training church leadership

I posted something a few days back that included a bit on training for ministry under the heading 'post academic training'. Well timely or what? Maggi [see header ref] and Jonny are now discussion how to train folk for emergin church leadership etc. Of course there is some appearance of disagreement but it does seem clear to me that there is both a need for church leadership that is theologically literate and also practically competant. CLearly too there is a perception that too much theology does not make connections with ministry. In actual fact these are cartoon positions. I'm married to someone currently being processed in a vicar factory. My reflection are in the earlier post though I would like to add a few things in the light of the current debate I've just referenced.

There is a trend in the training institutions for the CofE to try to develop skills of theological reflection; if I understand it aright the aim is to develop reflective practitioners of ministry. However there are countervailing forces, to some extent, in the form of the Church's ministry commissioners [ABM] who seem to have become fixated on more traditionally academic rigour. This wouldn't be so difficult an issue if this rigour could be applied n creative ways [and there is some good work being done on assesment related to creative and practical/vocational subjects]. However, man academics are reared scholastically in the old school and both harbour suspicion of stepping outside of what they know and also have not [yet!] developed the imaginitive purchase to 'see' how it might be done differently. All of which is not helped either by the cultural prejudices of our society which disparages non-traditional subjects, and this prejudice is often all to easily uncritically absorbed by academics cought up in the cut-throat business of defending their turf and prestige. So it is in the teeth of all this opposition and misunderstanding that we have to push forward the perfectly possible project of retrofitting training for ministry.

This is why I thinkit is important that we find helpful analogues o f what we are trying to do and I will say it again: the training of medics [including especially nurses, paramedics, physios etc]; the training of actors and artists; the training of post-compulsory teachers/lecturers all have academic rigour but a huge vocational and creative component. It can be done.

I reiterate too that I think that it is uefuyl for us to have in mind the idea of the 'scientist- practitioner'. This is a model that I uncovered while researching for my dissertation on Life Coaching and Spritual Direction in a paper on the professinalisation of life coaching. There's alot we can learn from reflection on this issue and perhaps when the dissertation is ready for publication you might read it [email me I hope to have pre-submission copy in the new year].

Let me quote a bit from this paper which I think is helpful in the debate.
Practitioners are trained within this framework to have a working understanding of the principles and methodology of research. This understanding then enable them to apply informed critical thought to the evaluation of their practice drawing on and being informed by the relevant academic literature to design and implement relevant evidence-based interventions evaluating client progress and adhering to relevant ethical practice.

Now it is not a direct analogy to ministry but there is enough to pursue, I think. The idea of enabling the application of 'informed critical thought' etc seeems fairly straightforward in thinking about pastoral care, leading worship, teaching the faith, developing and 'growing' people and facilitating mission. And in that sense 'evidence-based interventions' become understandable if we include in 'evidence' the data of biblical and theological reflection. 'Client progress' would be broadened to include 'church or project progress' or somesuch. Ethical consideration go almost without saying.

I still think that my suggestions earlier about the pattern of training could be a good way to develop this agenda, but I'm open to other ideas too.