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FROM THE PRESIDENT
Dear Friends:
Our success here at ABSW depends on engaging in a variety
of partnerships. At the heart of the educational process
is the assumption that students and teachers will enter into a learning
partnership that deepens and broadens the exploration. Scholars
enter into a partnership with a “text” or an issue in
order to engage in learning and to expand the boundary of what is
known. Even prayer works on an implicit assumption that the supplicant
is in partnership with God.
One of the most significant partnerships we have at the
seminary is with congregations and their leaders, both lay and clergy.
We cannot accomplish our goals of equipping men and women for the
work of ministry without dynamic relationships with the context
in which ministry occurs. It matters where we teach and how we teach
as we prepare men and women for the 21st century. Gone is the “theological
cafeteria” where students are served separate meals with the
hope that somehow they will digest all of this into some comprehensive
plan. Now we are providing an integrated and interdisciplinary introduction
to both the life of ministry and the content of ministry. Learning
is not so much from the top down as it is from the interaction with
colleagues, churches, and faculty. Our new curriculum has the context
of ministry built into our work at every level. In the first year,
we partner with four congregations each semester as students engage
in learning to understand the nature and function of churches. In
the mix of churches this year we have African American, Asian American,
Latino, Anglo, and multicultural churches and their leaders providing
a vital part of the first-year introduction to the church. We could
not have this kind of learning going on without the partnership
of both church and pastor. Students are learning to understand theology
and ministry as it is happening and then reflect upon their own
growing and deepening understandings of the same.
In our second year we have 15 students placed for nine months each
in nine different churches. The pastors are part of the faculty
of the second year and, as Teaching Pastors, are involved in the
instruction each semester. The pastors are also supervising the
students who are placed in their setting and doing regular reporting
on progress and growth. The second year of our M.Div. program requires
utilizing congregations as “on the job” training sites
and assumes that the pastors are vital partners in the teaching/learning
process. We are now developing a resource of 25-30 congregations
in the Bay Area that can serve as intern sites. The church is the
laboratory for the application and exploration of ministry. Practical
theology is not a step-child of the “the real thing.”
Theological reflection is being done in context and for the sake
of the ministry to which students are called. This is a much different
partnership than exists in traditional theological schools.
In the final year of our new curriculum, students engage in a mentor
project that helps them to focus on an area of ministry where they
would like to develop a special expertise. They develop this expertise
in partnership with a mentor, normally a pastor or professor who
is an expert in the area chosen by the student. This year is the
first year of our mentor program, and we have nine mentors working
with nine students. Some mentors are on our faculty and others are
drawn from the work of the church. In each case the student must
design and implement a project in their field of concern that happens
in a place of ministry. For instance, one student is doing her mentor
project on developing multicultural leadership and will do a project
in her local church on racial reconciliation. Another student is
focused on ministry to the elderly and is doing a project under
the guidance of a chaplain at American Baptist Homes of the West.
The students will write a full report of their work that will be
a vehicle for integrating and evaluating their seminary experience.
This final year could not be done without our partnerships with
pastors and churches.
I am grateful for all the wonderful relationships that
we have with congregations throughout the regions where we are privileged
to serve. We seek to have relationships with more than
1,000 congregations in the West. All of us are grateful for the
financial support of churches and for the prayer support of our
partners.
Thank you so much for all the ways partnerships between the seminary
and the church are constructed. I am always on the lookout
for new relationships. I, along with faculty, am eager to accept
invitations to speak or teach in our churches. We seek
to be present at least annually in every region that we serve and
hope in our planning for the future to organize continuing education
events that are strategically located throughout the West Coast.
Partnerships are critically important to our success! Thank you
so much for the privilege of such relationships.
Faithfully yours,
Keith A. Russell
President
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