What Challenges do British and Irish Theological Colleges Face Today?
Theological education and doctrinal formation are at the heart of healthy ministries and healthy churches. In our present series of articles, we have asked Dr Davy Ellison, Director of Training at the Irish Baptist College, to answer some key questions about how we think and develop theologically, and what we should be thinking about in regard to theological education. In this instalment, we ask Davy about the challenges that theological colleges are currently facing:
Theological colleges across Britain and Ireland are facing, arguably, unprecedented times. Student numbers are plummeting, finances are becoming increasingly unstable, tragic stories of closures, selling up and massive restructuring are becoming the norm. As someone who is in leadership of just such an institution, I acknowledge that leaders of theological colleges need to take ownership for some of these issues. Poor governance, unrealistic ambition, and a failure to articulate the need for theological education compellingly have all contributed to the position we find ourselves in.
And yet, I think there are four challenges that lie beyond the control of those within theological education. Two challenges originate in the local church and two in governmental agencies. Both, however, are making our job more difficult—if not impossible.
Failure of Discipleship
A significant issue facing theological colleges is the challenge of recruitment. The pandemic in 2020 clearly impacted people’s willingness to take risks in all areas of life. Undoubtedly the cost of living has impacted the viability for mature students to return to full-time study as well. But underneath this lies the church’s failure to engage in rigorous discipleship.
My experience is that we are poor at implementing good discipleship structures in local churches. Once someone is saved, we make sure they are on track to join in membership and serve in a ministry, then as long as we see them most Sundays we are satisfied. But we need more. We need to take Titus 2 seriously, and even if it is only one other person in our church, make time to invest in a fellow Christian. I am convinced that if we as churches were more diligent in this task of intentional discipleship, those who should be considering full-time, vocational Christian service would emerge before our eyes.
Theological colleges expend significant amounts of time, energy and finance on advertising in an attempt to lure students to them. This should not be the way it works. Rather, local churches should be sending men and women of character and calling to trusted theological colleges to be prepared for gospel service. But this process begins with discipleship.
Shortsightedness regarding leadership
Money apparently makes the world go round. My theology tells me different, but finance is not unimportant. One of the frustrations I face in my role is that individuals and churches are desperate to support mission agencies financially—find me someone church planting, involved in mercy ministry or providing Bibles for small tribes in damp rainforests and I will find you financial backing. But try to gain financial backing for training the people who go and do these things and you soon find that individuals and churches are hesitant to support institutions and lecturers.
But where do future church planters, evangelists and Bible translators gain their training to enable them to fulfil their ministries? Ideally, theological colleges. We need to regain a long-term vision of packing a pipeline with well-trained eager gospel workers of godly-character. We need to ensure that training is accessible and affordable. And if there are less people training there is less income on fees. If we fail to step up to support theological colleges financially we may soon find that we do not have enough of them to train future leaders for the church, the mission field and the parachurch world. Our shortsightedness today may significantly hamper gospel hope for our grandchildren in the future.
Expense
One of the reasons financial support is so important is because higher education is so expensive. This is simply the reality of living and operating in this world. It costs a lot of money to have a course accredited. It costs a lot of money to ensure that an institution is quality assured. It costs to issue visas, recruit adequate staff and maintain premises. It costs to provide the necessary learning materials for students. None of it is cheap. And for small theological colleges this can be crippling. A lack of strategic financial backers means expense consistently outpaces income.
Bureaucracy
Similarly with bureaucracy. A small institution like the one I serve is expected to complete the same bureaucratic processes as a university with 25,000 students and 4,000 staff members. This means our staff need to be competent in several different areas. At one point in my role I was required to deliver both UG and PG teaching, offer pastoral care to students, administer the delivery of teaching, run the admissions process, ensure institutional quality, keep abreast of Home Office requirements, possess a working knowledge of the Student Loans process, execute advertising and marketing, devise fundraising, produce publicity, develop deputation material and maintain connections with supporting churches. A single individual in a single role in a theological college covering all of these bases is not unusual. Bureaucracy is a massive burden creating enormous challenges for theological colleges.
None of these challenges are insurmountable, but those working in theological education and ministry training can have only a limited impact beyond simply raising them.
Davy Ellison (PhD, Queen’s University, Belfast) serves as Director of Training for the Irish Baptist College. He is an elder in Antrim Baptist Church, and is the author of several books. Davy is currently writing a volume on conversion as part of our A People on Purpose series.