Changing the Paradigm for Theological Training – Part 1: My Top 10 List

Sometimes, things seem to come around full circle, but the cycle takes years or even decades to close the circuit. And that happened to me this week.

I’ve been reading papers and forum discussions posted on The Future of Theological Education, which went live the first of this month. I’d thought a lot about changing the seminary paradigm over the years. So, I decided to write up my current top 10 notions on how I think theological education would be changed to match the emerging holistic, integrative paradigm – in other words, something far more friendly to what I understand as an incarnational and missional ministry approach.

After finishing the first draft, I found archived e-files I’d written 15 years ago on changing the seminary paradigm. The document included what I was then calling a “Toolkit for Effective 21st-Century Ministry.” It was intriguing to compare that with my current list, and to realize that my views now are pretty much refined versions of what they were then. In fact, the curriculum I’m finishing up includes pretty much all the major themes for required how-to courses that I was mulling over in 1997. In Part 1, I’ll give my top 10 list, without a huge amount of detail or discussion. In Part 2, I’ll take a look back at some similar material from 1997, and in Part 3, comment on how I think the situation has changed since the mid-1990s and where it may be headed in the future. I may add other posts if I access intriguing material from 1997 (most of which was typed into program I no longer have access to or translation capability for).

My Top 10 Ways to Revise Theological Training Systems for Missional Ministry

Theological Content

GOAL – To move toward a story-based approach to thinking about God’s Word and His work in this world, where principles of truth are embedded in the unfolding “plotline.”

1. Shift to a systems-oriented narrative theology. The conventional approach to building theology integrates around the world of the mind, abstract categories, and theological principles and propositions drawn out of patterns in Scripture. It is more philosophical in nature, and can easily fall prey to the flawed Enlightenment drive to achieve “philosophical/theological and linguistic perfectionism.” (For instance, see The Search for the Perfect Language by Umberto Eco.) The holistic approach to building theology integrates around how people relate in the world. This is more paradoxical (keeping in mind simultaneously both God’s providence and people’s interactions as they interweave through a groups’ history) and more concrete (keeping in mind culture, and not just language). A storying approach is more culturologist-oriented than philosophist-oriented. It will not give us all the in-between details that the abstract/analytic-dominated mind wants to know, but it still shows us the themes/principles God revealed for us to know and the trajectories He wants us to move toward in everyday practice.

Ministry Communication and Customization Skills

GOAL – To create an environment that embodies and trains people in practical skills needed to contextualize ministry – for individuals, teams, organizations, and cultures.

2. Apply customization to all levels of communication and teamwork. Train ALL teachers, trainers, mentors, supervisors, and students to apply an understanding of learning styles, creativity theory, and immersion learning experiences to customizing their work for all different kinds of learners. If we cannot even learn to communicate and work on a team with people who are different from ourselves, however do we think we will have the ability or credibility to create a church or other organization that is contextual for the place where the Lord has planted us?

3. Apply contextualization to all dimensions of communication and ministry. Train in the component skills of critical ministry contextualization, including cultural exegesis (observation, analysis, and interpretation) and how to avoid the errors of syncretism, isolationism, and colonialism.

4. Address both organizational strengths and challenges. Train in how to use both of the complementary processes of building healthy organizational infrastructures through “appreciative inquiry” and the evaluation process of “differential diagnosis.” This is in part to help keep individual leaders and organizations moving toward health. Having some strengths doesn’t guarantee sustainability, and avoiding symptoms of problems doesn’t make them go away.

Immersion Ministry Experiences for Developing Practical Skills

GOAL –To achieve a more holistic understanding of the realm of ministry opportunities and Kingdom collaboration, as well as multiple opportunities for highly practical ministry and teamwork skills.

5. “Ministry rounds and mini-internships.” Doctors in training do rounds to visit all kinds of patients and get a better understanding of the range of medical issues involving the whole person. Wouldn’t sort of “ministry rounds” make sense for us as disciples, who may be called to serve anywhere or in any issue in the Body of Christ? Introduction to ministry types through a well-supervised and well-facilitated series of on-site visits, followed by a series of several well-supervised short-term ministry internships. Each internship must be written up as a case study, reviewing the organization’s history and current status, and including theological and practical lessons learned.

6. In-depth internship. Apprentices in on-the-ground ministry need an extended, well-supervised and well-facilitated Theological Field Education practicum within one certified ministry, church, or agency. The absolute minimum should be one year with the same certified mentor/supervisor.

7. Partnership collaboration tour-of-service. Disciples would benefit from an additional practicum/internship experience that involves collaborative teamwork with members drawn from partner churches or agencies. It might be a one-time event, an ongoing activity, or a comprehensive system like city-transformation. But the focus should be learning to work through issues of diversity, developing skills of communal discernment and decision-making, and communicating cross-culturally.

Research and Development for Sustainable Impact

GOAL – To develop resources that help churches, ministries, agencies, and social enterprises place participants in a role and at a level that matches their gifts and maturity level; provide evaluation and restoral tools for organizational systems to reduce their toxicity; and teach local people to create insightful resources that will help equip generations not yet even born understand the heritage (both good and bad) of the local culture.

A word of explanation is needed here. I understand that no church, no organization, no disciple is perfect and that we wound one another and that leaders can wound entire congregations. However, I don’t know whether to be astonished, embarrassed, or livid that institutions in the “business” of theological education and training can graduate toxic individuals who significantly harm people, do not seem to care, and instead demand to continue “serving” as if nothing has happened. Rarely have I seen or heard of training organizations considering how such students got through their system undetected and/or unconfronted.

At least on the secular reality TV show Project Runway, the judges speak of how, on team challenges, if team leaders don’t have the character to “man up” if their team loses due to their design and leadership, then they shouldn’t take credit if their team wins. Should ministry training systems do the same? Better yet, move toward prevention of abuse through better placement systems to lower the level of cross-cultural shock, better self-profiling systems to identify strengths and challenges related to use and abuse of power and position, better long-term resources to reduce stresses from trying to completely redesign the wheel.

The following resources are needed for working toward sustainable impact of our churches, ministries, and social transformation agencies. However, tools based on the former paradigm will find limited usage – mostly in relationship to identifying Christlike character and spiritual maturity. They will flail and/or fail wherever they focus on organizational systems, methodological models, and leadership skill profiles based on the old paradigm. In technical terms, they are not valid – they do not evaluate or measure the things they say they do for the current paradigm, because the research and the resulting definitions of “success” were based in the old paradigm. It’s an issue of apples and oranges: either we need separate apple tools for the old and orange tools for the new, or some even broader-based “fruit tools” that can evaluate apple paradigm issues and orange paradigm issues and any other kind of paradigm “fruit” that may eventually emerge. (See this post on “Gospel Ecosystems” and Organizational Systems for an example of the validity issue as it appears in the conventional church planter assessment systems developed by Dr. Charles Ridley.)

8. Discern how qualified (or unqualified) a ministry candidate is – or whether he/she is currently disqualified and needs to step down. We need evaluation tools for determining whether an individual has a threshold level of maturity and relevant skills for serving in public ministry leadership roles in the emerging holistic paradigm, and/or mentoring/supervising others; and whether an organization has a threshold level of being healthy. We also need certification tools and processes to evaluate an individual’s competency in theological knowledge and application, and ministry skills and activities. (See point #1 in My Top 10 Conclusions about Paradigm Shifts and Cultures for a bit of detail on the framework of qualified, unqualified, and disqualified.)

9. Move from paradigm-bound assessments to transparadigm placement. Character issues and maturity are always relevant. But processes and styles of visioning, hierarchy and teams, supervision, etc., are very different depending on the cultural paradigm one finds oneself in. We need a placement system of tools for evaluating how ministry candidates would fit within a variety of cultures and therefore what to expect if God sends them there. This takes assessment far beyond whether they fit in conventional paradigms of church and leadership, or will have probable success in ministry there.

10. Create a legacy of “cultural capital” resources and contextualization research. Replication of ministry knowledge and skills takes place more thoroughly when there is intentionality behind it. We need to train disciple-leaders to create a base of knowledge that can provide a historical perspective on the local culture and a ministry’s impact on it over time. This legacy involves creating “transgenerational resource banks” by conducting historical studies and case studies of local culture and collecting relevant resources on ministry to local people groups.

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