Some of my readers know that I just completed a five year gig teaching church planting at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. After five great years, I was awarded tenure, meaning that I could park 12 minutes in a 10 minute zone, and I NEVER had to return library books. I could’ve stayed for life, but God had other plans. He offered me an assignment starting simple churches in Austin.

Thing is, I still love helping students turn on the lights. Evidently, I’m good at it too. Not bragging, I can’t a dog to chase a cat. God has been very kind to me. As a result of my magnificent talent, my recruiting (conning?) 27 students to take the seminars I teach, and NAMB’s willingness to foot the bill, NOBTS was kind enough to invite me back to teach a couple classes next month. I love what they’re doing for church planters at NOBTS, and I am lobbying the various department chairs and dean(s) to let me teach for them online.

The online part is new. I tried it after Katrina and HATED teaching online. What changed? A friend encouraged me to take a class from Rockbridge Seminary on how to teach online. Blew me away. One of the most intense classes I’ve ever taken. Loved it. Really.

Wait, you never heard of Rockbridge? You will. It’s a totally online seminary. They’re not trying to fix the medieval behemoth, they’re reinventing it. With permission, I am reprinting the following article. Those of you who want theological training but cannot imagine moving to seminary, can’t afford it, or just want something other than what you find online at the traditional outlets (New Orleans, Southwestern, etc.) might find this interesting.

How Rockbridge Seminary Emerged

Rockbridge Seminary was brought into existence as a result of listening and discerning the changing educational needs of churches, a key constituency for any seminary. For two decades, the seminary’s founders interacted with seminary students, church leaders, and denominational executives with a growing realization that seminary education needed re-engineering. They were not alone. Authors such as those listed below called for change:

1. •Joseph C. Hough, Jr. and Barbara G. Wheeler (Beyond Clericalism: The Congregation as a Focus for Theological Education, 1988)
   

2. •Robert W. Ferris (Renewal in Theological Education: Strategies for Change, 1990)
   

3. •David H. Kelsey (Between Athens and Berlin: The Theological Debate, 1993)
   

4. •George Schner (Education for Ministry: Reform and Renewal in Theological Education, 1993)
   

5. •T. C. Morgan (“Re-engineering the Seminary,” Christianity Today, 1994)
   

6. •Neal F. Fisher, ed (Truth & Tradition: A Conversation about the Future of United Methodist Theological Education, 1995)
   

7. •Donald E. Messer (Calling Church & Seminary into the 21st Century, 1995)
   

8. •John H. Leith (Crisis in the Church: The Plight of Theological Education, 1997)
   

9. •Robert Banks (Reenvisioning Theological Education: Exploring a Missional Alternative to Current Models, 1999)
   

The theme common was this—churches are changing and if seminaries want to serve those churches, they must change too.

The need for a new approach to seminary education was best captured in a study commissioned by seven evangelical seminaries in 1993. The report, prepared by Carolyn Weese, was titled “Standing on the Banks of Tomorrow: A Study of Ministry Needs of the Local Church for the 21st Century.” Key church leaders were interviewed across the country, listening to what the primary constituencies of seminary education thought about seminaries. What the study found was a wake-up call for seminaries. Here are excerpts from interpretation of the research:

Seminaries are training people today for positions in churches that are living in the 50’s more than the 90’s. The seminaries must recognize how dramatically our culture and needs have changed, and begin to prepare their students to conduct a ministry that is relevant to the needs of today, without compromising the orthodoxy of the gospel.

All of the larger churches said they would not call or hire someone right out of seminary unless they were a product of their own church. … Churches large and small, mainline or independent, are utilizing more lay professionals on a part-time or full-time basis than ever before.

There is some thought that the seminary has spread its education base to cover other degrees and majors and lost its passion and focus for training and equipping people for pastoral ministry.

One pastor said that a year after graduation he disposed of all of his seminary notes and many of the textbooks because they had no value in ministry.

Not one person told me that they go back to the seminary for assistance. “Why should I? The seminaries are so far behind the church, they wouldn’t understand what I am talking about.”

Seminaries do not prepare students well to relate with people, understand the implications of contemporary culture as it relates to methodology in ministry, and be a visionary leader. … The student is able to conjugate nouns and parse verbs, but lacks the skill and finesse to exegete their own culture or be an effective change-agent with people.

It would be better for the seminaries to raise their salary several thousand dollars and insist on faculty becoming involved in the life of one church.

It is clear in visiting the seminaries that there is strong tension between those who teach the academic core and those who teach the practical and pastoral classes. The stronger tension, almost anger, comes from faculty toward pastors in ministry. I saw it in the seminaries, and the pastors on the field feel it as well.

The attitude of the professors was condescending, and students were not given credit for thinking on their own. Many students had already been in ministry and knew the questions to ask, and the professors talked down to them or made fun of them.

Approximately 50% of seminary graduates are not in ministry five years after graduation.

This report … calls for a major restructuring of the seminary—form and function.

During the decade of the 90’s and before Rockbridge Seminary was even an idea, the future founders helped lead curriculum review teams at the seminaries where they served. These multi-year projects and the intensive study they entailed served to convince the future founders that major restructuring within seminary education would have to be modeled in a new rather than an existing school. Cofounders Daryl Eldridge and Sam Simmons, only acquaintances from a distance, connected in January 2003 through a series of circumstances (providentially guided, we believe) to discover their common passion and the remarkably similar conclusions they had drawn about how seminary needed to change.

Though the idea for a new seminary was clear, exactly how to shape the new school took considerable thinking and discussion to develop. Expectations from within supporting networks of churches and church leaders were many—far too many for a fledgling school to meet. To gain focus, Rockbridge founders identified these ten core principles as important to churches in shaping the new school:

   1. Delivery would be 100% online, making seminary accessible to ministers already serving churches.

   2. The focus would be on developing ministers, not scholars.

   3. Incoming students would be required to serve in a ministry role while enrolled.

   4. A person’s ministry role would serve as the primary learning platform.

   5. No distinction would be made between volunteer and vocational ministry. Each is a function of calling rather than level of importance.

   6. The curriculum would be reorganized around the biblical purposes of the church, thus hardwiring church ministry relevance into the learning context.

   7. Ministry competencies would guide learning, making sure that students who graduate from seminary have ministry skills as well as knowledge.

   8. Local mentors would support students as ministry coaches while a class is in session.

   9. A touchstone course would help a student develop a learning plan for seminary. In a capstone course, students would present a portfolio demonstrating growth and development.

  10. Faculty would be expected to hold the highest academic credentials AND have extensive ministry experience that is fresh and relevant.

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Your thoughts?

My followup to comments and questions...

‘Parson’ asks two good questions.

First, with God, one never loses hope. The age of the structure (system really) is not the problem. The problem is that the needs of the people have changed and the structure has not paid attention. That can happen in two years or two hundred.

We are always smart to remind ourselves that Christ wants us to expand his kingdom by loving people, not by creating systems to educate them. We rightly spread the Gospel by speaking good news in words that people understand. To do otherwise is not loving, it is making them conform to our image of what one must be to be saved--sounds like law to me. 

The ministerial training system we now employ has developed a thick skin trying to make everyone believe its way is the best way. The opinions of best practices do not, however, bear up under the weight of facts. People have complained about their woefully untrained clergy for many years. The system is the problem. The system creates professional clergy class that is inconsistent with New Testament principles. How could it possibly keep its promise?

Second, regarding what to tell a called one; I’d tell the person to be truthful. Using one’s real name in blog posts might be a great place to start. Doing otherwise makes people wonder about his or her motives.

Next, learn to listen for direction from the Holy Spirit. Follow him wherever he tells you to go. Learn to test the spirits to make sure that what you hear is from God. (See below.)

After that, study the Bible to answer two primary questions. One, how does God work? Two, how do people tick?

Next, find someone who has walked with Christ longer than you that will meet with you regularly. Ask him or her to develop your character. Plan to spend the next several years learning how to hear God’s voice. Remain teachable always, and keep it simple.