Multiplying Laborers for the Urban Harvest

W h y D e v e l o p E x t e n s i o n C e n t e r s f o r T h e o l o g i c a l E d u c a t i o n ?

Adult learners learn best when they can make a direct application of their knowledge.

When they are able to put something to use immediately, that learning experience stays with them. . . Christian service [is] a vital component in the [theological education by extension] learning process. Each subsequent class gives opportunity for feedback and discussion on the experiences in Christian service that week. Every new insight gained can be applied immediately. What the adult student did and how it worked out become important discussion matters (Snook, 1992, 16-17). Investing in those already involved in Christian leadership while they remain in their ministry situation not only makes formal theological education possible for many, it also makes it better. An Essential Response The rapid expansion of the urban poor around the world today presents the church with a great challenge and a remarkable opportunity. As missionary outreach among the poor continues to bear fruit, innovative approaches to leadership development are of vital significance. In developing nations, non- traditional extension seminaries are an accepted part of leadership training models and can be accessible to the poor, though they often need to be refocused to serve a predominantly urban rather than rural clientele. In the affluent Western countries, however, much less attention has been given to the poor as a pool of potential leaders for the Church. (Their marginalized status in society has often translated into a marginalized status within an affluent and well-resourced Western church.) Even where concern for the urban poor as leaders has emerged, the questions have often centered around access to existing models of traditional seminary education. Only infrequently has the usefulness of the traditional seminary model for the urban poor of North America been examined critically and churches have been slow to develop the kind of in- context, extension models which have proved so useful in other settings.

Emerging Christian leaders from among the urban poor in North America provide a set of challenges which theological educators must respond to:

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