New Wineskins to Develop Ministry

by Geoff Waugh

Dr Geoff Waugh co-ordinated Distance Education and the Bachelor of Ministry course at the Brisbane Christian Outreach Centre School of Ministries, a school of Christian Heritage College.

Renewal Journal 15: Wineskins – PDF

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An article in Renewal Journal 15: Wineskins

See also: God’s Promise – I will pour out my Spirit
See also: Jesus’ Last Promise – You will receive power
See also: God’s Surprises, by Geoff Waugh
See also: Revival Fires, by Geoff Waugh

Scene 1:  A large pentecostal or charismatic church in any Australian city in 2000

They allocate trained full time and part-time staff with modern resources to run their two year government-accredited pentecostal or charismatic Bible College diploma, bachelor and post-graduate courses.  Austudy and Abstudy cover fees for their full-time student workers.  They train their own leadership on the job and for the future through Spirit-filled study and ministry, especially learning to move in their personal and corporate giftings and anointing.  Many people in the church study subjects there part-time for their own enjoyment and development.

Scene 2: A small pentecostal or charismatic church in any Australian town in 2000

They run small study groups led by volunteeers such as teachers or home group leaders for their people enrolled in accredited distance education courses in ministry.  They have people enrolled in diploma, bachelor and post-graduate courses in pentecostal or charismatic studies.  Austudy and Abstudy cover fees for their full-time student workers.  They train their own leadership on the job and for the future through Spirit-filled study and ministry, especially learning to move in their personal and corporate giftings and anointing.  Many people in the church study subjects part-time for their own enjoyment and development.

In other words, you can now study pentecostal or charismatic courses at diploma, bachelor and post-graduate levels at home, or in a study group in your church, or in your home group.  Individual subjects are available to you right now.

This is new for many Pentecostal and charismatic Christians.  In the past, they were often suspicious of study because it seemed to put out the fire through liberal teachings full of doubt and unbelief.  Now churches and Christians are rediscovering that Spirit-filled study can fan the flame and set people on fire!

Our ministry is the ministry of Jesus Christ in his church and in the world.  He was certainly filled with the fire of the Spirit and has set people on fire for 2000 years.  This is the vital starting point and the most radical.  Jesus ministered in the power of the Spirit of the Lord.  So must we.

Consequently, our ministry is charismatic by definition, nature and function.  The Holy Spirit is given to the church so that we can minister in the power of the Spirit.  The gifts of the Spirit, the charismata, enable that ministry.  Urban Holmes (1971:248) notes:

The heart of the Christian ministry is its charismatic liminal quality.  Without question there is a place for professional capacities in ministry but it is the charismatic character of the church that lends strength to professions such as counselling, teaching, and community organization that they cannot possess otherwise.

Hendrick Kraemer (1958:180) emphasized the issue:

The point we can’t evade is that, true as it may be that for many important historical reasons the Church has become from a charismatic fellowship an institutional Church, she must acknowledge that, as to her nature, she is always charismatic, for she is the working field of the Holy Spirit.  Her being an institution is a human necessity, but not the nature of the Church.

Ministry education gets caught in that institutional bind, even while seeking to respond to the Spirit.  One powerful means of freeing us from that institutional bind is to open education for ministry to everyone.

The challenge facing theological [and ministry] education today is

* to take an open attitude to structures and methods and to design programs that will be open to the whole people of God,

* to take an open attitude toward curriculum design so as to build on the students’ interests and needs and motivation,

* to take an open attitude toward the role of the student and the role of the teacher so that both can become fully involved in determining and developing the learning experiences,

* to take an open attitude toward evaluation and to discover more relevant, more human, more Christian ways to validate our program (Kinsler 1981: 86).

Not only do modern delivery systems provide us with resources to transform our educational task, but the organisational shift from bureaucratic structures towards networking offers new possibilities for effective open education for ministry.

In other words, you can train for any pentecostal or charismatic ministry anywhere now.

1.  Third Wave Megatrends

The emerging social and cultural context in which we now live has been called the Third Wave (by Alvin Toffler) and its major characteristics described as Megatrends (by John Naisbitt).  These are not to be confused with Peter Wagner’s “third wave” of renewal (first the pentecostal wave, second the charismatic wave, and the third wave in all churches).  Those waves of pentecostal renewal in the twentieth century penetrated all the current social/cultural waves of tribal life (as in Africa now), town life (as in country towns now), and technological life (as in huge cities now).

The Industrial Revolution saw a shift from a tribal, agricultural society to the emergence of the town with its mine or factory, printed media and supporting bureaucracies including schools and suburban churches.  Professional ministry gradually shifted from the village priest for all the people to denominational ministers educated in theological schools of the classroom model.

We now experience a radical social restructuring ushered in by the accelerating changes of a technological revolution.  No terms fully describe it.  Alvin Toffler writes of three waves: agricultural, industrial and what he used to call super‑industrial (1970) but changed to “third wave” (1980), arguing that most terms narrow rather than expand our understanding because they focus on a single aspect rather than describe the whole.  “Post-modern” has become the current term used to label these profound changes.

Other phrases describing this emerging era include:

Harvey Cox’s technopolitan society (following tribal and town);

Marshall McLuhan’s electric era and global village;

Daniel Bell’s post‑industrial society; and

John Naisbitt’s information society.

John Naisbitt (1982, 1990) examines megatrends shaping this new era, many of which apply directly to education for ministry.  He describes American cultural changes but these trends also apply to all societies experiencing the global technological revolution.  I comment briefly on five of his first list of megatrends (1982:1) and two from his megatrends 2000 list (1990:276, 248) which seem particularly relevant to education for ministry.

In other words, you can now be involved in a huge range of world-class opportunities for study and ministry right where you are, in your home group, cell group, study group, or mission group or in your own home alone.

1.1. From an Industrial Society to an Information Society:

Although we continue to think we live in an industrial society, we have in fact changed to an economy based on the creation and distribution of information.

Education for ministry now benefits from educational processes and resources common to society including the proliferation of media which liberate education from confinement in classrooms and make it available in ‘schools without walls’.   Britain’s Open University is an example.  External Christian degree studies is another.

Teachers and students can engage in mutually enriching interaction and research at the interface of context and content, facilitated by educational and communications technology.  For example, the computer is replacing the typewriter, the photocopier has overtaken the duplicator, the video is taking over from the audio cassette, the resource centre is assimilating the library and going electronic, the modem connects us with the Internet, and mail is increasingly by fax or e-mail.

An internet copy of this paper is now more useful than a printed copy!  It reaches more people, anywhere in the world.  Anyone can download it and use it.  Quotes can be immediately woven into other tasks, including more articles!  The material can be used and re-used in multi-media, including adapted to OHT for study groups or adapted and printed in Study Guides and Readings.

In other words, you can download this article from the Renewal Journal web page, reproduce it for your home group, study group, church paper, or tertiary study.  You can adapt it, and turn a summary of it into a hand-out or an OHT sheet.  I’ve done all that with this article and many other articles  – often.

1.2. From Centralisation to Decentralisation:

We have rediscovered the ability to act innovatively and achieve results ‑ from the bottom up.

We are familiar with this trend and encourage it in many of our church structures.  It also applies to education for ministry.  We choose resources and studies from a widening range of possibilities.

At the personal level, increasing numbers of people study for theological or ministry degrees, often by open education or distance education.  At the church level, innovative congregations or creative people in churches find ways to enrich the ministry education of their people, and this may include external studies in education for ministry which was once available only to full time college students.  At the college level, many colleges now offer external studies or distance education with decentralised programs related specifically to local contexts and guided by local tutors.

In other words, you are no longer dependent on other people to chart your course or even your beliefs.  You do that, led by the Spirit in fellowship with God’s people.

1.3. From Institutional to Self‑Help:

We are shifting from institutional help to more self‑reliance in all aspects of our lives.

Institutional Christianity is big business, but many traditional churches decline while home groups multiply and house churches proliferate.  Independent churches attract increasing numbers, and some denominational congregations experiencing rapid growth sit rather loosely or uncomfortably within traditional structures, often challenging those structures prophetically.  Large numbers of educated and committed Christians join or form study groups, renewal groups, charismatic congregations or covenant communities.

Continuing theological education is another example of self‑help programs.  Institutional help or direction is often by‑passed in favour of a wide range of personal interests including study for various degrees now increasingly accessible from colleges around the world.  This self-help option is increasingly taken where external study is available.

In other words, you can chart your own course in study and ministry according to your personal calling, gifting and anointing.  That course can fan the flame in you and set you on fire for powerful ministry if you choose your study well.

1.4. From Either/Or to Multiple Options:

From a narrow either/or society with a limited range of personal choices we are exploding into a free‑wheeling multiple‑option society.

Demarcation lines along denominational or doctrinal differences once characterised churches, theological colleges, and even Bible colleges.  These increasingly blur and merge within the unity of the Spirit and in the ecumenical landscape.

Renewed Baptists, for example, may identify more deeply with Catholic Charismatic spirituality than with their own historical distinctives.  ‘Rebaptism’ is a burning pastoral issue as increasing numbers choose to move freely among differing groups.  Multiplying home groups discover authentic unity and raise eucharistic problems.  Traditional understandings of ordination and ministry are increasingly challenged, as with this statement nearly half a century ago:

“The question we are now considering is that of the possible ordination of the ordinary farmer or merchant or lawyer, who is prepared to give freely to the Church the time that he can spare from the ordinary occupation in which most of his time must be spent.

The proposal seems to us strange only because, from the point of view of the Early Church, we have got things thoroughly turned upside down. … It is hardly too much to say that in those days almost anyone could celebrate the Holy Communion, and hardly anyone except the bishop could preach; whereas now almost anyone can preach (or, rather is allowed to preach!) and hardly anyone can celebrate Holy Communion.  Lack of balance in either direction is to be deplored” (Neill 1957:65).

Local churches as well as Bible colleges need to take our multiple option context seriously and offer a wide range of options adapted to people’s calling, giftings, anointings, ministries and learning styles.  An example of this is the learning contract or agreement and the importance of practicum or field education learning and ministry experiences.

In other words, you will probably be ordained to your ministry in your lifetime, if you want to be, whether you are male or female, employee or boss, working in the church or in the world.  Many churches in Australia are already doing this.

1.5. From Hierarchies to Networking:

We are giving up our dependence on hierarchical structures in favour of informal networks.

Naisbitt (1982:197) identifies three fundamental reasons making networks a crucial social form now:

(1) the death of traditional structures,

(2) the din of information overload, and

(3) the past failures of hierarchies.

He adds,

The vertical to horizontal power shift that networks bring about will be enormously liberating for individuals.  Hierarchies promote moving up and getting ahead, producing stress, tension, and anxiety.  Networking empowers the individual, and people in networks tend to nurture one another.

In the network environment, rewards come by empowering others, not by climbing over them (1982:197, 204).

That is crucial.  It fits with Christian commitment to love and serve one another.  And it helps to overcome the flaws of bureaucratic Christianity, such as the Peter Principle: ‘In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence’ (Peter 1969:22).  Where that happens in churches, people now tend to choose a better option, often going elsewhere.

Toffler describes the shift toward networking this way:

We are, in fact, witnessing the arrival of a new organizational system that will increasingly challenge and ultimately supplant bureaucracy.  This is the organisation of the future. …  Shortcuts that by‑pass the hierarchy are increasingly employed.  … The cumulative result of such small changes is a massive shift from vertical to lateral communication systems  (1970:120, 133).

The impact of networking is reflected in our growing use of short term task groups (instead of long term committees) and the supportive, nurturing home group or cell group structures (instead of formal mid-week prayer meetings in pews).

Contextual education for ministry will help to prepare ministry which can function well in a networking environment.  Not only do ministers and leaders need to know how to facilitate task groups, study groups and home fellowships (rather than be threatened by them), but the shape of ministry can be transformed in this context as task group specialists and cell group leaders minister and enable ministry, disciple others and are discipled in mutuality.

Further, Bible Colleges can provide essential resources for use in the learning and ministering networking groups as well as for individuals.

In other words, you will get your rewards and fulfil your ministry “by empowering others, not by climbing over them.” 

1.6. The triumph of the individual

The great unifying theme at the conclusion of the 20th century is the triumph of the individual.

Networking frees people from bureaucratic restrictions.  New relationships emerge in voluntary associations including the church and its activities.   Technology empowers the emerging freedom of the individual.  The motorcar, then the aircraft, dramatically increased individual mobility.  Millions now communicate freely within the electronic village.

The freedom of the individual under God within committed community is an increasing reality of church life and education for ministry.  Individual giftings and callings are openly pursued, encouraged and channelled into effective ministry within the body of Christ.

Gifted ministries emerge in ordinary people, fuelled and trained by the best teachers and leaders in the world through video, casettes, TV programs, internet articles which now include video and audio preaching and teaching.

In other words, you can use any or all of these resources as you serve God in the power of His Spirit, doing what He leads you to do, such as in personal networks, home groups or house churches.

1.7. Religious revival

At the dawn of the third millennium there are unmistakable signs of a worldwide multidenominational religious revival.

Naisbitt notes widespread religious revival including charismatic renewal, such as one-fifth, or 10 million, of America’s 53.5 million Catholics in 1990 were charismatic.  Now one third of practising Christians worldwide are pentecostal/charismatic.  Traditional, doctrinal, cognitive Christianity is increasingly challenged by transforming experience of God.

This has immediate application to education for ministry.  An urgent task for us all is to make our ministry education in renewal as widely available as possible to meet this rapidly expanding revival.

Open education for ministry can flow anywhere through networking Christian ministries to inform and inspire, to liberate and equip leadership and multiply ministry.

In other words, you will be increasingly relating to others in revival – from all kinds of denominations, or none, and with all kinds of theologies (where Jesus is Lord).  That’s one reason why good Spirit-filled study can help you see more clearly and serve more fervently.

2.  Open Education Possibilities

Adult education, continuing education and ministry education now offer wide scope for self-directed learning, which Malcolm Knowles calls andragogy (1980).

Malcolm Knowles developed the concept of andragogy to describe self-directed learning in contrast to pedagogy viewed as mainly teacher-directed learning.

In its broadest meaning, self-directed learning describes a process in which individuals take the initiative, with or without the help of others, in diagnosing their learning needs, formulating learning goals, identifying human and material resources for learning, choosing and implementing appropriate learning strategies, and evaluating learning outcomes … Self-directed learning usually takes place in association with various kinds of helpers, such as teachers, tutors, mentors, resource people, and peers.  There is a lot of mutuality among a group of self-directed learners (Knowles 1975:18).

Many people seek out these possibilities for self-directed education, especially in extension or distance education modes.  Illich’s de-schooling proposals (and similar expressions of schools without walls) describe networking systems which apply to education in general but also to open education for ministry.  Instead of fitting educational resources to the educator’s curricula goals, he proposes four different approaches which enable students to gain access to educational resources which may help to define and achieve their goals (Illich 1971:81).  These are:

2.1. Reference Services to Educational Objects ‑ which facilitate access to things or processes used for formal learning.

Educational objects can include resources found in most churches such as libraries, resource centres, book shops, study notes, CDs, audio and video cassettes, TV (e.g. open university), ands study groups using overhead projectors, whiteboards, and a range of resources.

In other words, you can now offer video nights or seminars for a huge range of training including counselling, worship, evangelism, home group leadership and youth and children’s ministries.  Leaders from around the world come into your home or group by video.

2.2. Skill Exchanges ‑ which permit persons to list their skills, the conditions under which they are willing to serve and the addresses at which they can be reached.

Skill exchanges can include activities such as tutoring or people who can teach or disciple others, musicians, ministry task groups, and educational or service specialists.  Most informal church programs use these skill exchanges – musicians train musicians; home group and study group leaders train other cell or study group leaders.  We call it discipling.

In other words, you can be in a group where someone disciples you (choose well!) and also in a group where you disciple others.  One great way to learn something is to also teach it to others.  Use your gifts and skills, don’t bury them!  Many people use their distance education study materials for study groups, teaching or preaching.

2.3. Peer‑Matching ‑ a communications network which permits persons to describe the learning activity in which they wish to engage, in the hope of finding a partner for the inquiry.

Peer matches can include persons interested in learning skills or forming study groups, including a wide range of ministry education activities.  Some church directories now list areas of interest, and people can easily establish common interest groups.

In other words, you can help people in your home group or church to identify their interests from a list (there are plenty around, or make up your own in the group), and then to match them.  It happens informally anyway – people who like surfing go surfing together; intercessors love to pray together.

2.4. Reference Services to Educators‑at‑Large ‑ who can be listed in a directory giving the addresses and self‑descriptions of professionals, para‑professionals, and freelancers, along with conditions of access to their services.

Educational leaders in churches can assist in exploratory activities and in helping students achieve specific goals.  Practicum and field education studies often link students with mentors and role models in ministry such as in music, youth or children’s work, counselling, evangelism and other significant ministries.

Open education for ministry can explore these networking facilities.  Networks, along with the other megatrends, both require and enable contextually appropriate models of education for ministry, and help to open the theologising process to the whole church in an intentional and integrative way.

In other words, you can mix life and ministry with continuing education such as in distance education, learning with others, or on your own, how to live for God and minister in the power of His Spirit.

3.  Implications and Directions

Open education for ministry can intentionally address these contextual issues of accelerating change and integrate traditional classroom procedures with open education processes.

Significant implications and directions include equipping the church for ministry, contextualising education for ministry, providing resources for the church, and renewing the church.

3.1. Equipping the Church for Ministry.

Open education for ministry not only equips pastors or leaders for ministry but opens that process to the whole church.

Ralph Winter, an extension pioneer through the Presbyterian Seminary in Guatemala, observed that their extension program cost less per student, allowed a smaller faculty to deal with a large number of students (by using seminar tutors), stressed independent study and reflection, attracted more candidates to the ministry, reached more mature students, enabled teaching on several levels more easily, and allowed students to work in the context of their ministry.

He emphasized that extension was not primarily a new method of teaching but that its greatest significance was as a new method of selection and equipping for ministry, since the underlining purpose for working by extension is in fact more important than any of the kaleidoscopic varieties of extension as a method ‑ it is the simple goal of enlisting and equipping for ministry precisely those who are best suited to it (Kinsler 1978:x).

Opening ministry education to the whole church helps to reach the real leaders and equip them.  Missionary Roland Allen severely criticised western styles of education for ministry for failing to do this.  His points include these (Mulholland 1976:16‑18):

(1) The apostles required maturity and experience with Spirit‑filled giftedness for leadership; we ordain young, inexperienced graduates.

(2) The apostles say nothing about full time employment in the church; we require it.

(3) The apostles selected the real leaders; we emphasise a subjective, internal call.