To change the local church, change theological education #gcr
The major problem with our churches, as Paul stated in his previous post, is the (potential) unhealthiness of the churches. If this is true, there is a maxim you can count on: unhealthy churches, left unchecked, produce unhealthy pastors and ministers. People who grow up in unhealthy churches will carry that unhealthiness to other churches as they serve on staffs, pastor churches or serve in other capacities. Also, unhealthy pastors make unhealthy seminary professors and presidents. Unhealthy professors and seminaries make unhealthy pastors who then make unhealthy churches. Dysfunction breeds dysfunction. It is a horrid cycle. How can we change that?
Change theological education
Seminaries claim that their role is to train people for ministry. They train people to do: teach, preach, evangelize, education, counsel, parse verbs and uncover systematize theology. These are not unimportant. We should consider Christology and Pneumatology. However, Jesus trained people to BE: followers, disciples through relationship. One is functional and pragmatic. The other is ontological. Since you can only act out of who you are (the ontological), which one do you think is more important?
- Seminaries teach knowledge. Jesus modeled a relationship with God and others.
- Seminaries impart information. Jesus mentored.
- Seminaries embraced an enlightenment-based modernity that transitioned teaching from investment and mentoring to imparting knowledge. Jesus did theology in relationship or theology in mentorship rather than theology in lecture.
Seminaries need to focus more on spiritual formation within theological education. More emphasis needs to be placed on helping those that come through their $5 million seminary entrances become whole and healthy Christians than simply imparting systematic theology. Those students from unhealthy churches need mentors to walk along side them and speak into their lives, to invest time and energy with them and help them see areas that are lacking in wholeness. Unfortunately, we assign that to a class or two and expect them to get it.
The church has adopted a seminary-like format. The church has educational systems not formation systems. We lecture. We impart knowledge. And we call that discipleship. The church needs mentors, not lecturers. The church need coaches, not teachers. The church needs relational disciples, not professors.
The church is not as much functional as it is ontological. It is a community of faith. It is the bride of Christ. It is the body of Christ. It can only do out of who it is. But we expect the church to do, and in doing become. We have our doing and our being backwards. Even the language of the GCR is frame through doing language, not a being. The GCR is framed a something to be done. The failure of even the language is that we cannot do apart from being formed by God. We cannot love others with a white-hot passion without loving God with that same passion.
Change the scorecard for success
I have been writing on ministry success since 2008. I wrote a whole series of posts about. I have written an ebook about it. Success isn’t about the numbers. It’s about 3 things: obedience, investment and reproduction. Unfortunately, the SBC measures success in numbers, specifically attendance, money, and baptisms. This is a false measurement of success. Let me demonstrate.
One of the recent presidents of the Pastor’s Conference pastors a church that, when this man was nominated, was hailed as a great evangelistic church. The previous ten years they had averages 140 baptisms per year. In those same ten years, their attendance grew from 700-1100. Does anyone see a problem with that? This church, over a ten year period, baptized 1400 people but their attendance only grew by 400. Where are the other 1000? Maybe they started 5 churches out of that growth. Maybe they counted baptisms from their multi-cultural church partners. Maybe this is a huge transient area and all those people moved. But if those maybe’s aren’t true, this church is not a success. In fact, it is a failing. Yet that is who we celebrate. And who and what we celebrate gets repeated. What we celebrate gets emulated.
If we want to be successful pastors in the SBC we have to pastor large churches. That is what is celebrated. That is what is modeled. No wonder we have pastors hopping around and moving up the ladder, hoping to find that one church where they be celebrated as successful. Why? Because we have unhealthy pastors seeking an unhealthy standard of success.
Success comes as a result of being formed by the Spirit into the imago christi, the human we were created to be. That means success is found through obedience, investment (mentoring), and reproduction. That’s success – being formed by the Spirit, leading to obedience. We then invest in others and see the imago christi reproduced in others through our obedient investment and partnership with the Spirit. It has nothing to do with numbers.
If we want to bring change to the local church we need to celebrate obedient, Spirit-formed people who are investing in others. And we need our theological education to help people become, so they can do. Otherwise, the church will continue to be weak and unhealthy.
Great job, David. Well said.
David,
Well spoken. It is clear that simply transmitting “content” via a lecture methodology hasn’t resulted in healthy disciples who in turn reproduce other healthy disciples in healthy churches. I think you’ve put your finger on a very real problem, and I say that as a former seminary professor myself (though overseas). It’s simply far easier to prepare a lecture 2 or 3 times a week than it is to interact on a personal level with ministers-in-formation. Mentoring done well requires a significant investment of time in the life of another–far more than just showing up in the lecture hall to expound on the topic of the day.
How does that situation get reversed so that professors actually spend quality time with the students in training them for ministry? Many seminaries leave the “field ed” part of theological training to local pastors. Where the pastor takes a vital interest in the seminarian and serves as a mentor, that can be a great thing. Frequently however it seems that the overburdened pastor merely checks off a list of activities that the seminarian must complete with little actual attention to the student’s life and needs.
I think that theological education by extension has much to offer in this area when done well. A person can be trained in ministry under the direction and supervision of a seminary grad who serves as a mentor–perhaps meeting as well with others for mutual encouragement and the interchange of ideas.
David,
I can’t agree more. Over the past 16 years, 5 with Next Level Leadership at NAMB I have worked with pastors, church staff, state convention workers, and associational workers in leadership development all across the SBC. During those times together i would ask how many had a mentor/coach as they began their journey into ministry, in a average group of 25 leaders only 3 would raise their hand, i would then ask how many were mentoring/coaching a emerging leader, i might get three hands. Pastors and church staff across the country have shared with me over and over that they do not know how to mentor/coach leaders and were not taught how to while in seminary. They know how to be “Tellers” but not mentor/coaches. Until our SBC takes an honest and open assessment and admit we have not prepared our pastors and leaders to follow the example of Jesus of “Bringing them on”, “Coaching them up” and “Sending them out” we will continue to have unhealthy churches and unhealthy leaders.
Bert,
How do you combat what you have experienced in a celebrity culture in the SBC? I know some of our leaders have much to offer but view their time in a way they believe they need to get in front of as many people as possible. I have invited an SBC leader and was told my congregation was too small.
It seems the vicious circle is to call for mentoring/coaching and the thought is the high visibility leaders are the one’s capable. This is not sour grapes but a real issue. Watch the blog shares of many young guys and they are being mentored on the internet via blog posts of their chosen celebrity.
Todd, I wish i had an answer for you on the celebrity culture. I think many of our leaders have forgotten the example of Jesus and his development of the Disciples. We must remember Paul’s teaching to Titus and Timothy to entrust to reliable men who are qualified to teach others, for older men and women to teach/model to younger men and women. Coaching and mentoring is messy and takes time. We have to get back as leaders to authenticity, caring, trust, transparency, these things can only be lived out, demonstrated, earned over time and most effective when practiced in long term relationships. I know there are many pastors who will never reach celebrity status who are great mentors/coaches. The internet may be good for sharing information and ideas, thoughts, but as a coach for over 15 years the best mentoring/ coaching takes place face to face. The studies show us that mentoring/coaching world is moving back to face to face.