Raising Up Leaders: Contextual Theological Education for All – by Landon Whitsitt

Cynthia begins her reflection on “Equipping Leaders: Change and Theological Education” by sharing about her work with the 21 C Church committee which has been charged with exploring the future horizons of “church” and reporting back to the rest of us what they see. Inherent in that charge, Cynthia believes (and rightly so, from my point of view), is a call to consider what the training of leadership for the future of the Church might entail.

It is no secret that I believe the church today is facing a leadership crisis. While a good many of us are offering our thoughts, I don’t believe that we have a firm grasp on who “leaders” are, nor what their functions should be. While it may not be readily apparent, I wrote Open Source Church (Alban, 2011) because I was experiencing challenges from those in the congregation I previously served about who I was supposed to be as a pastor and what I was supposed to do.

The open source framework I lay out in my book was a direct response to the claim by some that I was there to be the congregation’s local, resident church expert. Time and again, I was spoken to and of as if I was the spiritual equivalent of a church janitor who changed light bulbs. They believed that my job was clear and I merely needed to do it so that the congregation could return to the glory days it once knew. I resisted that description not only because I believe it to be unhelpful. I believe it to be harmful. And, yet, the only way we really know how to train church leaders (currently) is to pluck folks out of their context, pump them full of information, and scatter them far and wide to “lead the church.”

We have to begin doing better than this. We have to be more creative than this. Simply put, when we speak of the future of theological education we must move beyond speaking of it solely in terms of traditional, residential Masters of Divinity training for pastors.

Today, to say “theological education” means “someone goes to seminary to learn how to be a pastor.” I think most folks are fine with this because we still believe in “The Cult of the Expert.” Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, most people still believe that the only thing that can save us from the quagmire we are in is some magical hero who knows exactly what to do. They have The Answer, and if we find them (and pay them enough) they will give it to us. Because this way of being the church leader rests upon having the right information, we do not care who that person is, or where they come from, as long as they bring The Answer with them.

Given this belief in expertise it makes sense that the best way to train these leaders (future experts) is to gather them together with informational specialists in centralized locations where they are taught all the information required to successfully guide a community of faith. From these central locations, these newly minted experts are told that they now have the qualifications to assume a position anywhere in Christ’s church. Even though the “pilgrimage” to seminary that almost all of these students took was horribly inconvenient, we console ourselves with two interlocking beliefs:

1)      Massive sacrifice is what God requires for those called to serve in congregational leadership. Many seminarians go through Abrahamic experiences, leaving everything they have known and which gives them comfort and safety, in order to go to seminary.

2)      The “pay off” for our sacrifice is also massive. Seminarians are told that nothing can equal the transformation one experiences in a residential seminary environment. Likewise, if they apply their expertise well, they have potential to go far in ministry. Sure, not everyone will fill the Tall Steeple pulpit, but they will have a job and they will not suffer financially.

I must now make a confession: Even though I am now well on the other side of my own pilgrimage, and have experienced a fair amount of success in the church, I consider these interlocking beliefs to be lies. Not only that, but I believe that continued proclamation of these lies is inhibiting the reformation that God intends for our churches.

I flesh this argument out more fully in Open Source Church, but we should move beyond believing that flying in an expert trained by other, more seasoned experts is The Answer we’re looking for. It is not. Whatever answer God has for a congregation exists in the people God has gathered in that place, and when we speak of “theological education for the 21 C Church” we must begin speaking of how we train those women and men in their own contexts.

And, lest you think I’m simply speaking of those who practice word and sacrament ministry (pastors), I am not. I am speaking of congregational leaders in general – anyone who has been called by God to serve a community of faith. This may be official groups such as the Ruling Elders and Deacons of the PC(USA), the Board of Deacons of many Baptist congregations, or the Vestry in any number of Episcopal congregations. We must ask the question of why we do not insist on serious, sustained leadership education and development for these servants of the church. In the case of the Presbyterian Church (where Ruling Elders and pastors have equal status and authority) why is it acceptable for pastors to be trained for 3+ years yet many Elders receive little more than 3 hours of theological training?

For our churches to effectively engage communities with Christ’s Grace and Peace we must refuse to accept the norm of (on average) only one theologically trained person in each place. All women and men called to servant leadership within Christ’s Church should be expected to theologically reflect on the ministry and mission God has called them to. And, yet, how will this be accomplished if our only operative narrative of theological education is one of a “pilgrimage”? I have never heard of the “pilgrimage” model working for Deacons and Elders, and, yet, we have made no provision for them. If we fail to rectify this, it will be at our own peril.

Many of us believe that the leaders of the 21 C Church will be raised up from within not shipped in from without. To be sure, some will still seek a residential experience, but those of us responsible for theological education must begin (in earnest) providing for formation in a way that recognizes that church leadership will, once again, increasingly come from the very communities that need them.