Building up the Church of Christ E-Book

Thorsten Prill

• Herausgeber: GRIN Verlag
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

Document from the year 2010 in the subject Theology - Miscellaneous, grade: keine, , language: English, abstract: Established in 1991, the mission of the Namibia Evangelical Theological Seminary (NETS) is to equip Christians with knowledge and skills to live godly lives and serve the Church and the wider community. The purpose of this book is to contribute to the accomplishment of this mission. It is the first volume of essays by NETS faculty members. Each essay is a sustained reflection on a particular aspect of God’s mission in southern Africa and beyond. Josh Hooker gives a reflection upon the role of theological education in the southern African context. For him the crucial question is: Are we truly equipping Christians for ministry? Basilius Kasera examines the impact of modern heresies, such as prosperity gospel and open theism, on the church in Namibia in the light of Genesis 3:1-5. Thorsten Prill tests the claim that evangelism has never been popular both as a concept and a ministry. For this he investigates four 20th century theologians (Barth, Bonhoeffer, Tillich and Moltmann) who have had a significant influence on theological thinking both in European and North American mainstream Protestant denominations and in mission initiated churches in southern Africa. In a second essay he explores the relationship between globalisation and mission.

Leseprobe

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Contents

Foreword

Theological education

Evangelism

Apologetics

Missional theology

Contributors

Foreword

Established in 1991, the mission of the Namibia Evangelical Theological Seminary (NETS) is to equip Christians with knowledge and skills to live godly lives and serve the Church and the wider community. The purpose of this book is to contribute to the accomplishment of this mission. It is the first volume of essays by NETS faculty members. Each essay is a sustained reflection on a particular aspect of God’s mission in southern Africa and beyond. Josh Hooker gives a reflection upon the role of theological education in the southern African context. For him the crucial question is: Are we truly equipping Christians for ministry? Basilius Kasera examines the impact of ‘modern heresies’, such as prosperity gospel and open theism, on the church in Namibia in the light of Genesis 3:1-5. Thorsten Prill tests the claim that evangelism has never been popular both as a concept and a ministry. For this he investigates four 20th century theologians (Barth, Bonhoeffer, Tillich and Moltmann) whohave had a significant influence on theological thinking both in European and North American mainstream Protestant denominations and in mission initiated churches in southern Africa. In a second essay he explores the relationship between globalisation and mission.

Dr Thorsten Prill

NETS, Windhoek

Theological education

Theological education in southern Africa: the challenge of turning rhetoric into reality

By Josh Hooker

Keywords:

evening classes, local church, ministry skills, practical ministry, pastors’ retreat, preaching, spiritual health, theological education, Word Alive conferences

John Stott maintains that the theological college or seminary is ‘the key institution in the church’ (Steer 2009:154). His reason is that ‘all the church’s future clergy pass through the seminaries, and it is there that they are either made or marred, either equipped for ministry or ruined through loss of faith and vision.’

 It is certainly not the intention of those of us who work in evangelical institutions to obscure the Christian vision and impair the faith in Christ of those we teach, quite the reverse, but the question we need to return to on a regular basis is: are we truly equipping Christians for ministry? I’m sure that intention is expressed in our prospectuses and on our notice boards, but have we turned the rhetoric into reality? I ask this because I believe that theological institutions can drift away from their roots and take on a life of their own that is somehow remote or even divorced from the churches they want to serve. Maybe the college has clear and appropriate academic goals, but if the overriding purpose of equipping our students for ministry is forgotten or sidelined then we forget our raison d’etre. The seminary exists to serve and strengthen the church of Jesus Christ. And if John Stott is right that the seminary is ‘the key institution in the church’ then theological education is indeed a privileged and important ministry to engage in.

 This is the challenge we are grappling with at Namibia Evangelical Theological Seminary (NETS). In the space of a few years we have seen a massive turnover of staff, which has brought many challenges, but has also brought fresh vision about how we can serve and strengthen the churches of Namibia. Here are some of the ways that we are seeking to turn our ‘we are here to serve the church’ rhetoric into reality.

Word Alive

Our new staff team quickly realised that NETS needed to have regular input at a grassroots level into the local church. Amongst our staff we had a wealth of biblical training and church experience that could benefit not only our residential students, but also local Christians, and one aching need we identified in the churches was the need to help others to preach and teach God’s Word faithfully. So Word Alive was born.

 Word Aliveis a Saturday workshop from 9am-4pm where we unpack the background to a book of the Bible and expose local Christians to text-based preaching, with the explicit purpose of equipping them to teach this material to others. So far we have tackled John, 1 Peter, Philippians and Habakkuk. As well as hearing ‘model’ sermons from that book and important basic background information (the who, why, when, what etc.) we also run a number of seminars (e.g. teaching Habakkuk in the Namibian context, or teaching Philippians to children and youth). Our aim has been not simply to attract local preachers, but actually anyone who is involved in a Bible teaching ministry (Sunday School teachers, youth groups leaders etc.) Each participant goes away with handouts that will help them in teaching this material to others, but our hope is also that they will leave with a new understanding and a new excitement about that biblical book.

 This workshop has also become a mandatory part of our residential students’ education. The challenge for them, having attended this workshop at NETS, is that they need to replicate it at another Word Alive event. Later in the Semester staff-student teams take this same material and run their own regional Word Alive workshops in various parts of Namibia, often using local languages rather than English. In preparation for this event the lecturers make their preaching notes and lecture notes available to the students so that they can prepare their own material based on these resources. The teams meet up every week to plan the practicalities of the weekend’s events (e.g. accommodation, venue, transport etc.) and pray together for its success. In this way Word Alive has become an important training platform for the students.

 We have also found Word Alive to be a good recruiting tool. Apart from the obvious spiritual benefit this material provides for local Christians, it is a great way to ‘showcase’ the sorts of things we teach at NETS. We now have students in our residential and distance programmes who have been attracted to NETS through Word Alive.

Pastors’ Retreat

Another new addition to our annual calendar has been the introduction of a 3 day Pastors’ Retreat. Most of our full time lecturers were pastors for many years before getting involved in theological education, which means they have a natural concern for the spiritual health of local Pastors and an understanding of the challenges that Pastors face in their ministry. The Pastors’ Retreat is an opportunity to minister to the ministers. Its key features are helpful Bible teaching, workshops on spiritual health, and lectures aimed to equip church leaders to teach the Bible better and grapple with important theological issues. We are aware that a number of pastors who come have had little, if any, theological training. We want to encourage, equip, challenge, and stimulate. We want to give busy pastors the opportunity to rest, pray, fellowship with other pastors, talk to NETS staff, use the library, and enjoy good food. We also hope in time this will become a place where we can make contact with former students who are now in Christian ministry.

NETS@night