Educational Philosophy

The institutional church is increasingly incapable of producing strong candidates for the ministry. While finding people worthy of the training is a challenge, even when the best are found, the training often fails to equip them as it should. Our ecclesiastical institutions use the failing education models. The most common secular approaches to education are based either upon business models that have a contrary philosophy to that of the church, or upon educational models which were developed to train people to withstand the monotony of industrial work that was foreseen as their lot by the planners of the early twentieth century. Other models of education, some more traditional and some newer, have more to offer towards equipping pastors for the challenges of our time. Our program will focus on developing the mind. Some say that a good minister must have people skills and practical hands-on experience. They are right. Other people say that such people skills won’t be learned in school, and hands on experience comes best in an actual congregation. They are right, too. Our conclusion is that our school for ministry should focus on what it can do well, not on what will be learned best in another venue. The life of the mind will be the focus here.

In past models of education, the physical stance of teacher and student was central enough to be part of the name. Hence the followers of Christ were disciples, literally ‘followers’, who followed him where he went. Our stance will be one of face-to-face conversation. There may be further goals to be reached by the students after they leave the Wittenberg Institute. But even discovering what those are will be done through discourse.