The Future Shape of Theological Education

Via Catalyst Resources:

…we can confidently predict that few seminaries, as we know them now, will exist in fifty years.

The Future Shape of Theological Education | Catalyst Resources Catalyst Resources

Points:

  • “Today the most compelling and significant information is communicated visually — neither through speech or in writing, but in still and moving images…Visualcy poses challenges for a Christian tradition that both shaped and was shaped by the second great transition to literacy.”
  • “Vitality in North American Christianity is concentrated in ethnic minority and immigrant communities. Globally, the same could be said for many new Christian movements, only two or three generations old, in Asia, Latin America, and Africa…The ability of these churches to hold on to their next generation is no less in question than it is for dominant-culture churches.”
  • “Few graduates from seminary are prepared for the real-world leadership challenges they face: managing conflict, allocating resources, participating in and convening teams (usually volunteers), communicating vision and direction, and developing others as leaders. These are central to the life of church leadership, but marginal to most seminary curriculums.”

Ponder: “The challenge is to connect the energy at the innovative edge with the depth of the traditional core — and to find ways to make the edge just as rigorous and deeply rooted as the core, while the core becomes just as entrepreneurial and vivid as the edge.”