(a four-part mini series – part 3)
01.12.2025 / Volker Glissmann
In part 1 of this mini-series (The original questions that shape TEE), we looked at the original questions that shape TEE: who is called to participate in Christian ministry, and who are the right leaders. In both cases, TEE practitioners recognise that, over time, restrictions (or barriers) on who was invited to participate in theological education had increased to the point that individuals who, for the sake of the ministry of the church, should have been trained were not receiving theological education. From these observations grew the vision behind TEE, which is to extend access to everyone-everywhere to participate in theological education fully. The TEE vision is to extend access and remove barriers to theological education for the sake of the church, faith, and ministry. The third original question is about how all people of God can be empowered through their participation in theological education, or, in other words, how can theological education be extended to those who should have access to it? In part 2 (Implementation of the original questions that shape TEE), we examined how early TEE practitioners wrestled with these questions and the solutions they found to extend theological education.
Contemporary TEE practitioners face a different theological educational landscape than previous generations. What is significant is that in the last number of years, the questions about the scope of theological education has changed at least in some quarters, like the ICETE (International Council for Evangelical Theological Education) where now a broad consensus of the scope of theological education is emerging that recognises that the focus of all-people ministry (the priesthood of all believers/ministry of all believers) requires that theological education needs to extend from a narrow base of recipients to a broad base (see the ICETE Manifesto II: Call and Commitment to the Renewal of Theological Education in the Evangelical Review of Theology, 2023, 47:3, 253–273 – https://theology.worldea.org/evangelical-review-of-theology/.
Theological education is thus about equipping all people everywhere for faith and ministry. This kind of training for faith has always been part of church-based or congregational theological education (like catechumen, baptism, or confirmation classes, as well as training to empower individuals to gain and use specific ministry skills, like lay reader, lay preaching, and lay pastoral work training). Leadership education is important, but it is not the only form of theological education needed. It seems that, too often, the assumption is that Christian leaders are also the congregational teachers, extending theological education to their parishioners; however, comprehensive preparation for such a ministry is rarely reflected in the curriculum.
Theological education at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century increasingly recognises the need to be more intentional about providing appropriate theological education for the whole church. Therefore, the question for today that drives theological extension education is a question asked in theological education more broadly: “How can we extend access to and remove barriers to appropriate, quality theological education, thereby equipping the whole church for life and ministry?“ This question concerns how this broad and inclusive vision of theological education can be effectively implemented. It is a question about the intentionality in the design of programmes and their local/regional availability to address the diverse training needs of the church.
Because the definition of theological education is already being broadened in some quarters, TEE practitioners can think more strategically about how to extend it. The keyword that simply, positively and affectively describes the TEE vision, the theological education by extension vision is “extending” or “extending access to everyone-everywhere.” The two questions to be asked are: How can we extend access to theological education? How can we remove barriers to access to theological education? The central question for TEE practitioners going forward is: How can we extend access to and remove barriers to appropriate, quality theological education, thereby equipping the whole church for life and ministry?”
Unfortunately, there is no single answer to the question of how best to extend theological education to everyone-everywhere, because local needs are always contextually driven by the needs of the church. However, there would be a clear starting point: the needs of the grassroots church. Ideally, theological education would be built up from the grassroots. A comprehensive understanding of the contextual needs of the grassroots would then inform the design of the training programme for those responsible for training the grassroots. Too often, the needs of the grassroots church are not the starting point for curricular design; instead, higher curricular content, courses, approaches, and methods are treated as universally applicable, including in grassroots theological education.
The other major difference in grassroots theological education is that non-residential training is fundamentally less intensive than residential training. The intensity of residential training depends on the intensity of time intentionally dedicated to theological formation. Whereas in residential training, learners are, for significant periods of their day, immersed in forms of theological formation, the same is not replicable in grassroots training. Non-residential theological education requires methodological approaches that consider differences in daily learning intensity and the disruption of the lives of non-full-time students, who can, at the same time, practice theological reflection within the context of life and ministry.
Another barrier to collaboration is that not every theological educator agrees with a broad vision of theological education, thereby excluding non-ministerial, non-leadership, and non-tertiary-level training. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with institutions and theological educators specialising in leadership education or tertiary-level theological education; however, specialisation should be promoted within the broader framework of theological education.
We will invite other TEE practitioners to reflect on this question in their local contexts: “How can we extend access to and remove barriers to appropriate, quality theological education, thereby equipping the whole church for life and ministry?”