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8. What qualifications do the teachers have that are important for their role in
the process of leader education?
Teachers are supposed to have had pastoral experience and didactic schooling. In the
MA-route for pastors, the intention is to only appoint professors who have at least some
capacity for personal coaching or mentoring, but the fact is that some teachers are solely
academics and unable to function as such. Another tension is that the president of the
PThU is primarily interested in attracting faculty who are excellent scholars, while the
PKN needs faculty who capable of educating future pastors, and a scholar is not always
a good team player or ‘people developer’.
Students found themselves inspired by some teachers, especially if they showed zeal,
vision and personal faith. Such teachers were considered good examples who contributed
to leader education. Other teachers were evaluated negatively because of the content
of their courses, or the educational methods they used, or both.
9. What does leader education mean for the recruitment and selection of students
(also during their studies)?
In practice, everyone who wants to study at the PThU is welcome, but during the BA
phase, those students who appear to lack the necessary capabilities are required to quit.
The website www.domineeworden.nl (i.e. becoming a pastor) is supposed to help with
recruitment.
Both teachers and students added that the PKN itself seems to lack a vision for and a
policy on how to recruit young persons with leadership potential from local congregations.
10.3 Theological University in Kampen (TUK)
10.3.1 Obtaining the Data
The Theological University in Kampen (TUK) was established in 1945, in the wake of a
split in the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands from which the Reformed Churches
(liberated) [Gereformeerde Kerken (vrijgemaakt)] originated. This church used to be characterized
by a strong emphasis on correct doctrine and church order. From the 1990’s on,
however, the Reformed Churches (liberated) has become somewhat more pluralistic, due
to influences from other churches and evangelical movements and by changes in the
culture at large. Between October 2010 and January 2011, interviews were held with
three persons within the TUK, a small institute that in 2010 enrolled approximately
forty students in the predikantenopleiding. 80 In total this amounted to slightly more than
five hours of interviews and twenty-one pages of transcript. Also, a focus group session
was held with four male student volunteers who had almost finished the MA preparing
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Source: the Dean of the TUK, in a telephone call with the author, January 28, 2012.