Leader Development Is Top Request from PC(USA) International Partners

October 30, 2002
by Leslie Scanlon

LOUISVILLE – It's true: the advertising folks would hate it. There's absolutely no jingle in the phrase "International Leader Development."

But the idea itself has plenty of pull. Think of Christians from many countries, some of them new converts, some religious minorities in a volatile political landscape, hungry for pastors who can teach them about the Bible and God. Think of seminaries, some founded by Presbyterian missionaries, others the seedlings of Christians in Africa or the Middle East or Latin America, which teach theology in the languages and contexts of the cultures in which they are planted. And think of congregations of the Presbyterian Church (USA), eager to fertilize the faith of Christians in other countries.

Often, leader development isn't the first thing that comes to mind in congregations with a passion for mission. They may be more willing to send a youth group to Central America or to give money to support an American missionary sent out by an organization they already know.

But leader development, training and educating church leaders to serve in their own countries, is the "number one" request from the PC(USA)'s international partners, consistently the kind of help they ask for most, said the Rev. Marian McClure, director of the denomination's Worldwide Ministries Division (WMD).

And much of the money given to the PC(USA) specifically for international theological education is donated by former missionaries, McClure said, some of whom have dedicated their careers to building up schools and seminaries in other countries, and understand exactly how valued those institutions are.

Explaining why such work is important isn't easy. There's no simple way to describe the idea of people around the world claiming responsibility for their own faith development; of what McClure calls the "multiplier effect" of training theological leaders who then have the skills to train more leaders; of what it means to study theology in a way that takes into account the greatest needs and concerns of Christians in a particular part of the world.

"Our students graduate and go to churches full of new ideas," Mary Mikhael, president of the Near East School of Theology in Beirut, wrote in an email interview. "Once in the congregation they face the reality of people struggling socially and financially. The political struggle in our area, the fear of war breaking out colors people's lives and enhances their sense of insecurity and lack of hope for a future of opportunity, dignity and joy."

She also wrote: "Without theological training and leadership preparation, the church will disappear in the face of political, social and religious struggles"

Here are some of the numbers.

Each year, the PC(USA) gives about 50 church leaders from other countries substantial grants – generally from $4,000 to $10,000 apiece – for theological training, at an annual cost to the denomination of about $400,000 to $500,000 in recent years. As much as possible, those people attend seminaries in their own countries or regions, rather than the United States.

The denomination hopes to raise a $6 million endowment over the next seven years for international leader development: enough money, according to WMD staff members, to allow room for some creative approaches to international theological education.

McClure, for example, wants to see what she calls "a much more visionary partnership," in which Presbyterian seminaries in the United States form extended partnerships with seminaries in other countries – not just sending scholarship money, but also developing ongoing faculty and student exchanges, or sharing books and other resources and expertise on such subjects as funds development.

The partner churches say that "they want to train their own teachers to teach their pastors and students, and they want their institutions to have good resources – good libraries, good computers, to be connected with the rest of the world," said David Maxwell, who's in charge of WMD's Global Education and International Leader Development office.

With a more comprehensive relationship, rather than just scholarship money sent for particular students, "our partners would feel less as beggars and more as partners," Maxwell said.

But part of the difficulty in raising money for leader development is that it's not something congregations can reach out and touch; an American church can give money and never even meet the person whose education they helped to fund.

But with the right kind of training – for example, the kind of advanced education that allows someone to teach at a seminary or Bible school in their own country – "that person can serve for decades," McClure said, can be accountable to the denomination in that country, and "can literally train generations" of pastors.

"As we've trained a few leaders in every church, they've gone back and started institutions of their own," Maxwell said. And to run those institutions, "they want their own people," people from that country with the proper expertise, not missionaries from other places.

John Anderson, associate for finance and administration for Trinity Presbytery in South Carolina, is one of those who understands the need. Trinity and Shenango Presbytery in Pennsylvania each have partnerships with churches in Sudan, and both have been involved in supporting the Nile Theological College in Khartoum, which trains pastors to serve Christians in a country devastated by poverty and war.

Millions have been killed or displaced in Sudan in the last two decades. So Trinity's involvement is theological at its heart, Anderson said, because "if Jesus were to appear back on Earth, where would he go? He would go to the displaced and marginalized people in the world."

With more than 2 million people facing starvation in Sudan, Trinity plans to take up a special offering this month to help its partners there. "They ask for our prayers and for us to be advocates" for their people, Anderson said. Last year, Trinity raised about $100,000, giving a quarter to Nile Theological College; a quarter to the New Sudan Council of Churches to help with its work in peacemaking; and using the rest to fund presbytery trips to visit the Sudanese partners. Anderson, who's made five trips to Sudan so far, said he's worshiped with Presbyterian congregations who meet outside under the hot sun, the people standing or sitting on pews made of mud. Yet the Christian church in southern Sudan is growing faster than dandelions on a lawn. Anderson said he met one pastor, trained at Nile Theological College, who'd baptized more than 900 people in the nearby river in the previous six months.

"Evangelists are the real key to the growing church in Africa," said Bill Anderson, who with his wife, Lois, is a retired missionary for the PC(USA) who worked for years in Sudan. "They are the ones willing to go way out in the bush, way out where there is nothing and start something."

But their theological training often has been a hodge-podge – learning what they could through extension classes or a Bible school, he said, because that's all they had. So Christians from both the north and the south, coming from areas often at war with each other, started talking together about a shared dream: starting a seminary of their own.

Bill and Lois Anderson, who for years worked in Bible schools in both southern and northern Sudan, were among those who founded Nile Theological College – raising money in the late 1980s, much of it from Christians outside the country; finding a house near the bus station in Khartoum where they set up classrooms and a library; setting educational standards and working through the red tape of an Islamic-controlled government.

Many of those on the staff of the Bible school that Bill Anderson started in Khartoum in the early 1980s now are Nile Theological College graduates, even though Nile didn't graduate its first class until seven years ago.

John Anderson from Trinity Presbytery said he has been humbled by the faith of the Christians he has met in Sudan. "The way we view the world, we would measure Sudan as a place that has no hope," he said. "You see the desperation etched on their faces. And at the same time, you see an incredible peace and sense the presence of the Holy SpiritIt really is God among us where there is no hope, a reminder that no matter life's circumstances, He does create hope where hope does not exist."

At one congregation, in the Kakuma refugee camp, a windstorm had blown down the thatched roof over the worship space. When Anderson expressed his concern, one Sudanese told him: "Oh, but Brother John, the church is in our hearts, not in that building." And the American thought that in his own country "we put so much energy in our churches in to bricks and mortar that we've forgotten the work of the church is outside the walls."

Each country has its own challenges, its own story of faith. In some parts of Africa and the Middle East, elementary and secondary schools that Christian missionaries started years ago later were turned over to the governments of those countries.

Sometimes, however, those governments failed to provide any comprehensive system of schooling, Maxwell said. So students show up at seminaries in those countries with very little education, choosing theological education instead of going to a college or agricultural school because nothing else is available. This raises questions about whether the seminary curriculum should be adjusted to meet their needs.

Some countries that will not ordain women do allow them to attend seminary – as in Pakistan, for example. In other countries, the church leadership, dominated by men, is responsible for selecting students who will receive assistance from the PC(USA) for theological training, and they may refuse to nominate women, Maxwell said.

So the PC(USA) is encouraging partnerships between chapters of Presbyterian Women in the United States and women's groups in the international partner churches. Exchanges flow from those partnerships; connections form; and that means "the communication between our churches is not just based on the men," Maxwell said. Women from the partner churches see American women with professional backgrounds and leadership roles in the church, and "that starts being contagious."

Seminaries in other countries, to save money, have sometimes offered theological courses by extension or using Bible correspondence courses. "There's a tension in our own Worldwide Ministries Division and denomination that's reflected in the schools, and that's ‘Is it our role to train theologians or to train pastors?'" Maxwell asked. If we're training pastors, then Bible correspondence courses are just fine."

But there also is a push to train theologians – people who understand the language and the culture and who may have a perspective on theology that differs from the Western context. In Ghana, for example, students in a doctoral program are required to study in their tribal languages, part of an effort to develop African-based theologies, Maxwell said – to "create something different" from what students might encounter in a seminary in the U.S.

That's not to say that everything's different. In countries such as Kenya and Sudan, as in the United States, some churches don't have a pastor. The question facing seminaries is how to train people who feel called to ministry but who can't afford to dedicate three years to theological study and who are worried about what salary they'll make if they do become a pastor – some of the same questions that U.S. seminarians now face.

There has also been a shift, in recent decades, in how the PC(USA) responds to international students who seek the denomination's help. Although some American congregations disagree with this approach, the PC(USA) now encourages foreign students to go to seminary in their own countries, or close to home, rather than attend a seminary in the United States.

That's a definite change in policy. Up until the 1970s, when foreign students came to the United States to study, "we would farm them out to our seminaries, we would get them visaswe'd fund 100 percent of their need," Maxwell said. But now the denomination says "if you can get the degree in your country or close to it, we won't support you to come here, which makes us wildly unpopular with those students and with local PC(USA) congregations."

Sometimes , an American congregation knows of a promising foreign student living right there in town and pushes the denomination to help with the student's tuition. Sometimes, Christians from other countries raise enough money to travel to the United States, and then show up on the doorstep of an American church, asking to go to seminary, and the congregation doesn't understand why the PC(USA) refuses to help. But there are good reasons, Maxwell said.

For one thing, it's usually cheaper for students to go to school closer to home. Students in other countries study theology from the perspective of their own culture – not so much influenced by the Western point of view. And in the past, some international students who came to U.S. seminaries to study never went back home.

"If they bring their family and their children start going to schoolas committed as they are to their country and their church, they feel torn," Maxwell said. "They know if they stay here, their children will get a good education.We've been accused enough by the partner churches of brain-draining, their best and their brightest come here and stay here."

And there is no underestimating how much Christianity is played out in the contexts of particular places. The prevailing questions in an affluent country, where Christianity is the largest religion, can be very different from those in other places. The United States, for example, has a history of pitting evangelism and social justice against each other "as thought they are competing ways of looking at the gospel," McClure said. "That's our agenda, and it's just not appropriate in many parts of the world."

From Lebanon, Mikhael writes that soon many pastors who have studied at her school "forget their new ideas," learned at seminary, because they get so involved with the needs of the people, particularly in encouraging young people to stay in the country and not to emigrate to a place where they may feel more secure.

And Lebanon is a country of multiple religions, multiple ethnicities, she writes. "The Christians are often accused of being pro-West and West is pro-Israel, and Israel is always grabbing our land and humiliating people with its military might, so the church is forced to defend itself and try to prove its loyalty and good citizenship."

To understand such cultural, ethnic and political conflicts, "and in the same time cling to our faith," she writes, is a challenge for pastors in Lebanon day by day.

PCUSA News Service.
Reprinted with permission from The Presbyterian Outlook.