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Innovation propels seminaries through transitional waters

> Written by Gregg Brekke
> February - March 2009

Academics and practice integrate for relevant ministry

A collective shockwave rippled across the field of theological 
education when Seabury-Western Theological Seminary announced in 
February 2008 that it could no longer continue operations. While not 
closing at that time, the 150-year-old institution located in 
Evanston, Ill. - one of 11 Episcopal seminaries in the United States 
- needed to take drastic measures to ensure its current students 
would graduate.

Reducing courses and degree programs, firing staff and professors, 
eliminating facilities use and shunting students to other 
Chicago-area seminaries for courses has given Seabury some breathing 
room. Still, it has made no commitment to continuing the traditional 
three-year Masters of Divinity (M.Div.) program required for 
ordination within the Episcopal Church beyond the graduating class of 2010.

Not alone in their predicament, reports of troubled seminaries are 
regularly in the news. On Jan. 13, trustees of Disciples-related 
Lexington (Ky.)Theological Seminary declared the school to be in a 
state of financial emergency. The status allows trustees to end 
faculty tenure, reduce budgets and decrease course offerings in order 
to rapidly "reinvent itself by developing a curriculum that stresses 
effective parish ministry as [our] primary focus."

Even the third largest seminary in the nation, Southern Baptist 
Seminary of Louisville, Ky., has not been immune from financial 
difficulties. In December 2008, due to decreased value of invested 
endowments and lower than anticipated giving, Southern Baptist began 
layoffs, cut spending and put capital campaigns and hiring on hold in 
response to a projected $3.2 million annual shortfall.

The refrain among seminary administrators is all too common: 
Decreasing enrollment, overextended endowment funds and an 
increasingly diversified student body have forced institutions to 
rethink long-held assumptions regarding the model for graduate 
theological education established in the late nineteenth century.

That model, a three-year, full-time residential program, no longer 
accommodates the needs of a majority of today's seminary students. 
The Association of Theological Schools (ATS), the accrediting body 
for seminaries, cites a number of trends that are forcing seminaries 
to rethink their approach to ministry preparation. While the number 
of students enrolled in seminaries has increased in the past 10 
years, the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) students has 
decreased. This trend is explained, in part, by an increase in 
part-time and non-degree students. These students are more apt to 
seek a geographically close institution, continue family commitments 
and employment, and be less likely to make use of campus housing. As 
a result, more flexibility in scheduling - including evening and 
weekend courses - is required to accommodate these students' needs.

> What the 'customer' wants

In their book "Contextualizing Theological Education" (Pilgrim Press, 
2008), editors Theodore Brelsford and P. Alice Rogers identify the 
three constituents of seminaries as the academy, students and the 
church. That is to say, the role of theological education must 
satisfy a scholastic goal; enrich students professionally and 
spiritually; and provide the necessary benefits to congregations and 
ministries, the eventual employers of their graduates.

Brelsford's introduction says, "One reason for the increasing 
importance of contextual integration is a growing perception in the 
culture at large of both the academy and the church as marginal or 
irrelevant to the practical concerns of life in the 'real world.' "

In suggesting a possible remedy to this perceived irrelevance, 
Brelsford continues, "If we intend seminary education to matter and 
make a difference in society, church and the world, then what we do 
in seminary must be integrally related with significant social and 
global realities."

That is no small task, according to the Rev. Dave Schwab, former UCC 
Ohio Conference Minister and Eden Seminary board member. Purposefully 
using business terms, Schwab says his role on the board is to 
represent the customer (congregations) of the seminary's product 
(M.Div. graduates.) What customers/congregations want are "pastors 
and leaders who can meet the spiritual and organizational needs of 
the church," he says.

"The local church is an integral partner," says the Rev. William 
McKinney, president of the UCC-related Pacific School of Religion, of 
congregations' role in pastoral formation. "We're doing a better job 
of listening to them than we did a generation ago."

And this statement represents the clear acknowledgement throughout 
theological institutions - academic rigor, while an important 
foundation, is not the sole indicator or training criteria for 
effective ministry.

Reflecting on the importance of local church involvement in pastoral 
preparation, the Rev. John H. Thomas, UCC general minister and 
president, recalled his transition from seminary graduate to pastor, 
saying, "I received a wonderful education at Yale Divinity School, 
but my formation as a minister was continued by my first congregation 
that understood it had a responsibility to help shape leaders for the church."

That isn't to say seminaries have historically avoided integrating 
internships and contextual education into their curriculum. Field 
work has long been a vital part of seminary programs. But critical 
reflection on the experience of the context, and incorporating it 
into the academic sequence, is a relatively new model in theological education.

One such revised curriculum has been in place at the UCC-related 
United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities for four years. Kita 
McVay, president of the seminary, says, "The intent of the 
[curriculum update] is to educate students and send forth graduates 
who are able to adapt to the changing church."

With an emphasis on integrating academics, spiritual formation, 
practical arts of ministry and ethics, United feels they are 
"providing the essential skills and strengths" required for ministry 
in a variety of contexts.

> UCC-related seminaries find options

UCC-related seminaries are no strangers to the economic realities 
faced by other institutions.

Bangor Theological Seminary in Maine sold its campus in 2005 and 
relocated students to a rented space at nearby Husson College. At the 
time of the move, Bangor had only 20 full-time students. The Rev. 
William Imes, seminary president in 2005, said of the transition, 
"[We] can't run a campus that was built primarily for residents for 
what basically is a commuter population."

A similar transition is scheduled for Chicago Theological Seminary. 
Anticipating the need to reduce costs and find appropriate space for 
their student body, the school will move from its historic Hyde Park 
home to new facilities nearby on the University of Chicago campus in 2012.

The new facility is being made possible through a multifaceted 
agreement with the University of Chicago. Under the agreement, the 
university will purchase the existing CTS buildings and construct and 
furnish new facilities to the seminary's specifications. CTS will 
hold a 100-year lease on the new building at a rental rate of $1 annually.

Eden Theological Seminary, facing a financial crisis in 2007, 
received a grant from the UCC-related Deaconess Foundation in St. 
Louis that could total more than $18 million. The money, intended to 
strengthen the school's long-term financial viability, included $4.5 
million to be disbursed through 2010. It provides additional 
operating revenue and assists Eden in the repayment of outstanding 
debt during this term.

Contingent upon Eden's ability to make financial strides during the 
initial three-year period, the foundation will provide up to $13.6 
million in additional support, which will be used, in part, to retire 
all outstanding debt.

The Rev. David M. Greenhaw, Eden's president, said of the gift, 
"Deaconess' support will enable us to concentrate on what matters 
most - providing our students with an exceptional seminary education 
so that they become the finest pastors and community leaders they're 
capable of being."

> The way forward

Lancaster Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania has joined with other 
UCC seminaries in rethinking its curriculum.

It has taken strides to increase contextual education within ministry 
formation curriculum. Lancaster now deploys teams of four students to 
one congregation. The Rev. Reiss Potterveld, Lancaster's president, 
says the team approach helps students learn to work cooperatively by 
developing community improvement and congregational vitality projects.

Further work in exploring possibilities for UCC and other mainline 
seminaries is underway. Greenhaw is currently writing a book on the 
mainline Protestant church in America. He notes that a challenge for 
these institutions exists in the fact that mainline membership and 
churches have declined by approximately 40 percent since 1964.

"The programmatic response [to the decline] is profoundly different 
for these schools," he says. Because of the reduced number of 
students and congregations for them to serve, Greenhaw believes 
mainline seminaries need to find purpose in their historic identity.

Elements of that identity, he says, are fostering the position that 
faith and critical thinking are bound together; faith that is most 
effectively represented through responsibility in the social world; 
and a true love for "the other" - as someone not to be feared, but to 
be seen as a compliment to the spiritual life of the church.

While challenges remain, hopefulness exists in the UCC-related 
seminaries - no matter their size. "We live in an era of emergence, 
where 'congregating' is undergoing a lot of changes," says McKinney 
of PSR. "We need to broaden our understanding of what it means to 
prepare people for congregational ministry."

McKinney is optimistic that by focusing PSR's curriculum on how 
people congregate, and assuming all churches are in some way "new 
churches," they can better prepare students for the needs of future ministry.

Potterveld of Lancaster sees his institution continuing to serve the 
80 percent of students who come expecting to be ordained into 
congregational ministry. Yet, he is cognizant of the many students 
who come seeking to serve in chaplaincy or specialized ministries. To 
meet this need, Lancaster has designed programs, including lay 
formation, capable of serving 2,500 students each semester - a much 
broader audience than its traditional M.Div. program.

"Seminaries are first and foremost the trainers of pastors and 
transmitters of our traditions," says Greenhaw. "But degreed 
education is only a means to an end, not the end itself."

Alluding to the future role for seminaries within the UCC, Greenhaw 
concludes, "Theological education can't only be about clergy 
preparation, it should imbibe a depth of understanding in the 
Christian faith in relation to the world in a variety of situations 
that are appropriate for all the baptized."