Suggested Solutions for the Bible College Problem

In my last post, I wrote about the growing awareness or frustration I've had with the Bible college culture, how it came about, and tried to give reasons for why I'm concerned. 

I hate when people can identify problems, but offer no solutions. 

So... 

Here are my suggestions.  

Please understand that these are things that I'm working through myself.  I don't claim to do them well, but I'm learning.  This isn't the plan which came down from heaven, it's a general set of principles that I think need to guide this conversation to the next level.  

1. Churches, start stepping up. 

Like every parachurch ministry on the face of the earth, I think Bible college is doing the work local churches should be doing. The churches are complicit in the current Bible college issue, having so long trusted an outside organization to do our heavy lifting!  Churches must step up to the idea of having multiple elders who lead the congregation, are able to teach, and have shared pastoral, spiritual responsibility for the congregation.  I am not speaking of a dry and dusty board position, but an "in the hospital and the counseling room, get your hands dirty" position!

What if church boards, which are set up to run like a combination of corporate and government entities, were replaced by ministry-focused teams of elders, who rubbed shoulders with the unchurched and hurting as part of their job description, who were required to lead a small group, be discipling a convert, and expected to invite unchurched friends to attend and sit with their family?  What if it was expected that unsaved people would regularly be guests in an elder team member's home, because "hospitality" was still a requirement for those in church leadership? (1 Timothy 3:2, Titus 1:8)

If churches cannot get used to this idea, then the current system will work just fine until it dies a natural death, and moves on to being a community college... because the local church wouldn't step up to be the organization Christ designed it to be.

2. Pastors, start doing your job.

Ouch. Me too. God convicted me about 2 years ago, that I was not raising up leaders here.  I was expecting Bible college to do it for me, and there are tons of people in my church who should be raised up, and should someday become elders and teachers who will never go to Bible college. In fact, I don't think they should. To step away from all they have built in their businesses, their relationships in their communities, their kids' schools, and go away for 5 years to train? Then return and start over? If they return at all? No.

To raise them up where they are – that is my job. I've been lousy at it (haven't we all?), and now I'm looking for solutions!

So, I should be actively recruiting promising young men, training them in theology, taking them with me on calls, working with them through books of Scripture, pointing them to books and resources. Mentoring them through hard ministry situations, letting them take the helm of church ministries, letting them fail and learn.

3. Students, start thinking differently.

My cousins, including 

my brother Kenny Stetler (student at Union Bible College) 

Kent & Maria Stetler (students at God's Bible School), 

and Benjie Stetler (student at Hobe Sound Bible College)

What if young men came to the conclusion:

"I'm going to live and work RIGHT HERE, and study for ministry. It's going to be hard. I will work part or full-time, budget carefully, go with the pastor on weekends, find myself a girlfriend, and balance all that with preaching when I have opportunity, meeting with the pastor on Saturday to be mentored, reading theology, taking an online class, and teaching a Sunday school class."

It's easier, honestly, to go away into an ivory tower, so no real people can bother your perfect ministry ideas. (I know... I created some great ones in the Schmul Library! :-)) But easier is not always better. It is a cliché, but there really are some things they simply can't teach you in Bible college.

4. Bible colleges, change your offerings.

• More elective, more online.  Am I excited about anything I see developing in the Bible College movement? Yes – I am pumped about the new online offerings that are springing up! From Aldersgate Distance Learning to Hobeonline.com, that is something that truly could serve the local church in the task of raising up elders to lead and teach.

• Shorter & more active.  The current system does four years (I took 5) of classroom and a 6 week internship. Why not 6 weeks of classroom each year, and a four year internship under a local elder team?  If a Bible college suddenly started offering a 10 week long course (those from GBS will recognize that), which focused on preaching, soul-winning, and theology, followed by 42 weeks back at their local church, it is my opinion that more would be done to serve the local church than is currently being done.  Let me send my teens for a summer or winter to a program like that... then let them come back, full of lots of info, pumped up with passion for the lost, and ready to be mentored in real-life situations. My church would sponsor students!

• Raise the bar.  What if to enter your church planting training program, you had to actually leave and plant a church?  What if just to get into it, you had to submit an application giving your vision and strategy ideas for a church plant?  Enrollment would drop precipitously, possibly.  And I would argue that impact would actually rise.  

5. Bible colleges, change your vision & marketing.

This is the section that makes me most nervous.  It could sound like I'm taking on some particular school or person – I'm not, not at all.  What I say here is across the board... all the colleges.

Honestly – decide who you are here to serve.  Is it the local church, or Christians who want education? If you are to serve the local church and assist them in raising up leaders, you're going to have to focus on that, and how it is best done for the local church... and probably stop doing things that don't serve that end. If you take a hard look at the vision of serving the Bride of Christ, it affects everything you do:

> Pushing graduates out the door, instead of assimilating them.  Some of the best graduates stay around because they are hired at the Bible college. The vision of a Bible college can get so big, or the needs can get so desperate, that it requires assimilating the best of its students to keep it progressing.  This is perfectly understandable (the students are already acclimated to the subculture, and are willing to work for less than an established person with a family.)  I've watched great, Tier 1 guys graduate from Bible College and become maintenance guys, PR guys, administration guys, and tech guys.  This does little to serve the local church.  

> Cut facilities and programs that drain cash.  If your vision is to help the local church raise up leaders, then some of the facilities and programs will no longer be needed. You can cut expenses, re-allocate resources, change class schedules.

> Rethink your goals & the compliance issues for accreditation.  Most of the enrollment goals go out the window. So does accreditation, honestly. The guys who are local church guys don't really care about accreditation. Only 2 kinds of people care:

• • Scholars who intend to go on to post-graduate studies and need good credit transfer. They have their place... most will be authors and teachers at Bible colleges.
• • The people who will take a few classes and transfer out – people who didn't come in planning to be church pastors.

 I know, I know. I sound like an anti-educational backwoods hick, "afraid of progress."  I'm not.  I just think that it's possible to get into a heady, rarified academic environment with a bunch of very smart folks in a room, and start living to serve their vision of what a school should look like, instead of serving the local church.

> Ask yourself "whose dream are we living out?"
What if you got 15 CHM pastors (young and old) who were trying to change the world in a room and said, "If we were to serve you guys, what would that look like?" 

I know this is radical. 
I know it doesn't work with the PELL grant system. 
I know enrollment would drop.
I know it would put cash flow straight in the toilet.
So sue me. :-)

> Rethink your marketing strategy.  Go for the jugular for pastors who need to train men. Go for broke on young men who want to push back the gates of hell... but for God's sake, decide that Bible College is not for everyone. 

If this is not your vision, and you want to be a university, to serve the education needs of Christians, that is fine! It really is ... just dump your Bible & theology (& missions? & music?) departments into a separate organization that will exist solely to serve the local church, without the other pressures brought on by credits needed to transfer, etc.

6. Professors, change your presentation. 

For those who are still teaching and administrating in Bible college... I love you!  

My Grandparents, Kenneth & Jewel Stetler

gave over 30 years of ministry to God's Bible School.

Get up every day with the idea that you are going to serve the local church by fanatically pushing these men into ministry. All the learning in the world will do no good if they are arrogant or afraid, and end up not going into ministry...

And, please be cautious about how you speak of the CH Movement... we have issues, yes. But if you convince them too well of your own "rightness," then don't be surprised if they fail to launch into ministry.  Instead, they'll want to stick around and serve your vision – they are convinced there isn't a compelling one at any of our "lame" small churches!

I REALIZE:

I realize that nothing in this post will get me hired as Director of Development at any Bible college.  :-)  But I'm not looking for a job there, just sharing as a local church guy who feels strongly that the hope of the world is wrapped up in what I do every day!  

I realize that what I'm saying here isn't easy or simple.  

I realize that this would result in many good people in Bible colleges losing their jobs.  For that I'm sorry. (They might find employment with local churches, if they went to ones with vision.)

If you question whether I care about Bible College employees, perhaps this picture will speak to that:

My family. This picture includes  my uncle Dan Stetler, president

of Hobe Sound Bible College, Frances Stetler, my aunt, teacher at 

Penn View Bible Institute, and Kenneth and Jewel, 
my grandparents retired from God's Bible School.
 The other two pastors, (My dad Darrell Stetler Sr.
& my uncle, David Stetler) & the missionary to Mexico (my uncle Steve Stetler),
were all trained at GBS.

I realize it would probably have tons of unintended consequences.  We would lose some things.  All change is that way. Gain instant email, lose personal letter-writing...

I realize that these ideas won't work separately.  They have to be part of a groundswell of change, churches, pastors, colleges, students, nearly simultaneously changing their mindsets. Nigh impossible.

And I realize that the same Spirit that has stirred my heart up about developing and discipling leaders in the local church may very well be saying "Keep doing exactly what you're doing" to a bunch of Bible college presidents, staff and faculty.  If He is, so be it.  Maybe this is just me misunderstanding what I should take away from what the Holy Spirit is doing in me.

CONCLUSION:

I am not against higher education.

I just think that there is a higher education in the doing than our current system appreciates. 

I often quote, "It's what you learn after you know it all that counts."

I welcome comments below, or message me on Facebook or Twitter.

Just thinkin',

Darrell