We are committed to developing theological education that will effectively train missional leaders in the greater Phoenix area for the realities they face in equipping God’s people to be a faithful witnessing presence in life, word, and deed in our contemporary world. We enjoy a full partnership with Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids as an extension site to offer an accredited M.A. degree in Missional Theology. Our petitions for a full extension site and for an M.A. (Missional Theology) have been approved by the Association of Theological Schools (ATS).

In working out a creative model of theological education we are following the lead of many leaders in mission both from the West and the Southern hemisphere. During the 1960s - 1980s a rich discussion on theological education developed as the church in the South exploded and needed theological training for leaders. These leaders asked new questions about theological education in a number of areas including curriculum, pedagogy, structures, and evaluation.  We have found the writings of especially Harvie Conn, Lesslie Newbigin, and David Bosch to be a rich resource as we ask how to train missional leaders in a new time.

Theological Education in a Missional Key

Today we can read a wide variety of critiques of theological education. Ironically, mission scholars and leaders made many of these critiques four decades ago. At that time the church in the Southern hemisphere was exploding and needed leaders. A great deal of attention was devoted to theological education to equip those leaders. Their cross-cultural experience enabled them to see the deep shaping impact of the Enlightenment on theological education, and to see new ways forward. Among those writing on theological education at this time were Lesslie Newbigin, David Bosch, and Harvie Conn. We believe there is untapped wisdom in their critiques and proposals. Our goal is to explore this missionary tradition for our theological education today.

In the paragraphs that follow we lay out these challenges for theological education today and how we are trying to respond.

Challenges for Traditional Theological Education

• Theological education is often not connected to the local congregation

• Theological education often fails to train pastors with the ability to equip their congregation for their various and scattered callings

• Theological education is unable to oversee the development of character and devotional practices essential for pastoral leadership

• Theological education traditionally employs a rationalistic pedagogy that reduces education to the transmission of information

• Theological education often fails to develop the competency and skills needed for pastoral ministry with needed theological reflection

• Theological education utilizes a curriculum that is not connected to the missional nature of the church

• Theological education is shaped in a variety of ways by the Enlightenment theory-practice dichotomy

Characteristics of Our Theological Education

• Missional curriculum: A curriculum reshaped and reframed by the centrality of mission to the nature of the church. This is not an attempt to start all over again and reject the historical traditions of the various disciplines. Rather we engage the same material and reframe it with a missional lens.

• Connected to the local church: This allows church leadership to be involved in the theological educational process in mentoring, developing competency and skills, nurturing character, and overseeing the development of devotional practices. We do not reject institutions of theological training (seminaries) but want to work with them within the context of the local congregation.

• Pedagogically innovative: We want to combine seminars with top-notch scholars along with communal discussion in cohorts, foster individual research and study skills, employ technology and long-distance learning, and encourage mentoring both by pastors and scholars.

• Academically rigorous: This is not designed to be more practical, less theoretical, or less academically rigorous. We reject that theory-practice distinction. We reject the notion that academic excellence is defined by the Western university model of education.

• Assignments: All assignments are connected to actual ministry in the local congregation.

Theological Logic of a Missional Curriculum

• Central to the biblical story is God’s mission to restore the whole creation and all of human life.

• God’s chooses a people to be his covenant partner as a sign and channel of his renewing work and this constitutes the church as missional by its very nature.

• God’s mission in and through his people is a central theme in the biblical story and this requires a missional hermeneutic to interpret Scripture.

Curricular Distinctives

• Comprehensive vision of mission: The vision of mission that informs this curriculum is a comprehensive one. That is, mission is embodying the gospel of the kingdom in the whole of life, and that includes the public square.

• Four strands of a directing core: The driving core of the education is bound up by the dynamic of gospel, story, mission, and a missionary encounter with culture that gives direction and shape to the curriculum. That is, the starting point and directing vision is of a gospel of the kingdom that opens up into a story of cosmic history that encounters the religious vision of an equally all-embracing cultural story to shape an equally comprehensive mission of the church.

• Mission-shaped curriculum content: Mission shapes all subjects. That is, we are not just adding more courses on mission or evangelism or gospel and culture, etc. Rather we are exploring how a missional ecclesiology will radically reshape the whole theological curriculum—biblical studies, systematic theology, church history, and practical theology—to equip the church for its mission

• Cultural studies aspect: We have added a ‘cultural studies’ area. We believe it is important to study areas that are beyond theology to train pastors with a deeper understanding of culture.

• Rejection of a theory-praxis distinction: At the heart of much theological education is a distinction between theoretical subjects (Biblical studies, church history, theology) and practical subjects (practical theology). Often this means rigorous theoretical studies with little relevance to the church and pragmatic how-to courses that lack theological rigor but which supposedly applies the material learned from biblical, theological, and historical studies. Our biblical studies, church history, and theology courses are worked out in relevance to the church. Our congregational studies involved theological reflection on the praxis of missional leadership.