Notes

on August 18th, 2008
  1. In 2005 the Alban Institute was invited by Lilly Endowment Inc. to look over the shoulders of those involved in its Transition into Ministry initiative to learn more about this effort and to share early discoveries with religious leaders. The result is this report. The principal authors are James P. Wind, president of the Alban Institute, and David J. Wood, coordinator of the Transition into Ministry Coordination Program for the Fund for Theological Education. The preparation of this report was supported by a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc.
  2. Richard Lischer, Open Secrets: A Spiritual Journey through a Country Church (New York: Doubleday, 2001), p. 8.
  3. Lischer, Open Secrets, p. 11.
  4. Lischer, Open Secrets, p. 40.
  5. Heidi Neumark, Breathing Space: A Spiritual Journey in the South Bronx (Boston: Beacon Press, 2003), p. 8.
  6. Neumark, Breathing Space, p. 24.
  7. Neumark, Breathing Space, p. 15.
  8. Congregations, Fall 2006, pp. 26–40.
  9. Brian Dixon, “An Underwhelming Welcome,” Congregations, Fall 2006, p. 29.
  10. Sarah Griffith, “A Way to Flourish,” Congregations, Fall 2006, p. 28.
  11. Christina Grace Kukuk, “An Anatomy Lesson: Discovering Where My Heart Is,” Congregations, Fall 2006, p. 33.
  12. See Robert Wood Lynn, “Notes toward a History: Theological Encyclopedia and the Evolution of Protestant Seminary Curriculum, 1808–1968,” in Theological Education, Spring 1981, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 137–140; Edward Farley, Theologia: The Fragmentation and Unity of Theological Education (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1983, 1994). See also W. Clark Gilpin, A Preface to Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).
  13. Charles R. Foster, Lisa E. Dahill, Lawrence A. Golemon, and Barbara Wang Tolentino, Educating Clergy: Teaching Practices and Pastoral Imagination (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006).
  14. It is important to note here that the participants in the Transition into Ministry programs expressed great gratitude for what they learned during their seminary years. But the value of what they learned did not diminish the difficulty or the importance of the transition challenges they faced.
  15. I (Wind) recall a story (probably apocryphal but nonetheless revelatory) that I heard frequently when I was a seminarian in the 1970s about how the president of my denomination was able to keep the essential files for the denomination in his desk drawers up until the 1930s. Now, of course, those records take up floors of office buildings and megabytes of computer memories.
  16. De facto congregationalism is a term used to describe the increasing tendency for people to form congregations for reasons other than denominational loyalty. Key to this definition is the notion that congregations are voluntarily gathered communities. See R. Stephen Warner, “The Place of the Congregation in the Contemporary American Religious Configuration,” in American Congregations, Volume 2: New Perspectives in the Study of Congregations, edited by James P. Wind and James W. Lewis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).
  17. The notable exceptions have been clinical pastoral education—situated primarily in health care facilities—and field education in local congregations. But most of these programs do not engage the regular faculty of a seminary in ongoing reflection upon ministry.
  18. Address by Daniel Aleshire, February 28, 2005, Indianapolis, Indiana, at a gathering of Transition into Ministry program directors.
  19. Unpublished lecture on Transition into Ministry, February 28, 2005, Indianapolis, Indiana.
  20. Carol Pinkham Oak, “Creating the Conditions for New Pastors’ Success,” Congregations, Fall 2006, pp. 20–25.
  21. See Donald A. Schon, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (New York: BasicBooks, 1991).
  22. Although this is most evident in the residency programs, one of the hopes of this program is that the participation of a congregation’s pastor in a program specially geared for new pastors will help the congregation become more aware of its role in the transition.
  23. Lee Shulman, The Wisdom of Practice: Essays on Teaching, Learning, and Learning to Teach (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2004), p. 477.
  24. Written reflection by a program participant on confidential evaluation materials.
  25. Jean Lave and Étienne Wenger, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 95.
  26. Lave and Wenger, Situated Learning, p. 116.
  27. Lave and Wenger, Situated Learning, p. 93.
  28. A review of several studies of theological education over the last century reveals just how enduring this question is: “The instruction in pastoral methods and practices is usually treated academically and theoretically. It is rare to find a case where the student is really trained in actual parish work; especially as an ‘intern’—an assistant to an experienced minister.” (Robert Kelly, Theological Education in America: A Study of One Hundred Sixty-One Theological Schools in the United States and Canada [New York: George H. Doran Company, 1924], p. 145). “To the question asked of all seminaries, ‘What supervision do you give to the field work of your students?’ a wide variety of answers was returned, nearly all revealing practical neglect. Many schools failed to reply.” (Ibid.) “In theological education, our question has usually been put this way: we have learned pretty well how to teach Bible, doctrine, ethics, and the other ‘content’ (that is, specialist) materials; but how can we teach the men to use these properly in practice? The one thing I am sure of about theological education is that it will never answer this question so long as ‘practice’ is considered as an addendum.” (1954, Seward Hiltner—quoted in Education for the Professions of Medicine, Law, Theology, and Social Welfare [New York: McGraw Hill, 1973], p. 185). “The greatest defect in theological education today is that it is too much an affair of piecemeal transmission of knowledge and skills, and that, in consequence, it offers too little challenge to the student to develop his own resources to become an independent, lifelong inquirer, growing constantly while he is engaged in the work of the ministry.” (H. Richard Niebuhr, Daniel Day Williams, and James Gustafson, The Advancement of Theological Education [New York: Harper, 1957], p. 209).
  29. For an excellent review and analysis of this history, see Robert Wood Lynn, “Notes toward a History: Theological Encyclopedia and the Evolution of Protestant Seminary Curriculum, 1808–1968,” Theological Education Spring, 1981, pp. 118–144.
  30. The notable exception would be the Lutheran (ELCA) pattern of theological education for pastors (M.Div.), which requires a four-year program of study, including an off-site, full-time “residency” in a congregation during the third year. Following the residency, students return to the seminary for their fourth and final year of academic work. For a description of the effectiveness of this pattern as it plays out at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, see Foster et al., Educating Clergy, pp. 321–322.
  31. See James P. Wind and Gilbert R. Rendle, The Leadership Situation Facing America’s Congregations: An Alban Institute Special Report (Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 2001).
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