By Robert F. Hull Jr.
Emmanuel School of Religion, Johnson City, Tennessee (www.esr.edu)
Like most seminaries, Emmanuel annually welcomes older students transitioning into vocational ministry from other careers. Most of these students are interested in traditional degree programs, including three who entered in the fall. ESR is also eager to serve those who can come to campus for only short periods of time or can benefit from the educational opportunities the school exports to churches.
Campus-based programs will increasingly be centered in three new institutes that have already begun to sponsor some programs ideal for second-career ministry staff:
The Institute for Church Planting. Four times a year Tom Jones offers his Church Planting Assessment Center. This five-day intensive program is an ideal starting point for aspiring church planters.
The Charles Taber Institute for World Mission. Emmanuel is now one of the resident sites for the popular “Perspectives on the World Christian Movement” program. This 16-week introduction to world mission can be taken for graduate credit as well as continuing education. The institute also hosts a biennial “Mission of the Church” lecture series.
The Charles C. Cook Institute for Excellence in Ministry hosts the biennial Myron Taylor Lectures in Preaching and Pastoral Ministry. The Church 20/20, a half-day series of workshops and plenary sessions for church leaders, is offered on a Saturday morning each April.
As the institutes are further developed, each will provide the academic underpinning for a full menu of continuing education opportunities. All of the institute seminars held at ESR”s Fred and Dorothy Thompson Community Center on campus will be digitally captured for later delivery as “webinars” and asynchronous continuing education units. Interactive learners, academicians, field practitioners, and expert facilitators will all be linked by means of digital technology employed for the sake of more effective ministry.
Church-based programs take ESR faculty to many parts of the world, including Europe, Africa, and Asia. Jack Holland helped establish a lay counseling ministry at Cherry Lane Christian Church, Meridian, Idaho. This has been so successful that most of the pastoral care needs in this congregation of more than 1,500 are met by volunteers trained in this program. Emmanuel faculty conduct church-based seminars across the country in the areas of pastoral counseling, preaching, church planting, leadership development, Christian education, and small groups, both for credit and continuing education. Faculty members serve with TCM, the Eldoret Pastoral Institute (Kenya), and congregations in India and other parts of Asia.
Online education is in its beginning stages, with a course in Leadership Development having been offered twice.
A two-year degree program in Global Ministry will be designed to be 50 percent online; it will be targeted toward field missionaries who can do the other 50 percent on campus during furloughs. This would be an excellent program for second-career church staff overseeing mission programs for a local church. An e-learning committee is developing online courses that will support this program and will be available for other degree and nondegree applications. Plans call for as many as 10 blended (part online, part in-class) and nine online courses to be developed by the end of academic year 2010-11.
Robert Hull Jr. is dean of Emmanuel School of Religion.
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