What is the background?
There are two principal aspects of training for ministry, namely the academic or classroom aspect and the practical experience aspect. Both are essential.
The common pattern in our day has been: leave the local church in which the call was received and go to college for a number of years, emerge “qualified”, seek the right situation, and gradually assimilate practical church experience, learning “the things they didn’t teach me at college”.
Obviously this method can work, but it is an imported worldly model. We believe for many that there is a better way.
Broadly we seek to combine the “classroom” and the “practical experience” together in the context of a local church, with the following two guiding principles:
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It should be possible to do this training without giving up employment.
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It should be possible to do the “classroom” training without temporarily giving up positions of service within the church.
With this in mind, we are running a Diploma course that is modular in style and covers the “classroom” aspect.