Seminaries Build Capacity To Strengthen Congregational Ministry By Tracy Schier An Interview with Kathleen Cahalan Assistant Professor of Theology, Saint John's School of Theology & Seminary This grant program asked seminaries what they can do to strengthen congregational ministry, not what they can do to be a better seminary. These programs were not meant to be about the institutions themselves but about their mission to the wider church. Those words, from theologian Kathleen A. Cahalan, sum up the raison d etre of the Lilly Endowmentfunded program called Strengthening Congregational Ministry: A Program to Enhance Theological Schools Capacities to Prepare Congregational Leadership, 1999-2003. Cahalan, a professor at St. John s University School of Theology in Minnesota, analyzed the final results and impact of the program that funded 45 seminaries across the U.S. and Canada. It is one of numerous efforts by the Endowment over the last dozen or so years to find ways to strengthen pastoral ministry in congregations. The program began in 1998 when Lilly Endowment sent a request for proposals to 202 member schools in the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) in the United States and Canada, asking them to consider what they could do to build their capacity to more effectively prepare men and women for congregational ministry. Out of 108 proposals received, the Endowment selected 45 institutions to receive a total of $53.4 million in grants over five years in order to assist them to make strategic advances in the ways that the next generation of congregational ministers are prepared. According to Cahalan, some 60 percent of the grants went to mainline Protestant denominational seminaries, 20 percent to Roman Catholic institutions, and 16 percent to Evangelical schools. The remaining recipient schools represented mainline independent and peace church seminaries. Three of the recipient institutions are predominantly African- American and two are located in Canada. Interestingly, five grants were given to seminaries that are the only, or one of two, seminaries in their denomination. Page 1 of 7
Cahalan explains that the Endowment gave the theological schools a lot of room to come up with programs that would best represent the needs of their particular ecclesial and educational circumstances. She says that they were not asked to find ways to fix anything; rather their programs were to be designed to restore, rebuild, and reclaim their ability to call up vocations to congregational ministry. If anything was broken Cahalan says, it was the churches intentionality to foster vocations. Looking across the ecclesial landscape at colleges, camps, churches, religious organizations, judicatories, one could see that these institutions beyond the seminary lost that intentionality they were so separated from each other, their old relationships were lacking. In her summary report, Cahalan relates four distinct story lines that emerge from the seminaries participating in the grants program along with a number of common issues that are universally faced. Among the mainline seminaries there was shared recognition of the gap between the institution and congregations and between the institution and the denomination. She notes that the seminaries have had great difficulty recruiting students because the traditional feeder system is almost non-existent. In the past, youth organizations and camps, colleges and congregations invited and supported young people in their process of discernment about a ministerial vocation. She points out that many of these institutions still exist but that they work in relative isolation from one another. And, she says pointedly in her report, these institutions rarely claim church leadership development as among their respective or shared priorities. Cahalan explains that the Roman Catholic situation has some divergences from that of the Mainline Protestants. Many Catholic seminaries did share the concern for loss of a feeder system that steered young men toward seminary and ordained ministry. But the chief concern among Catholic institutions today, however, is the preparation of lay ministers. And even further, as she says in the report, how to understand theologically the phenomenon of the lay minister, and how to prepare congregations and church leaders to accept lay people as ministers. She explains, The Catholic Church is witnessing the rise of a new professional class in parish ministry the non-ordained, professionally trained person who requires education and formation for ministry, yet whose role and work is not entirely the same as the priest s. This is new territory for the Catholic seminary and Cahalan reports that the Catholic grantee institutions overwhelmingly put their energy and focus into designing ministry education and spiritual formation programs for lay students at the graduate level. The Evangelical seminaries stories elucidate two concerns. One has to do with the fact that many ministers either don t succeed or don t remain in ministry, a situation that has dire effects on congregational health and growth. The other concern revolves around congregational life in a time of constant change. Among the issues that most seminaries had in common were changes in the composition of student bodies in the past few decades, with 40 as the average age in some schools; a gap between what is learned in seminary and the realities of congregational life that new ministers face after graduation; support for graduates as they move into full-time Page 2 of 7
employment, and the challenges of paying for and training faculties to provide programs to off-campus students primarily through varieties of technology. She reports also that seminaries across the denominations admit that, because of financial reasons, they accept less-than-strong students for the Masters of Divinity (M.Div.) degree programs. Cahalan relates that at first blush it might seem that better recruitment on the part of seminaries could have been a main thrust in these seminaries overarching effort to strengthen congregational ministry and could solve most of their issues. However, she says, The big shift came when seminaries realized it wasn t only about recruiting but helping churches identify vocations. Over time congregations lost their role in bringing forth potential ministers. And the undergraduate feeder schools no longer serve the role they once did. One of the big learnings here was that the seminaries would not go back to old models but that they needed to work with partners that are strong today, one church and one judicatory at a time. Cahalan s report points out that it has taken a long time for seminaries and the church to become separate entities and a long time for the feeder systems to disintegrate. Reversing or changing these trends does not happen over night. The seminaries naturally recognized the need for intensified public relations in order to attract more students of high quality. Cahalan says that high quality means that students have two characteristics: excellent academic skills in order to be successful graduate students, and emerging leadership capacities that can be honed successfully for congregational ministry. Finances play an important part also: the schools welcomed Endowment support for financial aid as a recruitment strategy. Collaboration was also key to many of the seminaries efforts. Cahalan says, Seminary leaders see the broad landscape and they know that seminary education can be invisible to colleges and churches. It is a huge challenge to work on this because of the revolving door among partners and no stability among people who should be providing consistency in relationships and collaborative efforts. When collaboration with judicatories or with congregations is inconsistent, she notes, This adds to the fragility of our institutions. Most of the mainline denominational schools aggressively worked at collaborative arrangements with colleges and universities, denominational offices, and with congregations. Many recognized the importance of individual congregations to the revitalization of a feeder system. Some of the schools intensified their efforts to come to greater understandings of what congregations are all about. Cahalan says that they came to know that parishes are totally varied and they have come to appreciate the complexity of parish leadership and that what it takes to lead congregations these days is a combination of personal, spiritual and intellectual qualities. Faculties needed to learn how to recognize the criteria of a good parish and how to teach for that. Fortunately, the program has helped seminaries to become wiser about these things and to be more attentive to the unique challenges of congregations. In order that seminaries can better serve congregations, Cahalan says that the seminaries need to recognize that accountability is to the parish and not just to our educational fields Page 3 of 7
or to ourselves as schools. Seminaries have to produce more than good students who master certain fields of studies. My students have to care about the people they are going to serve; we as educators must form our students to lead Christians to love the gospel. The key, she says, is keeping people close to the reality they are being prepared for, to have a listening heart; to share the joys and realities of the local church. Among the broad array of seminary graduates characteristics that the individual programs sought to foster include an ability to read a congregation, an immersion in congregational life during their formation, and an excitement about congregations in a realistic way. Cahalan cites the desire on the part of congregations to have a minister who is spiritually alive and has a sense of intentionality about his or her spiritual life. Congregations want to encounter a minister who has healthy patterns of self care, are in spiritual direction and go on retreats, and who take time to pray and read. Out of their own sustainability such ministers are able to encourage and teach spiritual practices to the members of their congregations. Cahalan cites two ongoing tensions that make the connection between seminaries and congregations difficult. One is the fact that seminary faculties, in many or most instances, still see themselves as members of an academic guild that determines research interests and curriculum that are not grounded in the day-to-day needs of congregations. Second, where field education and practicums in pastoral theology do take place, they can be seen as peripheral to the real education of the classroom. So, says Cahalan in her report, Unfortunately for seminaries, the academic continues to be pitted against the practical. But, promisingly, she goes on to relate that while the Lilly program may not have buried that seminary culture, several exciting experiments point to promising developments in ministry education. She cites three ways that institutions move closer to congregations: through redesigned courses and curriculum, improved field education opportunities that involve faculty; and faculty actually teaching some courses in congregations. Among some promising examples of seminary efforts to contextualize the curriculum include the faculty effort at Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley to offer courses that explore cultural and social issues in congregations, specifically focusing on the ethnic and cultural realities of their location on the West Coast. Students at the Jesuit School even had an opportunity to live at their contextual education site, forming an intentional lay community located at a local parish. At Luther Seminary the capstone M.Div. course, Exercises in Biblical Theology, was changed to Exercises in Biblical Theology for Leading in Mission. That school also requires four semesters of contextual education and a oneyear internship, allowing students over the five-year grant period to interact with 120 congregations. At Boston University, the faculty designed a practical theology seminar, Church and Theology in the Contemporary World, which challenges students to conduct interdisciplinary research on social and ecclesial situations in a number of world contexts. Franciscan School of Theology and Seattle University responded to growing ethnic diversity on campus and in area congregations through added and revised courses. Page 4 of 7
Cahalan stresses that faculty involvement is the absolute key to successfully providing meaningful contextual education experiences for seminary students. Contextual education requires a change in faculty culture, identity and vocation. It challenges faculty to walk out the seminary doors and see the congregation as a classroom setting. The challenges for the schools in achieving this include helping faculty to develop new teaching styles, make new contractual arrangements, and perhaps even take some time away from scholarly research. The latter may be especially difficult for young faculty members who are conscious of the demands for tenure and promotion. Another important ingredient in successful contextual education programming is identifying appropriate congregations and pastors to partner with. Not all pastors can or will take the necessary time to work with students and become intellectually engaged with seminary faculty. Cahalan stresses that students must experience what a healthy congregation looks like before they can ever help struggling congregations once they graduate. That seminaries listen closely to what congregations have to say is crucial. And they must be intentional about understanding and critiquing what is going on in congregations. Put another way, Cahalan says Seminaries will serve congregations if they are seen as reliable and credible partners part of the solution, not part of the problem. In addition to partnering with congregations and providing contextual experiences for their students, the seminaries also saw spiritual formation programs as necessary for the development of effective pastoral ministers. Seminaries have been aware for many years that some of their graduates experience isolation, burnout, and frustration once they become congregational ministers. This leads to high turnover and to people leaving ministry altogether. Many of the seminaries in the program expended great effort in the development of spiritual formation programs. Cahalan notes that spiritual formation in Catholic seminaries was often already in place and thus their programs were adapted from emphasis on candidates for the priesthood to an emphasis on lay students needs. In some of the Protestant schools, programs in spiritual formation were developed for the first time. The rationale is multi pronged, some having to do with attempting to alleviate the burnout that occurs in ministerial work, others having to do with the need to raise up the level of ecclesial knowledge and religious identity of many students. In the past, ministerial candidates were typically born into their denomination and nurtured in congregations and para-church organizations before they entered seminary. Such is not the case in many instances today with students who are religious seekers but not necessarily formed in any one denominational tradition and others who are converts. Cahalan says that the contemporary cultural interest in spirituality and ecumenism can be a positive reinforcement for today s seminary students. As she notes in her report, Who would have guessed that twenty-first century Lutherans and Methodists would be walking in labyrinths, fasting from meals, or hosting centering prayer workshops? And she adds, Spirituality is finding its way into Evangelical schools curriculums and continuing education events as well. She describes the struggle that some Protestants have to overcome an Page 5 of 7
inherent dislike for the term spiritual as they discover the wisdom in spiritual practices and engage in theological exploration of spirituality in context with particular ecclesial traditions. She cites Southern Lutheran Seminary for developing a position paper on how spirituality can be understood in Lutheran theological terms. And she reports that faculty at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary rejected a singular approach to spirituality and chose to recognize diversity in the Reformed tradition along with other ecumenical resources. Interestingly, one result of the latter s work was development of a co-sponsored masters degree program with Bellarmine University, a Catholic institution, on ecumenical spirituality. In the case of seminaries sponsored by Catholic religious orders, Cahalan explains that the most exciting development has been the adoption of the order s traditional practices to the lay students spiritual life. Lay students at Franciscan School of Theology are invited to develop a rule of life, based on the traditional Franciscan rule that binds community. The students develop a rule that accommodates their life situation and their commitment is honored at a special liturgical celebration. Some 70 students, staff and faculty at the Franciscan School have participated over the last few years. What is also clear is that students in the seminaries are increasingly engaging in spiritual direction and many of the institutions help students find a director. Retreats, small Bible study groups, and journaling are now regularly encouraged in the seminaries, and Cahalan states, Successful programs have not adopted the one-style-fits-all policy, but offer experimentation and exploration in a non-judgmental and non-threatening atmosphere. On the other hand, she warns that the seminaries are aware that Dabbling in one spiritual practice this month, another next month, and something else next year is not the stuff of the spiritual tradition. What is necessary is that schools will need to find ways of tracking students beyond graduation to discover what actually sustains people in ministry. What, of all the many program offerings, seems to make a difference for ministry. Looking overall at the Lilly program, what is clear is that one of the most successful aspects was the strategy to use technology for delivery of theological education. Cahalan concedes that Clearly the bias of theological educators is for full-time residential students: teaching and learning, spiritual formation, and community life are all at an optimum if the school is a community that joins together face-to-face and where students live together for the duration of their course work. Many exigencies--modern life, second-career students, part-time students, financial situations, to name a few have dictated the need to find means of delivering theological education that go beyond the traditional. Enter technology. Cahalan reveals the surprise experienced by faculty and students alike over the effectiveness of on-line teaching and learning, especially in light of initial reservations about such delivery systems as being second-rate. The success of on-line course delivery comes about in two ways. Cahalan says that faculty members are more intentional about how they teach and students are more active agents in the learning process. She explains that developing an on-line course is more than merely adapting an old course it must be a new course and teachers need to develop the materials so that students become engaged in online discussion. Page 6 of 7
While initial faculty resistance was rife, once teachers became involved in learning computer skills and developing courses that fit the technology, many of them became converts. Most, if not all, faculty involved in distance education embraced the new format. In some cases, it is not a medium in which all faculty teaching will excel, and that seems fine for most schools. Faculty who are teaching on-line report that student learning is enhanced along with the expression of ideas and interaction with one another. One of the most important aspects of the technological revolution in the seminary classroom is that it has made theological education accessible to students who otherwise would not have that opportunity students who are employed or who are unable to relocate are just two of several examples. Cahalan says that she found two things to be true about the schools and technology. Schools desire to reach people who want theological education. Technology is a way the schools can fulfill their mission, especially the small seminaries. Second, she says that the schools had concerns, especially that the technology experience would not undermine the strides that they are making in spiritual formation and field education. They went to great lengths to make sure this didn t happen. I didn t see any one sell out theological education for this technology. What is interesting is that despite all the efforts and successes in the use of technology, Cahalan reports that it did not necessarily bring greater numbers of students to the seminaries. Technology is also recognized as a valuable tool for the lifelong education and formation of ministers. Cahalan says that judicatories and seminaries struggle with whose responsibility it is for the ongoing education of ministers. She notes that judicatories don t have an education infrastructure and thus the programs they offer are episodic. Seminaries recognize that such sporadic events are helpful, but sustenance over the long haul is not present. It doesn t create a culture that can be sustained, she says. There is a further challenge here for seminaries to reach out beyond their own alumni in creating continuing education programs that have sustaining pastoral excellence as their mission. Many of the seminaries participating in the Lilly program understand these needs and are working toward meeting them. Looking broadly at the 45 institutions that participated in this five-year program, Cahalan believes that much good work was done on many fronts. Her report reminds us that national and world events prompt theological educators to acknowledge that the church needs wise and prudent leaders who can help Christian communities remain united in Christ no matter what differences seem to divide the body. This program with the long name Program to Enhance Theological Schools Capacities to Prepare Candidates for Congregational Ministry, 1999-2003 has had a long and wide reach that will continue to influence theological schools their faculties and students, along with congregations and their ministers for years to come. Page 7 of 7