Beat Up By A Seminary Professor

Last week, we were visited by a church planting professor from one of our seminaries. He taught a seminar for some of the workers in our country as part of the IMB's professor-exchange program. He shared church plating strategies and theories, and some basic principles from scripture.

I sent our Journeymen.

These girls have been great at building relationships and engaging the culture here. I've learned a lot from them about sharing life with people by publicly working out their faith. They are pioneers in relational church planting in Western Europe. Their experience makes them the experts; there really isn't anyone who can teach them how to minister in this context. Unfortunately, these particular Journeymen don't feel as though they know what they're doing. They don't understand that despite being young and not having seminary degrees, they are leading the way for cross-cultural missional church planting in the world. There aren't any books written about it. There are no formulas, programs, or training materials to teach them how to do their jobs. They are learning by doing and having a great time on the journey.

The Journeymen came back from their time with the church planting professor very discouraged. It seems that the professor, who has tremendous experience and by nature of his position presents himself as an expert in all things church planting, questioned a lot of what the Journeymen were doing. His questions, of course, were coming from a perspective of no cultural insight, and no understanding of our team. He bullied them. Why weren't they passing out Jesus films? he asked. Why were they just hanging out with nationals if that hadn't worked yet? Why weren't people coming to the Lord and churched being planted? Why don't you just...?

On an academic level, these are good questions, and a good start to a discussion that needs to take place. When I met the professor for coffee the following week, we had a great conversation. But the girls still haven't recovered from it. They are still questioning their ministries, and the direction of the team. "We'd hate to do it and our friends would hate us, but maybe we should be passing out tracts." "What's the point of doing relational ministry of it takes years and years to build a relationship in Western Europe and I'm only here for two or three?"

So now I'm trying to encourage them. The professor doesn't know our context, I reasoned. Our strategy is not accidental, I remind them.

So now I'm convinced: seminary training doesn't make us better church planters.