective, and abstract. Very little practical, experiential, or spiritual" (201). But his reaction is not, let's fix Christian education, our approach at IWU. His reaction is, let's burn down all the Christian seminaries, universities, and Bible colleges.

"[C]ontemporary theology is a blending of Christian thought and pagan philosophy" (208). And Viola's thought is a blending of Christian thought and the thinking of a particular American Christian subculture, mixed with some of the ancient cultural forms in which the New Testament message was incarnated. Again, he takes biblical descriptions and supposed descriptions based on him filling in gaps in our knowledge, and he makes them pre-scriptions for a quite different place and time. This is sheer madness.

I'll let the church historians and theologians rip his villianization of Aquinas and his wild connections between things in history.

Seminary Sirens

Perhaps you've heard the tale. Don't go to seminary. You'll lose your faith... or at least your vitality. Seminaries teach you useless stuff and don't really prepare you for real ministry in the real world. It's a waste of time, a waste of money. AND, you have to uproot your family and go live somewhere for three years when you could actually be DOING it!

OK, some of these things are true... or at least used to be true. And some of them certainly have been experienced that way. But let me give you my perspective on what is real here and what isn't.

1. "You have to uproot your family an go live somewhere for three years"...

False. There are still of course seminaries where that's true, but for the most part it simply isn't. You can get an MDIV at IWU, Asbury, or Bethel and never move anywhere.

2. ... "when you could actually be DOING it!"

False. The fact that you can go half time without moving anywhere means you can be "doing it" WHILE going to seminary part time. In fact, in IWU's new MDIV, you HAVE to be doing it or you can't be in our program.

3. Seminaries teach you useless stuff and don't really prepare you for real ministry in the real world.

Well, that's a matter of perception. But the fact that so many seminarians perceive it to be that way means it is certainly a reality of some sort. If the goal of teaching is learning (rather than just talking), then seminaries have apparently done a horrible job of communicating what is valuable about what they do teach. And that's a failure of a fundamental sort.

People go to college these days mostly to be able to get a job. I strongly believe college should be about much more than this, but that is the presenting itch that gets warm bodies in the seats. So most ministers would value seminary if they actually felt like it gave them the tools they needed to actually do the things that scream at them every day in the church.

Seminaries by and large, I think, do NOT typically do a very good job of scratching this itch. IWU's "seminary" has been designed to bombard the student every class not just with I CAN use this but you will actually BE USING it, with your church as the patient :-)

On the other hand, this is not to say that much of the other stuff is not useful, helpful, or even essential. The undergraduate student just looking for a job, but if we can trick them into being better thinkers, able to see things from other people's points of view, give them a sense of where we are in the flow of history and ideas, help them appreciate the blessings of humanness--these are things that make for better humanity. They are actually more important in the long run than getting a job, but they don't seem important if you are hungry.

In the same way, understanding how to read the Bible in context, what Christians have believed for 2000 years, or knowing where you stand in the flow of Christian history can prevent a load of Christian mess and disgrace. These things provide depth; they redirect misguided trajectories, they point out gaps and incomplete ministry.

So the problem is the priorities and lopsided nature of seminary education, not the elements themselves.

4. You'll lose your faith... or at least your vitality.

This was the line that brought on my title. There are some who hate seminary, not because they think it is impractical, but because they think it is spiritually dangerous, and they claim that statistics back them.

On the one hand, this is a curious line of thinking. It's as if the voices of seminary are like the sirens of the Odyssey--once you come under the spell of their singing, you can't resist them. Your ship is destined to crash on the rocks. What is this great power that seminaries have, that takes a vigorous, vibrant Christian and inevitably forces them to lose their faith?!

What great power, to take away the free will of vibrant Christians! Why these seminaries are apparently more powerful than the Holy Spirit! If we take the rhetoric seriously, the beguiling singing of seminary professors is so strong that only those who tie themselves to the mast can safely pass through the waters of Scylla and Charybdis without losing their faith!

I think there is a problem here, but the problem surely can't be what the anti-seminarians say it is. After all, if the problem is wrong ideas, then the zealots would simply tear the arguments to shreds. Surely the problem has to be that the ideas are mostly convincing, but seminaries don't do a good job of helping students grow spiritually to handle them.

My own experience of seminary was destabilizing, even though Asbury was by my accounts a very conservative place. Even Oswalt this morning reminded me of how conservative he is. Didn't the Egyptians practice circumcision? He treated circumcision as if it were invented by God just for Abraham. I thought it was (to irritate Viola) a pagan practice that God sanctified. Not my field, I could be wrong.

My thoughts on this subject are 1) the heart of the pre-seminary church is mostly right but 2) it's head usually can't go the distance. Traditional seminaries adjust the head and lose the heart. I can't come up with a more plausible explanation. And the seminaries that form their identity around fighting the ideas of the other seminaries--they're the most worthless of all for they neither train you how to do ministry nor preserve the pre-seminary heart.

The ancient-future movement, for lack of a better room, makes a space for traditional orthodoxy in a (post) modernist world. Hate the bad parts of postmodernism if you will, but the good parts have made a space for heart and head to coexist going forward. I am not now speaking of IWU's seminary... just calling it how I see it.

Monday Thoughts: Distinctives of the Proposed Seminary

In a comment on the previous post, Mark Schnell observed the distinction I was making between traditional seminaries and the MDiv we already forsee at IWU. By the way, I should make it clear that we are in the most basic accreditation process for this MDiv and that it is on the supposition of approval that I speak of IWU offering it.

Here's what we think is distinctive about our proposed curriculum:
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1. We believe this Wesleyan seminary would provide the most integrative MDiv degree in existence.

Most seminary programs follow a scholastic model where you take individual Bible, theology, and historical courses that largely remain unconnected to practical courses or at best connect in an ad hoc way. Our MDiv would offer individual elective courses in Bible and theology to be sure, but the core curriculum is completely oriented around the practice of ministry. Each of the six practical domains (global mission, congregational formation, congregational life, proclamation, worship, and leadership) includes biblical, theological, and historical units within the course, informed by content experts in these areas. So unlike other programs, you have interdisciplinary accountability in the curriculum of practitioners by theoreticians and theoreticians by practitioners within each course design.

2. We believe this Wesleyan seminary would offer the most practice oriented MDiv degree in existence.

This orientation is evident not only from the way biblical, theological, and historical material is organized around practical ministry, but from the fact that each of the six domain courses requires a person to be in ministry currently. Each course thus involves a supervised ministry in which case studies of a problem-based nature are brought into the mix of the course. The actual practice of the domain is part of the course. Full time residential students without appointment will receive placements within reasonable proximity to the campus.

3. Although most programs have spiritual formation components, this Wesleyan MDiv would be one of the few that has spiritual formation across the curriculum.

Alongside each of the six domain courses, a person will take a one hour spiritual formation course with the same facilitator, who also serves as the cohort advisor. Distinctive here is the fact that these courses follow the process of change, rather than the traditional course in spiritual disciplines that has no real map for change but only sends you off to read and pray.

4. This Wesleyan seminary would likely join those few cutting edge MDiv degrees that only require about a third of the degree to be onsite.

Yet even these onsite courses would not require a person to move to a residential location. In roughly two, one week onsite intensive courses per year, the student would be able to complete their residential requirement. However, a student would also be able to move to Marion to attend the seminary full time.

5. The program would be a 75 hour degree, which would make it one of the most compact MDiv degrees in existence.

The lowest number of hours currently accepted by the Association of Theological Schools is 72 hours. The typical student will complete this degree in a little over 4 years, although a full time student might finish it in a little more than 2. The Association of Theological Schools also allows for about 15 hours of such a program to be “excused” in the light of courses a person has already taken in undergraduate programs. We would further allow for a certain amount of “credit by assessment” if a student can assemble a convincing portfolio. These features will combine to make IWU’s degree highly competitive in a market that runs on convenience.

6. Finally, the program would allow for a 15 hour concentration in an area of specialization.

This concentration will fit hand in glove with MA specializations currently offered by IWU's graduate program in religion: Youth Ministries and Ministerial Leadership. These concentrations will no doubt proliferate. For example, a concentration in Biblical Preaching might accentuate skills of biblical interpretation and hermeneutics. Certainly Greek and Hebrew will be available as electives, as will a number of advanced theology courses. These concentrations allow a person to develop a specific skill set. Further, a student can take the concentration either on the front or back end of the program.
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Here are the most general objectives of the Global Christian Mission course:

Description: This course is a comprehensive, integrative approach to missional Christianity, beginning with biblical foundations and ending with the tools needed to facilitate mission, church multiplication, and service in the church today. Topics range from the classical fields of evangelism, church growth, and global missions to volunteerism and service to the world in its economic and social dimensions. The course involves contextually appropriate missional ministry and so requires that a student currently be in an approved ministry setting. Prerequisite: Pastor, Church, and World.

Objectives: By the end of this course the student should be able to
1. Compare and evaluate the most effective ways to lead others to Christ and grow the church.

2. Compare and evaluate the most common and effective ways in which Christians can and should serve the non-believing world both locally and globally, in all the domains of life.

3. Be able to apply the theoretical principles of mission, church multiplication, and Christian service to one’s own ministerial context.

4. Be able to integrate Scripture, Christian theology, and Christian history with the conduct of mission and the multiplication of the church, as well as in the service of others.

5. Express the importance of the Great Commission and the Great Commandment of loving service to others in all domains of life.

So far... 4 IWU students accepted at Duke Divinity School!

I know some have a very negative opinion of Duke's Divinity School (their seminary). I think these opinions are largely misplaced, however. Here are my reasons:

1. Duke is not as liberal as they think. Individuals like Randy Maddox, Richard Hays, and Ellen Davis are of the same Spirit as Wesleyans are (or at least what we should be--we've let a little fundamentalism creep into our hearts, unfortunately) and are not any different from many professors at Asbury (actually, wasn't Paul Chilcote an Asbury professor who recently went to teach at Duke?).

2. There are some professors at Duke that Wesleyans would strongly disagree with, but if the students are solid, exposure to such people will help them grow. A person who never hears a real person who disagrees with them may not be well equipped to face the challenges of our day.

3. Believe it or not, Duke is more ministry than ivory tower focused right now. I think the reason some of our students are getting in is because they actually have ministry experience and are not just another egg head with a 3.9.

So I want to celibrate the four IWU students I know of who have gotten into Duke. One is Church of Christ in Christian Union (the first from his denomination!), one is Baptist, one is Church of God, Anderson, and I think the last is Wesleyan (memory fails). They may not all go, ironically (in fact, Wesley Biblical may even get one of them over Duke! Fuller may get another).

Kudos to Alicia Meyer and Kevin Wright who have paved the way for them!

David McKenna (ex pres) on Asbury

Note the bold sentences and then my comment at the end :-) I've changed McKenna's original references to Ken Kinghorn to "Kinghorn" (it was just to wierd to the leave all the references to "Ken" :-)
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Believe it or not, we have been retired from Asbury longer than we served at Asbury. In 12 years everything changes. The normal cycle of student turnover is three years—Juniors, Middlers, and Seniors. When I returned to campus during the first year of our retirement and walked across the campus, two thirds of the students looked at me and said, “Hello.” In the second year, only one third of students seemed to recognize me and by the third year, I was a total stranger. Asbury, along with Spring Arbor and Seattle Pacific, asked the question, “David, who?”

The faculty is different. For the first three or four years, I knew most of them. Today, however, when I look over the faculty roster, less than 25 percent served with us 12 years ago. That is why it is such a joy to have Ken Kinghorn join us this evening. Kinghorn was my choice for Provost way back in 1982 when we started at Asbury. He is the Seminary personified in spirit, scholarship, and service.

Kinghorn, you have a special challenge tonight. Do you remember the last time that we shared the platform on behalf of the Seminary? I did the keynote, but you were the main speaker. We were in Columbus, Georgia where Paul Amos, Chairman of the Board of the American Family Assurance Corporation, better known as AFLAC, hosted a conference for the leadership of the Columbus area. AFLAC was still on the rise at that time and we were cultivating Paul and his wife, Jeanne, along with Danny, their son, who was President of AFLAC, as partners in the ministry of Asbury. I shall never forget Paul welcoming the guests and then telling them that he wanted to sing them his song. In a non-tutored voice, he sang, “I am satisfied with Jesus. Is He satisfied with me?”

Paul became a member of the Board of Trustees and major contributor to the student scholarship fund. Now, years later, it is sheer delight to learn that he and Danny have given one million dollars to a scholarship fund with the best news yet to come. Paul and Jeanne are giving 10 million dollars over the next five years to fund a Ph.D in Biblical Studies. As the consternated duck heard Yogi Berra say on the AFLAC commercial, “Cash is as good as money.”

So, Kinghorn, this is your challenge tonight. Someplace in the room there may be a 10 million dollar donor. It is up to you to close the deal. We can hardly wait to hear your next 10 million dollar speech.

Allow me a comment about the current status of the Seminary. If you have read my book, The Leader’s Legacy, you will know how firmly I hold the principle, “Stand out of the light of your successor.” This principle has been applied in my relationship to Asbury. An honorific title, a long distance move, and, by design, no official communication means that you know as much about current events as I do. But I have the advantage of history. At the very beginning of the Seminary 83 years ago, financial crisis threatened the existence of the fledging institution as well as its sister institution across the street. Faithful friends, dedicated faculty, and loyal alumni led by our founder, Henry Clay Morrision, saved the school from bankruptcy because they believed that it was a vine of God’s own planting.

Twenty five years later, when I was a student at the Seminary with some of you, another crisis threatened its existence. Accreditation was lost when a theology professor was fired over the issue of neo-orthodoxy. Enrollment dropped precipitously as United Methodist students had to transfer to accredited institutions. Yet, through it all, faculty, alumni and friends, under the leadership of J.C. McPheeters and later Frank Bateman Stanger, came together to save the day. When we arrived in 1982, we inherited a base of academic credibility and financial stability that permitted us to dream of “World Wesleyan Leadership” and for Maxie Dunnam to implement the vision.

Asbury is now working its way out of a leadership crisis. I know nothing more than you do about the painful events that led to the resignation of Jeff Greenway. It is good to learn, however, that he will preach his first sermon at his new church in Reynoldsburg, Ohio this Sunday. I do know this, our Seminary is in good hands under the interim leadership of Ellsworth Kalas. When I heard the news of his appointment, I dropped him a note that read, “The worst decision I ever made at Asbury was not to appoint Ellsworth Kalas when I had a chance; the best decision I ever made at Asbury was to appoint Ellsworth Kalas when I had a second chance.” I love the man immensely as a spiritual father and I have no doubt he, filled with God’s Spirit, will be the healer for this hour.

My confidence, however, goes beyond its President, its Board, its faculty, its alumni, or its donors. In times of financial and theological crises, Asbury has dug for its roots, renewed its vitality, and multiplied its impact. Why?

John Wesley said it for us. When asked about the importance of a Christian school for the work of the Kingdom, he answered, “If it didn’t exist, it would have to be invented.” I believe that Asbury Theological Seminary is anointed of God to be the flagship for the Wesleyan world with its message of biblical holiness. If it didn’t exist, it would have to be invented.

So, in that confidence, I ask that each of us renew our commitment to its mission, pray with fervor for its presidential search, and stand tall as alumni who model the meaning of its ministry. God bless you.