Renewing Theological Education

Most of the readers of this blog know that I have been working on graduate degrees in theology or theological disciplines for many, many years. I began immediately after my call into the ministry in 1991, at the Marietta Campus of the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. For almost two years I worked on a Masters of Divinity degree there. We met at Roswell Street Baptist Church, and almost all of the professors flew in from New Orleans each week,taught in Marietta, then flew back to New Orleans and taught there. I drove up from Macon, about a 90 minute drive, every Monday afternoon, and left after class, arriving home around midnight.

When we moved to Florida, once I was reasonably sure that we would remain here, I reapplied for admission at New Orleans and began work at their Graceville Florida extension. I would drive over on Monday afternoon and take a class or two. It was about an hour and fifteen minute drive over there. In this case the professors were either local pastors with doctorates, professors at the Baptist College of Florida (on whose campus we met)or the content was delivered over TV live from New Orleans most of the time or rarely from one of the other extension centers.

My attendance was predicated mostly on money and time. If I had enough of both, I would attend. If not, I wouldn't. Over the years I had some great experiences in class at NOBTS. I also attended some Saturday classes on campus in New Orleans in order to try to satisfy the requirement the accrediting board places on them to have 30 hours of on campus work as part of the degrees. The credits I lack now for that degree are solely because of that requirement. It ran afoul of time AND money. To take a week was hard. To get the money was hard. To take a week and get the money for the course AND for the stay in New Orleans was impossible. So I lack 17 hours of on campus credit to this day.

Along comes Rockbridge Seminary with an innovative delivery system, a Purpose Driven paradigm, and a cost that I could manage. They weren't Southern Baptist, but had SBC people at the top of their leadership team. They weren't accredited, but had people in leadership who knew exactly what would be needed to achieve that. I began in 2004 and except one hiatus went straight through and just finished my Masters there.

Sam Simmons, cofounder of Rockbridge asked today on Facebook about whether the seminaries can stand outside the conversation that most institutions are having today concerning the delivery of information to students. He references this video.



I commented on Facebook but ran out of room. ( no surprise there :) ) Here's what I said expanded to fit this space.

Seminaries desperately need to immerse themselves in the Church. Technology is a tool to accomplish that, but only a tool. We need to connect the learners, the learning, and the work the learners are doing in their contexts. Are you teaching for information or for action?

I interacted with people in ministry all over the world during my Rockbridge years. It was an eyeopening experience to hear about how ministry was done in Singapore, South Africa, in Korea and other places around the globe. If an effort was made to bring more ministries together through the seminary... in other words for the seminary to become a serving AND sending unit using the social networking tools we have now - you have a revolution in the effect a seminary education can have.

And if we enlisted graduates across the world who were willing to mentor (even open internships for Rockbridge students, host mission trips by their churches, partner in plants, whatever God leads) we would take it to another level.

Establish "cohorts" of graduates to continue their conversations and interaction for continuing ed. Create a chorus of dreamers who want to see what Rockbridge delivered to them distilled and focused for even more impact.

Rockbridge needs some serious networking focus externally, and some serious networking focus internally if it wants to lead the other seminaries to the future. It needs to show to the Church (big "C") what its students and graduates are doing around the world to expand the Kingdom of God. Explore partnerships with leading edge ministries and expand the ones you have.

Random thoughts...

P.E.A.C.E. plan equipping should be a no-brainer.
LifeChurch.tv - they have a grip on what's coming and are continually rolling out new ideas.
Mark Batterson and the movie church guys. Who trains planters to do that? Offer courses for different contexts. Urban planting by Tim Keller, Batterson or the like. How to start service outreaches by Steve Sjorgen.
There are numerous ministries out there today who are looking to expand the Kingdom and not afraid to try something new. Go see them. Pray with them. Share dreams with them.
Worldwide - can you leverage that to help groups in AUS, SA, ESP,etc who need training but can't go get it?

Yes - go talk. Go share. GO!