what they should teach at the vicar factory

Church Marketing Sucks: More Marketing Savvy, Less TheologyQuote of a quote of a quote:
"Tony Campolo, in Adventures in Missing the Point: How the Church neutered the Gsopel, a book he co-authored with Brian McLaren, gives some poignant comments on church marketing. In their chapter titled "Seminary," Campolo says this:
What if the credits eaten up by subjects seminarians seldom if ever use after graduation were instead devoted to more subjects they will actually need in churches – like business and marketing courses? It is not true that with a gifted preacher, a church will inevitably grow. Good sermons may get visitors to stay once they come, but getting folks to come in the first place may take some marketing expertise.

It was a marketing degree, not an M.Div., that Bill Hybels had when he launched the tiny fellowship that would one day be Willow Creek Community Church. It's not that Hybels is a theological lightweight, contrary to some critics. His sermons are biblically sound and brilliantly relevant to the needs of his congregation – and the relevance comes not from giftedness or theological discernment, but from thoughtfully studying his congregation. As any good marketer would, Hybels deliberately surveys his people with questionnaires in order to determine what they worry about, what their needs are, what's important to them. During the summer months he reflects on their responses, studies the Bible for how it speaks to their issues, and reads extensively about the same issues. Then he schedules what subjects he will preach on in the coming year, and circulates the schedule to those on his team responsible for music and drama in the services.

The result is preaching that is utterly biblical and acutely relevant. But the process isn't something you'll learn in most seminaries. Maybe it's time that some business school courses find their way into seminary."

I am here in Durham occasionally attending classes and events at a theological college ['seminary' to USAers] because my wife is training for diaconal and presbyteral orders at Cramner Hall, St.John's College in Durham. So I'm in the position of being an unemployed priest married to a trainee priest. It's interesting to be loking, perhaps more critically, at the process of ministerial formation.

Some comments; it seems to have got more narrowly academic. I think that in proinciple I don't mind academic rigour; good thinking is a good thing. what I'm objecting to is the way that it's narrowed. it seems like on the whole, only essays show competence. Where are the means ot assess using different media of expression? It is possible but somehow, perhaps due to pressure on academics, the imagination to think how learning outcomes can be evidenced in other ways and so written into the design of courses has been lost or surpressed.

Naturally we want ministers who are as theologically astute as possible and so we want them to do all kinds 'traditional' theology and some not so traditional too. But then we only fund two years of training so it is squeezed even before we start to think about the kinds of stuff Tony Campolo is recommending.

I may write more on this at another point but for now I want to raise the question; what else do we think it would be useful for minsiterial training and formation to include? Tony Campolo suggests something like entrepreneurship, I would suggest that conflict resolution would be an excellent idea, and you suggest ...?