I am continuing to share my thoughts on the vital issue of the effective preparation of Christian workers in general and of preachers in particular.  (Previous posts here)  Before looking at the specific role of the local church in this regard I want to make one more comment on where I believe Bible Colleges are failing churches and individuals at the present time.   Having spoken to a considerable number of lecturers in recent years I have discovered a deeply worrying trend.  Almost without exception, they have told me that their task is not to teach their students what they should believe but to give them a wide variety of views and allow them to make their choice from what’s on offer.   This is scandalous and explains the confused, biblically illiterate, and ill-equipped graduates that are being produced.   More than once, in my previous role as a mission agency Director I had former students confess that they were more confused about what they believed when they left College than when they arrived.   Over my years in that role I saw a steady decline in the standard of answers to doctrinal questions and a general reluctance to express a deep conviction about almost anything.   It’s true that very often, though not always, when you unpacked their written comments and talked things through with them, pressing them for a definite answer, they would affirm the biblical truth but they had grown accustomed to a culture where there is no such thing as dogmatic, exclusive truth and one shouldn’t be so bold as to claim to know such truth, let alone teach it to others.
This is a massive problem - but not a new one!   Iain Murray, in his introduction to ‘An All-round Ministry’ writes of  Spurgeon’s philosophy:

“Instruction, he maintained, should be given in definite, dogmatic form.   Tutors should not teach their students in that broad liberal manner which presents a number of “view-points” and leaves the ultimate choice to the student;  rather they should forcibly and unmistakably declare the mind of God and show a determined predilection for the old theology, being saturated in it and ready to die for it!”

I had some discussions a year or so go with the faculty of a leading UK Bible College on this very issue and they took the position that preachers today need to be well versed in various views propagated by liberal scholars, so that they can address them when raised by their church members.   They seemed quite taken aback when I told them that in 25 years of ministry no church member had ever raised such an issue with me!   The only reason so many of these views are still around today is because so-called evangelicals keep them alive by teaching them.   Why are evangelicals always reacting to the agenda set by the liberals rather than simply ignoring them?   Life is too short and time too precious to spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with the views of largely dead and discredited scholars who don’t accept the authority of God’s Word.  What we who are entrusted by God with this immense responsibility of training up Gospel workers have to do is, in Murray’s words, to , ourselves, be saturated in the “old theology” and thoroughly immerse our students in it as well.

As we continue to look at the problems in training up Gospel workers and preachers, in future posts I will look at more issues related to the roles of and the relationship between the local church and the Bible Colleges.  Today, I want to suggest some criteria for churches and individuals to use when deciding which Bible College to attend or to send their students to.

1. What is the theological position of all the faculty? As I highlighted yesterday, almost every Bible College in UK is seriously compromised in this respect and the situation appears to be worsening. We wouldn’t allow such false teachers in the pulpits of our churches, exposing our members to their teachings, so why should we send our students to learn from them at Bible College? The sort of areas we need to be asking about are:

• belief in the verbal inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture
• belief in the uniqueness of Christ as the only way to God
• belief in the need of a personal, conscious experience of Christ for salvation
• belief in the substitutionary nature of Christ’s death
• belief in the reality of hell as a place of eternal consciousness for all who die outside of Christ

None of these areas of belief can be taken as ‘givens’ today, even in reputedly evangelical training Colleges. We need to ask some serious questions of prospective places of study and if they are found wanting, we should have nothing to do with them.

2. What is the theological position of the Board? If, as is usually the case, the Board are ultimately responsible for the appointment of the teaching staff, then we must ensure that they hold fast to the non-negotiable truths of Gods’ Word. If the College Board includes men and women who have abandoned any area of biblical truth then you can be sure they will not be sufficiently discriminating when it comes to the appointment of lecturers, nor will they be willing to deal appropriately with those who share their erroneous views.

3. What accountability is there to the home church of the students? Is the College committed to a meaningful and mutually accountable relationship with the churches that supply the students? Are they willing to provide reports on the student’s progress and raise issues of concern? Are they open and responsive to the views and concerns of the church leadership?

4. What is the experience of those training preachers? One of the biggest weaknesses in this area is that so many who are training preachers are not really preachers themselves. They may preach from time to time because of their standing in the Christian community but they are really, at worst, theorists and at best lecturers and teachers. No wonder so many coming out of the Colleges and into the pulpits of our churches are dry as dust and cerebral. Those teaching homiletics courses should be great role models of passionate, faithful expository preaching.

5. What is the actual experience of previous students? Have those who have studied there found it as it has been described, or is the reality different from the reputation? Has the faith of previous students been built up or undermined? Has their knowledge of Scripture been significantly increased? Is there clear evidence of growth in grace and equipping for effective service? Regardless of what academic achievements have been attained, if these things are lacking then serious and precious time has been wasted.

6. What is the goal of the College? I want to look at this issue in my next post but here is, in many ways the heart of the problem today. Is the goal to achieve certain qualifications or degrees or is it to prepare God’s people for works of service? There is no doubt in my mind that for most institutions in UK, the former has become the overriding objective and the latter has become increasingly sidelined. With the result that we are producing expert missiologists and lousy missionaries, competent biblical textual scholars and incompetent pastors and Bible teachers, men and women conversant with every liberal theory and view but who don’t know their Bibles.

In last week’s quote from Spurgeon, there was this hugely significant phrase: “Let the world educate men for its own purposes, and let the Church instruct men for its special service.”  I believe that goes right to the heart of the whole reason why Bible Colleges, certainly here in the UK, are not producing powerful, faithful preachers of God’s Word.   Spurgeon’s vision of men trained for ministry by their own churches is a great one and one we should probably strive after, but in reality, I suspect, it is beyond the attainment of the average church.  Even where the church is able to provide some sort of apprenticeship to up and coming preachers, it is probably unlikely to be able to provide the broader and necessary theological framework in which a good expository ministry needs to be set.  I think that more often than not, this needs to be done in an effective partnership between local churches and Bible Colleges.  

In m own personal experiene, I had the great privilege of three years excellent study at the Bible Training Institute in Glasgow, now the International Christian College, though it is not really the same, to be honest!   At the same time, for those three years I was assigned to work alongside a very godly and experienced Presbyterian minister who exposed me to various aspects of ministry, gave me many opportunities for preaching and leadership and mentored me.   There as good interaction between church and college, sound theological study at the college and good practical experience at the church.

That, for me, highlights immense issues that seriously need addressing by churches and colleges today if we are going to remedy the present problems we have tried to identify, and I want to look at some of these in coming posts and am really keen to get your comments, experience and wisdom.

The first problem seems to be that the churches have handed over responsibility for the training of their students to the colleges but there has been no meaningful relationship by which the colleges have been held accountable for the training they have been provided.   Whenever churches complain about the training their students are getting I always ask them whether they have spoken to the College and expressed their concerns, and invariably the answer has been no.   This seems amazing to me.   Why would we hand over those God has put into our spiritual care to others without some accountability and dialogue?

The second problem is that, here in the UK, and partly as a result of the failure I have just referred to,  the Bible Colleges have all, with only two exceptions that I know of,  got mixed faculties, in that they have on their teaching staff men and women who don’t hold to the traditional evangelical doctrinal beliefs.   I could take you to Bible College lecturers who deny the reality of hell, the lostness of those who die outside of Christ, the penal substitution aspect of Christ’s death on the cross, the uniqueness of Christ as the way of salvation and much more.   Why should we allow such false teachers to train our students and prepare them for Gospel ministry?   If our Bible believing churches stopped sending our students to these places they would have to start putting their houses in order or close down.

Tomorrow, I want to detail what I believe churches should look for in Bible Colleges to which they send their students.

Over at Resolve 07, Scott Hamilton has been blogigng recently about problems in the preparation and selection of church leaders in general and preachers in particular, along the same lines as the last two or three posts on this blog. He has posted an open letter to College and denominational leaders and is asking folk to sign up to it. Here’s a short extract:

This letter is a plea for you to address the present expectations in denominational life and seek a transformation in the expectations and practice of pastoral ministry. The list above demonstrates a malaise that goes far deeper than perhaps you might even have expected and that is understandable. If this list does not perturb you in the least, then I ask you to examine God’s Word to understand afresh the high calling of the pastorate and the humbling spiritual standard that comprise the contents of Biblical pastoral ministry. R. C. Sproul comments that ‘one of the problems we have in the church today is the theological crisis of liberal theology that has captured many of the mainline denominations where the ministers no longer teach from the content of scripture at all. How does this happen historically? It is axiomatic that as the seminaries go, so go the pastors; and as the pastors go, so go the congregations. If you want a reformation, you have to look seriously at what the seminaries are teaching.’

Scott also recommended this link to a ‘Proposal for a New Seminary’ by John M Frame in the States with the author’s updated postscripts. Good stuff. http://www.thirdmill.org/files/reformedperspectives/hall_of_frame/ST1_Proposal%20for%20a%20New%20Seminary.doc

In support of my personal views posted yesterday on how Bible Colleges, certainly most in UK, are failing in their task of training up preachers, I call as a witness no less a person than C H Spurgeon. In his introduction to Spurgeon’s ‘An All-Round Ministry’, Iain Murray, makes the following observations about his subject’s views on training preachers. Next week I’ll develop this issue further with more personal reflections and Spurgeonic wisdom

He maintained that the all-controlling aim should be the preparation of powerful preachers. No matter what most other theological colleges might profess to have as their aim he saw that in practice the training they gave their students was not principally designed to make men mighty in the pulpit. Moreover Spurgeon….recognised the foremost cause of this state of affairs - it was the curse of ‘idolatry of intellect’, the desire for academic prestige and the fear of losing intellectual respectability. By Spurgeon’s day it had become fashionable for theological colleges to prepare students for London University degrees; he saw this for what it proved to be - an invasion of the Church by the world, and an abandonment in practice of what should be the true aim of all ministerial training. Once let such procedure be adopted, and it is the death of the preparation of powerful preachers. Not that learning is a hindrance to preaching, far from it; learning is essential to preaching, but not the kind of learning required by University degrees. “There is a learning that is essential to a successful ministry, viz. the learning of the whole Bible, to know God, by prayer, and experience of his dealings.”

Though he stood practically alone in this conviction, Spurgeon was ready to declare it in no uncertain terms: “Our men seek no Collegiate degrees, or classical honours, - though many of them could readily attain them; but to preach efficiently, to get at the heart of the masses, to evangelise the poor, - this is the College ambition, this and nothing else.” “The design of the Pastors’ College has, from the beginning, been to help preachers, and not produce scholars. Let the world educate men for its own purposes, and let the Church instruct men for its special service. We aim at helping men to set forth the truth of God, expound the Scriptures, win sinners, and edify saints.”

It has been both interesting and encouraging to discover that by far the most read posts I have ever posted on this site in the 11 or so months I have been blogging have been the recent ones related to what I call ‘The 222 Principle’, how we identify, train, encourage and pass on to others the baton of expository preaching in line with Paul’s exhortation in 2 Timothy 2v2.

It has long been my contention that, at least here in the UK, the theological training colleges are failing miserably in this area. They are, it seems to me, producing just about every type of Christian worker you can imagine - not to mention a few you probably hadn’t thought of - but not men who are steeped in Scripture and equipped to faithfully and passionately preach it. The absence of such men is alarming.

There are, in my opinion, a number of factors why this is the case. One is that the goal of Bible training has become the acquiring of a ‘credible’ academic qualification and not preparation for effective ministry. Institutions have, effectively, sold their spiritual birth rights, indeed their souls, to secular accrediting bodies in exchange for academic respectability and acceptance and rather than teach students, from Scripture, what God said and why, they would rather spend time teaching them what unbelievers think God never actually said and why he didn’t say it. Redaction criticism has, in many places become the standard and the consequences are all too obvious. A common comment I hear about a leading Bible College in UK is “at least if you go there you won’t need your Bible”!

The second reason I have identified, is that I have discovered that most of those teaching preaching are not preachers! I find that, frankly, mind-boggling. Would be preachers do not get, at least at College, good expository role models, rather they have critical and lecturing exemplars so it’s little wonder our pulpits are increasingly occupied by such.

Just in case you think I’m over sensitive in this issue, or worrying needlessly, tomorrow I will call to my support the testimony of a man who knew a thing or two about preaching and about training preachers! I would also love to hear your comments and concerns.

I am grateful to Scott Hamilton for these thought provoking comments on the crucial issue of training men for a preaching ministry. Scott is the Pastor of Castlemilk Community Church in Glasgow and also hosts the Resolve 07 blog.

Q. What are your concerns in this area?

I suppose my greatest concern is less to do with style (although I have concerns in this regard as well) and more to do with content. It seems to me that there is little encouragement given to younger men to work out what they believe. The training is heavily influenced by a post-modern, relativistic mindset which shrinks from absolutes, even Biblical absolutes. My preaching training gave more thought to breadth of style than depth of content so that there was little developmental space given to how to preach doctrine plainly and carefully. It would be an interesting exercise to conduct a survey of how clearly and concisely graduates from UK colleges could describe doctrine which would at one point have been central, essential and basic. I believe that the neglect of content necessarily effects problems with style thus producing preaching that is heavy on the creativity and cleverness of the preacher and light on Biblical content. In my generation there is an increasing attraction towards the emerging movement and the training broadly reflects its appeal in the academy. It seems to me, from conversing with other recent graduates that there are few places that at least have some staff who will champion expository preaching at least as much as to balance the present preoccupation with emerging approaches and felt needs content.

Q. How have you, as a pastor/preacher, been trained up by others?

It seems to me that there are fewer exponents of exposition (although most will suggest that they are expository). I am extremely grateful to have Biblically faithful, Christ exalting, Cross centred preaching modelled to me. Sitting under men who practised this set an early standard for me as a student in Dundee. I have been grateful to many churches for graciously giving me the opportunity to cut my teeth (probably the only time that cutting teeth is painful for people other than the person who’s teeth are being cut). There is little doubt that the internet has been a source of great benefit with access to so many preachers who serve as a great example to a young guy seeking to grow and develop in preaching. Spending time with people like Dominic Smart in Dundee and Craig Dyer in Glasgow has been a wonderful blessing to me in both their gracious example of giving me their time and the care with which they seek to be Biblicaly faithful.

Q. What are the lessons you have learned along the way?

In Stott’s words ‘pride is my greatest enemy, humility my greatest friend’- it is the simplest of traps for the young preacher (although I’m sure it is not exclusive to age). Horror at some of my past servings to unsuspecting congregations (Spurgeon calls them ‘sermons to weep over’) designed in God’s grace to correct both my pride and my preaching. Above all the need to be constantly Christ centred and directing people back to the cross time and again. ‘If the church looks after the depth God will look after the breadth.’ The fact that I like quotes and need to beware of overusing them. That it’s not about me and my confidence and capability but about God and His majesty and grace.

Q. What are you doing at the moment that would be an example and encouragement to others?

Hopefully something. Pointing them to resources and people who have and will be a model to them in the same way as they have and continue to be a help to me.