Keep Your Traction

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From time to time we talk with a disappointed leader who started strong with a cohort of students only to see several of them drop out. Clearly the motivations that drive people to begin training do not always push them to continue. Is this normal? How do you create and sustain momentum? In our experience, leaders who maintain energy in their students over time do at least 3 things:

  1. Choose the right people.  As you establish your training process, you may be tempted to accept any and all comers. This will ultimately backfire. While all people within your ministry sphere need to be helped to maturity, only some are ready for development as leaders. We encourage you to vet potential students and carefully choose who you will invest into.
    • Are they well-spoken of by others to whom they minister? Give energy to those whose growth will be accelerated by your investment while at the same time being a help to you.
    • Are they teachable and truly looking for development? Watch out for those who simple want to use you pursue a personal agenda (like getting an easy degree).
    • Have they counted the cost? “Church-based” does not mean “Sunday-school-simple”. The training is well integrated with other life responsibilities, but it still requires discipline.
    • Do they accept that training in-ministry is transformative but also messy? Institutional expectations can cause people to become critical of a process which is actually bearing fruit.
  2. Call for progress.  Students who plateau become bored while students experiencing real change remain motivated.  Keep a vision and expectation for progress in front of the students. Don’t let the courses become academic. Instead, push for transformation of thinking and evidence that the students are using the principles in ministry. Insist on practicums that confront areas of identified needed growth rather than allowing practicums which provide experience but lack teeth.  In your mentoring do not be content to only reach quantitative milestones (“we finished the course”). Rather seek to achieve qualitative change.
  3. Train for mission.  Training for the sake of training holds interest only for a while.  On the other hand when training is needed in order to pull off a critical responsibility, it is compelling and even desperately sought after.  Cast vision around what you are training people for – effective use of their gifts, specific ministry roles within the church, passing the faith to others, or a future church plant.  From day one adopt the posture that “this is not a drill”. You need them to faithfully carry out current ministry responsibilities. You are counting on them.  And you need them to prove themselves in the midst of ministry so you can respond to doors God will yet open. In every way the stakes are real.

Of course it is normal for some who begin training to have legitimate reasons to step back from the process. There can be unforeseen circumstances. A student may even reevaluate his leadership capacity as a result of your input. What we want to highlight here are key principles which will help you maintain traction within an Antioch School training program.  We all know that more is required than administratively enrolling students, assigning mentors, and scheduling classes. We believe the above principles are not only tested but ancient, having been practiced by Paul himself as he took a promising Timothy and intentionally developed him to be a co-worker for the progress of the gospel. “Put these things into practice, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress.” (1 Timothy 4:15, NRSV)

“Mentoring” at Starbucks?

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What is commonly called “ministry mentoring” often doesn’t amount to much more than an old man and a young man meeting at Starbucks to talk about whatever the old man really likes or really dislikes.  Don’t get me wrong, I think these sorts of conversations are an important dimension of the older mentoring the younger.  However, it falls far short of the biblically comprehensive mentoring to which we should aspire.

Over the years, I have heard many in theological education say that they recognize that more mentoring should be taking place in the church, but that church leaders just aren’t willing or ready to do it.  Bible colleges, seminaries, and other specialty ministries have risen up to try to fill the perceived lack of mentoring in the churches.  Yet, the fact remains that churches, church networks, and church planting are contexts which God designed for the mentoring of leaders.  Church leaders can indeed mentor existing and emerging leaders.  It is just a matter of them accepting their responsibility and leveraging the tools that God has given for this purpose.

When we say that BILD and the Antioch School support “biblically comprehensive mentoring,” we are not saying that our tools cover everything or do all things perfectly well.  We are saying that a fundamental orientation to the New Testament (particularly the Pauline Epistles) as tools for establishing churches and leaders is the key starting point.  Our Personal Development Assessment tools (particularly the Becoming Established and Life & Ministry Assessment tools) simply attempt to capture the things that are emphasized in the Epistles in a form that can be readily used by leaders to mentor others.   In this manner, it brings the mentoring very close to the biblical documents themselves.

We think that any student in a ministry training degree program of a theological education institution should have this sort of mentoring.  Thus, each Antioch School student is required to be mentored at least quarterly by those that God has already put into their lives for this purpose.  Our Leadership Series courses are great, but they are made even better when they are placed in the context of personal, vibrant, and “biblically comprehensive” mentoring . . . even if it takes place at Starbucks.

Here are some links to Antioch School resources to support you in mentoring:

What’s in a Name? “Church Planting”

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Why did we include the words “church planting” in our name?  The terms evoke a rich biblical metaphor that pictures the early stages of the Pauline local church establishing process that also includes watering and God generated growth.  In the fullest sense “church planting” points to the whole developmental process of starting, strengthening, and multiplying local churches as well as large-scale church planting movements.  This blog is the third in our occasional series that explains our name.

Our Lord is in the church planting business.  It’s His idea.  It’s His wise plan.  It’s His work for which He sends laborers into His field.  Evangelism and mission cannot be reduced to merely making converts or providing social relief and development.  Biblical evangelism and mission are primarily matters of planting strong churches and cultivating strong church planting networks.  We created the Antioch School as a practical tool to help local churches and church planting movements reproduce themselves in response to our Lord’s commission.  By including “church planting” in our name, we specified both what we believe to be the essence of the mission as well as what we hope to be the primary outcome of the Antioch School.

The Antioch School is not just an innovative way to do serious biblical studies or to get a credible theological degree.  Nor is it merely a home-grown way to train specialists for the initial stages of starting a church.  The Antioch School is a church-based way to equip both existing and emerging leaders for the work of strengthening a base church and also planting churches from that base.  It’s a tool to cultivate an expanding network of strong churches regionally and globally.  It’s a way to accelerate the large-scale church planning movements that God is using to renew the church in North America and to reach the Global South in our day.

To date, the Antioch School has been adopted by approximately 75% of the large-scale church planting movements in India as their primary tool for upper level leadership training to sustain and expand their movements.  It has similarly been adopted by hundreds of pioneer minded churches in North America in spite of the seeming hegemony of traditional theological schools.  The Antioch School is expanding exponentially and seriously driving the church-based paradigm of training the next generation of church planters in North America and beyond.  That’s why “church planting” is in our name!

Is it really distance education when the church is present?

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“Fifteen years ago, many academic leaders thought it was impossible for students to have truly meaningful community interaction in an online distance education environment.  Ironically, one of the biggest struggles today for many traditional campus professors is to keep their students off Facebook during class!”

This is the opening paragraph of “Social Presence in Online Learning,” my chapter in a new book called Best Practices of Online Education:  A Guide for Christian Education.  Edited by Mark A. Maddix, James R. Estep, and Mary E. Lowe. Published by Information Age (2012).

I was asked to write the chapter to describe the tremendous potential of online learning communities, but I went even farther to describe “situated learning” because I believe that truly church-based theological education programs of Antioch School partners are the best learning communities.

Here is my closing paragraph:  “In conclusion, it is clear that social presence is a crucial dimension of effective online learning.  This article has focused on how distance can be broken down in online learning and how presence can be supported and optimized in online and real life social contexts.  Hopefully the consideration of historical perspective, learning theory, and best practices (especially next best practices) can be used to stimulate improvement for weak programs and to strengthen programs that are already strong.”

Here are two excerpts from the chapter that were posted on the Distance-Educator.com website.

The first, called “Social Presence in Online Learning” describes the distance education context and learning theory.  The chapter goes into more detail on theological education in particular.

The second, called “Best Practices in Online Learning” describes best practices and what I call “next best practices” (things that aren’t being done widely, but should).  The chapter in the book also includes sections on common practices and worst practices.

One Practice That Makes a Huge Difference

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We are sometimes asked by our partners to identify the mission-critical elements of an Antioch School training process. What are those things, in our experience, which make the difference in whether a training program effectively develops leaders?

One critical practice we have identified is having students work on their Personal Development Plan early in the training.  This tool takes students through a series of exercises – a life planning arch – beginning broadly with a clear life-vision statement, then moving to details of a student’s gifting and responsibilities, and ending with a comprehensive plan for growth. Annual review and revision keeps the plan current and keeps students in a disciplined rhythm of self-evaluation.

Why is the Personal Development Plan so strategic?

  1. It integrates the training experience. The process prevents students from just focusing on a favored area of the training (such as the Leadership Series courses), helps them to identify measurable growth objectives in each sphere of life, and clarifies how various elements of the Antioch School training will help them accomplish those objectives.
  2. It encourages life-long learning. We tend to learn for a season and then plateau.  Rightly implemented this tool will help students develop habits of learning, assessment, adjustment, and continued learning – habits critical for a leader who needs to keep acquiring  wisdom over a life-time of ministry.
  3. It teaches students to assess priorities and to juggle all the necessary balls amidst the demands of ministry. Rather than being controlled by the tyranny of the urgent, students learn to invest time and energy in a balanced fashion that addresses needs within their personal walk, family, community, church, and broader ministry spheres.
  4. It gives our partners a tremendous resource as they implement training.  Partners are able to tailor-make practicums, adjust course projects, or assign mentors based on the unique needs of a student. They are better able to address shepherding issues that are specific to the student and recognized by the student.

When the Personal Development Plan is postponed or done hastily, we have found that students are more prone to approach the training in a merely academic fashion.  The elements of the training become fragmented rather than seen in relation to each other.  Many benefits of carrying out training in the context of ministry are muted. Done rightly, the Personal Development Plan will help your training process be truly holistic rather than one dimensional.

Ideally, we suggest that you take students through the Personal Development Plan within the first few weeks of launching an Antioch School program.  During initial training you receive a First Term Scenario which depicts how this can be done.  If you are well past the start of your program, you can activate this tool in an intense, focused period such as a weekend retreat. Please note also that we provide an online manual and a reoccurring e-Workshop that you can tap for insight on creating an effective Personal Development Plan.

We are confident that as you implement this piece of your Antioch School training process, you will see how the Personal Development Plan powerfully links every element of the training experience to the needs of the student.  It will ultimately help the whole training have an impact that is greater than the sum of the parts.

What’s in a Name? “School”

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Why did we include the word “school” in our name?  It’s a common enough word that enjoys the luxury of being instantly understood by most people.  But it also carries enough cultural baggage to make it a risky choice often requiring substantial qualification.  This blog is the second in our occasional series that explains our name.

Words carry paradigms.  Most of us who have been immersed in the Western education system have thereby come to associate the word “school” with factory-type buildings, large classrooms, seat-time, professors, lectures, note taking, book learning, rote memorization, quizzes, exams, grades, etc.  Some of us like this approach to learning.  Others don’t.  But most of us share this cultural definition of schooling whether we picked it up through our experience in public or private schools at any level.

Our choice to include the word “school” in our name, in spite of its present-day baggage, is both principled and practical.  Even though we view the Western schooling paradigm to be foreign to the biblical paradigm of education, we’re not willing to abandon the word “school” because it still correctly carries the idea of serious ordered learning that’s essential in developing strong church leaders.  Nearly everyone associates the word “school” with high levels of discipline, scholarship, and acumen which we view to be core competencies in those who must master the Scriptures, guard the faith, and establish churches.  These competencies are substantial enough to be worthy of the academic credit and degrees that we grant as an accredited educational institution or “school.”

A biblical purist might suspect that our choice to include the word “school” in our name reveals a not-so-subtle compromise with the prevailing culture.  But we view it to be a solid example of how biblical theology ought to be translated into contemporary culture.  We’ve created a school that avoids the schooling paradigm yet maintains the highest standards of academic discipline, integrity, and ministry competence that is legitimately represented by the degrees that we grant as cultural currency.  That’s what’s in our name.


Put the Seminaries Out of Business?

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Guess which seminary president made these comments.

“If a young man has the opportunity to study with a pastor and be right in ministry alongside him all the time, that is going to be better than what you are going to get at any theological seminary anywhere on the planet.”

“Another trend is that more and more pastors are beginning to take responsibility for theological education within the context of their church.”

“My argument is that we need to put the seminaries out of business.”

“My hope is that if the Lord lets us operate long enough that we can turn out pastors who will not look to the seminary like we’re the medical school to turn out doctors.”

“Generation after generation of the Christian church has had to develop the ways it trains pastors.  The seminary in the American experience grew out of the effort to emulate other forms of professional education.  And in one sense, that’s the downfall of the entire experiment.  You had debates going back to the nineteenth century as to whether the ministry is a profession and should we should have professional schools alongside the others.  What you have with the emergence of the modern seminary is a school that is intended to train pastors for the church alongside the medical school, dental school, . . ., and all the rest.  That works educationally, but it doesn’t work for the church.”

“Seminaries should not be the places that train pastors.  We should be the places that help churches to train pastors.”

“The transfer of cognitive information is what we do really well.  We have classrooms.  We have books.  We give tests.  We expect papers.  That’s what goes on.  But what goes on in pastors training pastors in the local church is far more important and fundamental.”

“The local church needs to train what only the local church can do.  Pastors are the most effective trainers and educators of pastors.”

“You can’t franchise out theological education.  It belongs to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

These things were said by Al Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in an April 2011 Gospel Coalition panel on “Training the Next Generation of Pastors and Other Christian Leaders.”

When I first listened to the panel, especially the comments of Mohler, I kept waiting for them to say that the panel was sponsored by the Antioch School!

In the spirit of honesty and full disclosure, he and others say much more.  Mohler has a particular perspective about the relationship of the seminary and church that still has a vital place for the seminary, particularly Southern.  In the video above, go to 4:58, 11:20, and 27:13 to hear him explain what he means. However, the bottom line as noted above is that he acknowledges the church’s role as “far more important and fundamental.”

In the Antioch School, we take this idea very seriously.  We think much more can be done in the local church than Mohler imagines, including things that he thinks are better done by the seminary, such as “getting that running start in ministry” and even matters of “cognitive transfer.”  The church is the ideal context for guarding the deposit.  The church still is the institution that God created for the purpose of passing on sound doctrine, cultivating ministry skills, and transforming character in an integrated manner.

We are delighted to hear leaders of traditional seminaries acknowledge the unique role of the church in theological education.  And we are even more delighted to be doing something about it by providing the truly church-based Antioch School.

We are not trying to “put the seminaries out of business.”  In fact, we envision seminaries being reinvented as true resource centers for churches and church networks, but in a form that is not dominated by the schooling paradigm.

What we are really trying to do is to “put churches and church leaders in business,” particularly the business of training leaders that God has mandated for them in 2 Timothy 2:2.

3 Proven Suggestions For Launching Your Antioch School Program

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We hear regularly from church leaders who want to launch an Antioch School training process but who feel they lack time, energy, and resources. They are often discouraged by the perpetual catch-22. They can’t see a way to train new leaders because they are buried in ministry, too busy and stretched too thin. But… and here’s the catch… they know they will never be less busy without training capable leaders to share the work!

On one hand, this concern is sometimes given too much weight. The Antioch School training processes are designed to be carried out in the midst of ministry by those doing ministry. We have experience helping you to weave the training into the natural rhythm of your responsibilities. On the other hand, you are making a substantial investment – one which will increase your capacity from the first day – but an investment of time and energy nonetheless. It is not surprising, then, that pastors, church planters, and network leaders frequently ask:

How do I get an Antioch School program off the ground? How can I get the traction I need to start?

Here are three proven suggestions:

  1. Envision why you need to train leaders. If you clearly see why training leaders is one of the most strategic things you can do, it will translate into energy for the task and a compelling vision. Cast this vision strongly with your board or congregation and make the case for using a portion of your time for training others.
  2. Hand-pick your first cohort of “Timothy’s”. Approach those who you want to develop and see alongside you in the work. Then call them to be pioneers not simply students. Within the traditional schooling paradigm, students are consumers who expect a predictable experience which at every stage does something for them. Pioneers, though, know they are moving into uncharted territory in order to accomplish something important. They will benefit, but they also know larger matters are at stake. If your first participants see their role as pioneers, they will tolerate bumps in the road and will be enthusiastic about their role in helping you build a strong church-based leadership training program. Rather than the demands of ministry being a hindrance, it will be the expected environment where leadership development takes place.
  3. Follow our suggested first-term roll-out. During our Initial Certification Training we distribute a template entitled A First Term Scenario. Here we actually encourage certified leaders to launch training with the Life and Ministry Development portions of the program and wait until the second term before beginning the Leadership Series courses. In our experience this lays the right kind of foundation at the start for Antioch School students by emphasizing their holistic development rather than just completion of courses. However, the other benefit of this approach is that you have a more gradual ramp-up period as you launch an Antioch School program. You can begin with more flexible components of the training while still laying logistical groundwork for the rest.

What’s in a Name? “Antioch”

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Why “Antioch?”  We were very careful in choosing the name “Antioch School of Church Planting and Leadership Development.”  Each key word has tremendous significance.  This blog is the first in an occasional series that will explain our name.

Antioch is a prominent part of first century church history.  It is famous for its role as a platform from which Paul launched church planting efforts.  However, Antioch is more than just a prominent part of church history.  It is a prominent part of Scripture.  We believe that the prominent placement of Antioch in the Book of Acts is no accident.  It was intentionally positioned by Luke in order to focus our attention and teach us about the essential nature of the church.  In Acts 13-14, we see that the church is intimately and intrinsically involved in the spontaneous expansion of the Gospel.  The Antioch church has a pivotal role in developing leaders, sending them out as the Spirit directs, and providing support for a church planting movement.  The Antioch School is designed to serve churches, church networks, and church planting movements that are following the keys in Acts for the expansion and establishment of churches.

As well as being an exemplary church, Antioch was the hub of the early church’s Antioch Tradition.  It is this tradition that saw the “world turned upside down” by the Gospel in the first three centuries.  Much attention has been given to the Alexandrian tradition, particularly its allegorical method of interpreting the Bible.  However, recent research is showing that not only did the Antioch tradition result in exponential growth of churches, but it was based on a method of interpreting the Bible that took seriously the author’s intent for each passage.  The Antioch School is committed to the global expansion of the Gospel through the proper utilization of God’s Word.

The example of Antioch Church itself, its Scriptural model, and its historical significance in the Antioch Tradition combine to form an Antioch Model that still serves us today.  This model includes features such as training leaders in the church, being sensitive to the Spirit’s leading, supporting the global expansion of the church, and recognizing the intrinsic nature of the church as mission.  We call this “the Way of Christ and His Apostles” because this is what Luke tells us Christ continued to teach through the apostles and what the Spirit did in the early church.   It is not that we have a corner on the right way to do things, but we are confident that we have aligned the Antioch School with the model that God put in place for all churches in all places for all times.

P.S.  We are not formally associated with the famous Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio or some other churches with Antioch in their names (most prominently the one in Waco, TX), but we would be glad to partner if they want to use the BILD resources for church-based theological education.

The Future of Theological Education Has Arrived

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Binoculars

One of my personal interests is the analysis of projections about higher education in comparison with what we are doing with the Antioch School of Church Planting and Leadership Development.  I have dozens of articles that have been written over a period of decades regarding what the future will be like.  Most anticipate a very different future and rarely do we see the realization of the pervasive changes they predict, but there are exceptions.

A recent issue of Theological Education, the academic journal of the Association of Theological Education (ATS), featured seven articles focused on “The Future of Theological Education,” including two by Daniel Aleshire (ATS Executive Director).  Read the editor’s introduction to this issue.

In his article titled, “The Future Has Arrived:  Changing Theological Education in a Changed World,” Aleshire describes the changed world of North American religion, changing theological schools, and possible reactions to a changed world.  He calls for ATS to be a “big tent of educational practices” in order to “diversify educational practice to meet an increasing diversity of educational need.”  Here are the specific innovations he presents:

  1. Baccalaureate theological education.
  2. Alternatively credentialed clergy.
  3. On-the-job education.
  4. Lay education.

Bachelors-Level Programs
For decades, ATS has defined theological education as graduate-level professional training.  Now, they are asking, “How might ATS schools partner with undergraduate institutions to provide ministerial education at this [bachelors] level?”  I love the story conveyed by Aleshire about the president of a seminary asking Aleshire the difference between a baccalaureate-level funeral and a graduate-level funeral.

Frankly, I’m suspicious of whether ATS will make much progress in this regard because they still seem to believe that theological education is primarily the responsibility of the masters-level seminaries.  The article, which is based on a live presentation at an ATS conference, ends with a statement that “most of the executive leadership of North American theological education is in this room.”  This seems to disregard the work that has been done for decades by universities, Christian colleges, and Bible institutes – the very institutions with which they need to partner in order to accomplish this innovation.

Academic level is not the starting point for the design of church-based theological education programs.  Rather, our partners start with existing and emerging leaders of their churches in order to help them build one-mindedness on their ministry teams.  Differentiation of academic level is related to admission to Antioch School degree programs and criteria by which competencies must be demonstrated, but it is not something that necessarily segregates students like in the schooling paradigm.

Alternative Paths to Credentials
One of the most encouraging trends in mainline and evangelical denominations is the development of paths for alternatively credentialed clergy.   Aleshire recognizes the “growth industry” of part-time pastors of smaller congregations in Protestant denominations.  He says, “Part-time pastors cannot leave their primary jobs for three years to study at a seminary and then return to a part-time church.”  Elsewhere he addresses the importance of this issue for ethnic minorities and urban contexts.

Credentialing of ministers has often been linked closely to formal academic programs.  Perhaps the starting point for alternative credentialing paths should not be the traditional seminary curriculum, but the matters of character, skills, and knowledge as determined by the denomination or church network.  We think that the Antioch School portfolio transcripts are much better suited for use in ministry credentialing processes.

In-Service Learning
The need for on-the-job education is a by-product of the formal schooling model.  Aleshire writes, “Seminaries have built educational systems primarily on the professional school model in which students go to school, get a degree, and then begin work in ministry.”  However, as stated previously, there are so many for whom this is not a reasonable path.  Aleshire states, “Theological schools need to give increased attention to the character of education that supports persons who are already engaged in ministry.”

One of the best articles I’ve ever read in this regard is titled “Judicatory-Based Theological Education.”  The article presents the findings of a major research project funded by the Lilly Endowment  that studied “a wider range of educational options for theological study.”  The article, also published in Theological Education in 2003, describes a number of examples, best practices, and issues to address.

This raises the fundamental concept of whether we should think of theological education as pre-service or in-service.  The Antioch School is built on the concept that ministerial training ought to happen in the midst of ministry and in the context of real churches and church planting movements.  Even those without much ministry experience are trained by church leaders in real situations because we think that theological education should be essentially church-based.

Lay Training
Aleshire asks what theological education would look like for “lay persons who are often better educated in almost every other area of their lives than in their faith.”  This dilemma is largely caused by making theological education the proximity of graduate-level academic institutions.  We have never had larger numbers of ministers with high academic credentials than today.  Perhaps the professionalization and segregation of theological education to the context of schooling institutions is part of the problem.

The Antioch School bypasses the dilemma by helping churches train whoever needs to be trained.  This includes those who may serve in vocational ministry capacities, as well as those who won’t.  The foundational concept is not the training of professionals, but the equipping of leadership teams for churches.  Our definition of theological education is “cradle to grave life development for everyone in a church,” not just professional training for the vocational ministers.

It was fascinating to read this article and recognize how these “innovations” for the future of theological education are already standard practices of the Antioch School partner churches.   Lay people, bachelor-level, masters-level, and even doctoral-level students are engaged in collective learning processes using the BILD resources in their churches.   Many Antioch School partners are using their own credentialing processes for local ministry assignments, as well as recognition throughout their networks, districts, and denominations.  On-the-job education is a staple, not an option, for Antioch School students.

Aleshire has given an interesting glimpse on where formal theological education may be going in the future and the Antioch School is already there.

Postscript.  Other articles in this issue of Theological Education raise fundamental questions that don’t seem to call for minor innovations within the current schooling system, but radical reorientation like we have done with the Antioch School.

In his study of Andover-Newton Theological School, Nick Carter wrote, “What the assumptive model of the church is that underlies our curriculum?  Many of our mission statements say that we exist to serve the church.  What church is that?  . . .  When we finished our yearlong study of our assumptions, we were forced to conclude that, other than the gospel itself, almost every one of the assumptions our school had been founded on was in the midst of being swept away.” (pp. 11-12).

We think that Antioch School shows what can be done when you truly question all of the assumptions and start with a fresh perspective of what it means to serve the church.

Alice Hunt of Chicago Theological Seminary wrote, “. . . we have master’s-level students graduating with significant debt to enter jobs paying an average of $34,000 a year.  Plus, we aren’t sure if we are meeting the religious needs of our communities of faith or society.  The list goes on and on.  . . .  Why aren’t we doing something differently?   What are we waiting for?”  (p. 61).

The Antioch School didn’t wait and we are doing something differently, such as radically changing the cost of theological education for our students and starting with the religious needs of our churches.

Image © by jhalper