Shepherds College

Why another Bible college? The negative side of my answer is two-fold, concerning the entire current model: 1) it isn't biblical, 2) it doesn't work. The positive side of my answer is that we are in the midst of a great move of the Holy Spirit and our institutions must have institutional expectations proportionate to something so great.

The contemporary Bible College/Seminary is unbiblical and inept for the same reason that the dominant model of the parachurch is unbiblical and inept (note that I am not saying that either needs to be unbiblical per se). It follows the assumption of Neo-Evangelicalism that our fundamental organizational task is to build a cultural consensus. This practical theology has the inevitable effect of gutting the worldview out of the cultural engagement in question. Since such endeavors must court funds and other support, a lowest common denominator approach to potential donors is standard fair. It also follows the assumptions of a confessional Christianity that is simply ill-equipped to compete in the new global-tribal world. It believes that denominations are supremely qualified to safeguard the integrity of the faculty. Their resume in the modern West is atrocious. The reason is fairly intuitive. Two-thousand miles (away from home), fifty-thousand dollars (minimum tuition), a traditionally dead urban spiritual environment, and a leadership removed from the local church itself was bound to distance itself from the original purposes of the confession. Such a system also communicates that God only uses the wealthy and the accumulated debt for a job that only pays if you sell out is good stewardship. That is flat-out wicked. It ignores the fact that most second or third generation church kids in the midst of affluence have a comatose faith (at best) during the years where they would apply, and most seminaries require recommendations of doctrinal and character kinds upon application. If the seminary cannot assess, in four years, whether someone has a base-level life and doctrine, then why on earth are they in charge of who watches over people's souls anyway! Have I mentioned the definition of insanity?

The Shepherds College at The Well begins next Wednesday morning with a 14-week course entitled "Titus and Pastoral Ministry" in which we study that Pastoral Letter expositionally, supplemented by two texts: Richard Baxter's The Reformed Pastor and John Piper's Brothers, We Are Not Professionals. In preparation for my own soul's position toward this endeavor I have combined my prayers and rough sketches with some very good messages on similar subjects. Piper's message entitled "The Earth is the Lord's" from Psalm 24:1 was especially helpful in how he charted out the purpose for the Bethlehem Institute. We are not unaware of the trappings and temptations of such a project. I am persuaded that one of the chief tasks of a church planter with my particular skill set is to train up as many young men to be shepherds as I can get my hands on. That is justification enough. We are going at it cautiously, one class at a time. Here is one more way to say the same thing:

When R. Kent Hughes was offered a chair of the Practical Theology department at a large seminary, he phoned the head of that institution and asked, "What do you think: Do you think I can influence men toward preaching the gospel by staying in my pulpit or do you think I can do it more by going to a seminary." And the head responded: "You ought to stay where you are...You will not influence men to teach the word of God unless the rest of the faculty members are believers and convinced that it is the highest of intellectual endeavors."1

That is precisely why a man called to reconstruct and shape on the level of the total worldview, who is also called to preach, must see the local church and seminary in an urban area as essentially complementary. The one way to have the faculty that is needed is to make it (and shake it, if necessary). The concept of the seminary (Latin - seminarium) is identical to the depositing, guarding, and passing on of the seed of the teaching. It is identical to Paul's commission of Timothy in the first chapter of his second letter. The local church is much more than a seminary, but it is not less.

1 R. Kent Hughes, "The Study and the Sermon," 1996 Desiring God Pastors Conference