Accessible Active

The road to cross-cultural training of pastors and church leaders has many "pot-holes” that can derail or greatly delay the success of the training. As we have seen, availability and affordability of resources are two of the most critical hurdles to jump. But even after these two problems are overcome, there are several other aspects that can greatly impact the effectiveness of the training being done. Here are a couple of questions that will help to recognize and respond to some other potential challenges.

Is the training accessible?

In some places, it may be practical to have a single, permanent location where the training of pastors and church leaders is offered. However, this "brick-and-mortar" model is not the most effective one in many contexts. If the location of the training center requires pastors to regularly spend hours in travel time or to invest money in travel expenses, most pastors will be unable to do the training. That is because the list of developing-world pastors who are capable of sustaining such an investment of time and/or finances will be a short list. Therefore, to help expand the reach of the training, it may be best to use a training model that can easily be brought to other geographic locations nearer to where the pastors live or work. Such geographic accessibility will increase the potential impact on the churches in the region.

Another way in which the accessibility of the training should be assessed is in the realm of education and academics. As much as we might long for every pastor to be competent in the biblical languages and well-versed in systematic theology, these are goals that are generally unrealistic in the regions where pastoral training is needed most. A large percentage of current and potential church leaders in these target areas have not completed secondary education. Indeed, a sizeable number did not finished their primary schooling. As a result, any training that leans on elements like specialized vocabulary or complex grammar analysis will simply not be helpful for such men. What is needed is training that is effective and useful while still remaining academically accessible to those who need it most.

Does it employ active learning?

While limited education can present some challenges for training, widespread formal education in a region will not necessarily eliminate all academic concerns. The difference in education models used around the world can present its own unique challenges. Some formal teaching methods condition people to focus more on memorizing “right” answers rather than on learning how to discover the answers for oneself. This “rote memory” style of teaching fails to foster a  spirit of investigation and a confidence in the scriptures. What is needed is a training style that engages the learner in active practice of the principles they are being taught. It should be more like coaching a skill or technique rather than giving a lecture or seminar.

When I first began years ago to train pastors and church leaders, I employed a curriculum and methodology that was developed by a Western teacher and did not incorporate much structure for “hands-on” learning. However, while I was doing a great deal of “teaching,” there was not much true learning taking place. It was simply not enough for them to hear how a text should be studied, or even to see examples of how I handled a text. What they really needed was to be actively engaged in discovering how to apply the principles of biblical study to the text. And they needed a structured opportunity to practice those principles in a setting that provided feedback and sharpening. It is this kind of “active” learning that will give them confidence, in time, that they can do this work on their own and become competent at seeing and proclaiming the true message of a text.