The Evangel Dean Basic Training Resource Handbook

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church.) Even where concern for the urban poor as leaders has emerged, the questions have often centered around access to existing models of traditional seminary education. Only infrequently has the usefulness of the traditional seminary model for the urban poor of North America been examined critically and churches have been slow to develop the kind of in-context, extension models which have proved so useful in other settings. Emerging Christian leaders from among the urban poor in North America provide a set of challenges which theological educators must respond to: • They are already “in ministry” and are often bi-vocational, so theological education must accommodate itself to their time schedules and to the fact that they often must limit their course loads and pursue their theological education non-sequentially. Theological education must come in “bite- sized” chunks and find a way to teach core themes across the curriculum rather than depending on extensive prerequisite courses. • Christian leaders from the same church groups may range from functionally illiterate, to semiliterate, to very literate. Theological education must find a way to both strengthen literacy and provide ways of accessing information that do not make reading skills the critical factor. • Affordability is a key issue in obtaining theological education. There must be a conviction that poverty cannot be allowed to stand between functioning church leaders and the theological resources they need for more effective ministry. • Differences in culture, class, and ethnicity must be taken seriously in the theological curriculum. The problems that are faced, the thinking styles that predominate, the theological themes that are prioritized, and the languages that are used may all be significantly different from mainstream culture. Contextualization of theological education is imperative. • Leadership in the Christian community has been earned based on the living out of God’s call and gifting in practical experience. Acceptance into a program of theological education must be based on these criteria rather than on purely educational pre- requisites. Theological education must be for those (whether lay or ordained) who are already doing ministry.