Session 1: Why Urban Ministry - Missions Mandate

. Presenting a solution
1. Balance the faculty with a handful possessing pastoral
experience
Every faculty ought to have at least one person who has brought into membership of the church a
net number of people whose contributions would pay the salary and expense account of the
faculty member. Until a minister or a faculty member has been effectively involved in such an
increase in church membership and therefore in giving, that person is living on the labors of
those who have gone before. (Leith, 8.)
Overview of the Missional Model:
2. Embrace a “missional model” for theological education
a. Combining lectures with mentorship
b. Teaming students with veteran minister
In Revisioning Theological Education: Exploring a Missional Alternative to Current Models,
Robert Banks provides six essential components to guide institutions seeking to incorporate the
missional model in theological education: (126)
1. It (theological education) ought to comprehend the broader people of God.
2. It should orient itself primarily around “in-service” ministry.
3. At its center should be a living and working partnership with an experienced
person.
4. The break with home, occupation, and often family, involved in attending a
seminary, or the residential requirements in extension centers, mirrors something
of what we find in the biblical narratives.
5. The growing desire to have a strong interconnection between the seminary and the
church, and between study and practice, is well based.
6. In a limited way echoes of Paul’s collegial approach appear in the one-on-one
small-group academic mentoring of advanced students, who are regarded as
junior members of the community of scholars.