KevinPurcell.org

As a seminary student I spent about a third of my time away from my family on the road.  While in Louisville at Southern Seminary, I traveled from Falmouth, KY to Louisville one day a week for my first four semesters and three days a week my last semester there.  After we moved to North Carolina I traveled from Sampson County to Wake Forest, NC to attend Southeastern Seminary.  I did that for five semesters before graduating in 1998.  Fortunately, gas was on average just over a dollar a gallon.  Besides the fact that I went through four cars during this time (I used to buy old used cars) putting more than 35,000 miles a year on them, it was not that bad.  I enjoyed the time alone to worship and listen to books on tape.  Sometimes I studied — not reading but looking through flash cards and such.

Today, the cost of a higher education is getting exorbitant.  Despite the large subsidies that Southern Baptist pay for its students, the cost is still out of reach for some.  The fact that our seminaries are far away for many of the expanding denomination, you have a real problem of people being too far away, not able to afford it, and struggling with being away from family.  Also, do you really want to spend 3-5 years in school when a lot of seminary grads say they learned more in their first year of ministry in the church than they did in school?  I think that last statement is a gross exaggeration, but there is a hint of truth in it.

So I propose a new way to do theological education in preparation for ministry.  It is nothing new.  But I just wanted to share with you how I would do it knowing what I know about the traditional seminary experience and technology.

First, there is no substitute for being with a group of people preparing for ministry under the direction of people experienced in ministry.  To put it succinctly, if you can afford the time and money it takes to go to a school and learn on campus, do it.  It is worth the trouble, time and money.  But for many people that is not practical.  So, I would like to share a three part plan for doing seminary in the Internet age.

1. All entry level courses can be done by independent study.  In that I would include the Introduction to NT and OT, Church History, Survey of Theology, Hebrew and Greek.  The interaction one gets from being in school is not as great in these courses since many of the on campus versions are filled with 50 to 100 students.  There is little interaction there.  Just read the books, listen to or watch lectures via the Internet or Podcast, take the tests online, and submit papers via email or upload them through a web site.

2. More advanced courses in the above areas would be a combination of independent study and group study.  Again, lectures could be viewed online, but live for these courses.  The professor could speak into a camera that is streaming the video online.  The students would be in a chat room discussing the lectures.  Students could "raise their hand" to ask a question by making a specific entry into the chatroom and the professor could acknowledge the question and answer it.  The advantage is that the student would a record of the discussion to save along with his or her notes.  The lecture could also be saved to view repeatedly.  Any assignments could be worked on collaboratively via things like Go-to-Meeting or Sharepoint style interfaces.  A discussion board for every class could be a place for students and professors to interact about the material.  These advantages would be great.  They might even offset the disadvantage of now being able to interact in person.

3. For the more practical courses like leadership, preaching, etc. the student could actually take these course as part of an internship in a local church.  There are plenty of skilled, talented pastors that would love to share their time with students.  One pastor could work with up to two or three students in a semester.  They of course would need to be trained, but they would likely enjoy that training as it would be a refresher for them.  One week each year, these mentors would meet on the campus of the seminary for training, worship and interaction with professors and colleagues.  They would then help the students in their area work through the ministry classes and learn in the lab of a church setting.  This would benefit them and the church.  Finally, when they are about to graduate, they would spend one season working in a church as Student Pastor.  This means they would not be encumbered by classes and papers and tests.  They would simply spend that three months as if they were a staff member in that church.  They would follow a particular ministry track.  If they were called to pastoral ministry, they would work alongside the pastor doing visitation, attending administrative and planning meetings, counseling with people alongside the pastor, and preaching regularly (maybe as much as 6 times in a three month term).  Similar things would be done for youth ministers, music ministers, and other staff ministries.  If they are planning to go into missions, then the practical learning semesters would be on the mission field.

Please let me know what you think.  If you are a student, would you like this kind of program?  If you are a pastor would you enjoy mentoring a student?