January 01, 1995 by Dr. David Hesselgrave

Dr. David Hesselgrave, Dean of American Missiologists, the just-retiring Executive Director of the Evangelical Missiological Society (in a new book, Scripture and Strategy), describes the World Christian Foundations Curriculum now being offered by accredited institutions on both upper division and graduate level.

[Beginning in the middle of Chapter Ten, on page 158]

If those who are familiar with educational developments in the non-Western Christian world were asked to look back over the years since World War II and designate the one innovation that has been most significant, in all likelihood they would answer, "Theological Education by Extension" (TEE). If the same people were then asked to nominate the one person who has been most influential in terms of enhancing theological education and making it more widely available to leaders and potential leaders of church and mission, in all likelihood they would respond, "Ralph Winter."

Winter was one of a coterie of educational leaders in Central America who, in the postwar years, took a long, hard look at pastoral selection and training on the one hand, and the needs of the churches on the other. Jim Emery was another. Actually, Emery was there first and contributed the key insight: the real leaders were in the congregations, not in the seminary student bodies! Winter then helped to figure out how these leaders could be trained, focusing first on training church leaders for Guatemalan Indians.

These field missionaries concluded that those in the Pentecostal tradition had in fact rediscovered an important strategy in allowing ministry opportunity to gifted leaders without extensive special training. While not wanting to give up their tradition of formal training, their goal was to make training available to the real leaders in the local congregations. Thus, TEE was born with more of an emphasis on whom to teach than on what to teach.

Winter became Executive Director of ALET, the Latin American Association of Theological Schools (Northern Region), and in that capacity spread the "TEE gospel" in the seventeen northernmost countries of Latin America. In 1965 he was invited south where he encouraged TEE thinking and was in attendance at the birth of a Brazilian association of seminaries in extension. Subsequently, under the auspices of the EFMA and in the company of Ralph Covell, he embarked upon a global trip during which no less than eighty-three seminaries were visited and introduced to TEE. Since that time many schools have inaugurated TEE programs. At the same time, many of them oppose the ordination of those leaders who complete them. Winter feels that this is a betrayal of the original insights and purpose of TEE.

During the last twenty-five to thirty years, Winter has been active and innovative in other ways. He saw the need for a publishing ministry that would give priority to mission materials and established William Carey Library. He saw the need for the kind of training that would better prepare students who were in the throes of considering missions as a major career, and initiated the Perspectives Study Course. He believed there was a need for a major mission center in each country, and inaugurated the U.S. Center for World Mission which became a model for some thirty such centers around the world. He felt there was a need for an experimental university in association with the U.S. Center and originated William Carey University.

In all of this, Winter has not lost sight of the fundamental leadership crisis that has arisen as evangelical churches and educational institutions place an increased emphasis on the professional ministry. He has pointed out that, except in Pentecostal movements around the world, the usual mission field has a hundred churches and only ten "properly trained pastors." Consequently, he and his associates have developed the World Christian Foundations curriculum aimed at upgrading the training of leaders already in place and functioning as pastors in the ninety congregations rather than working toward replacing them with "young men trained in school rather than real life." In order to avoid what would have been significant resistance to curriculum change, TEE concentrated on delivery systems--getting training to those who most needed it. Now when many schools are initiating new programs and changes in their curricula, WCF aims to take the most beneficial kind of education to those who are in a position to make good use of it.

Beyond TEE: the World Christian Foundations Course of Study As we entered the 1990s, Winter began to think more and more about two gigantic obstacles to the completion of the Great Commission in the foreseeable future, and also about a tremendous pool of potential workers who could spearhead an unprecedented breakthrough. The way he viewed it, the "two largest obstacles to missions from the U.S.A." are rather easily identifiable:

What is the largest obstacle? It is very simply the tragic, trudging, procession of college graduates who are too burdened with debts to allow them to go into missions. School debts interpose years of delay--and usually end in denial--of the mission call for tens of thousands of mission-minded college graduates!

The second-largest obstacle . . . is the fact that our society has unthinkingly chosen to impose what seems to be endless years of schooling before young people can enter into real life, jobs, marriage, etc. This means missionaries arrive on the field ten years older and far less able to master the language. Or, in 90% of the cases, these thousands of once-enthusiastic mission-minded students don't arrive at all.

But Winter seldom sees problems without coming up with solutions as well. The solution to overcoming these two obstacles are to be found tapping into a huge pool of potential missionaries. First, by 1993 the Perspectives course had been completed by some 20,000 Christians in the United States and an equal number in other countries. Some 80,000 others had been exposed to Perspectives on the World Christian Movement (Winter and Hawthorne 1981), the textbook used in that course. The vast majority of these people have had their appetites whetted for further study and Christian service. Winter sees them as a vast pool of possible Christian workers.

Second, it has not escaped his notice that there are an estimated forty million Americans over the age of twenty-five who have only two years of college and that five million of them are now enrolled in off-campus degree completion programs. According to

Winter's calculations, this means that there are over 200,000 evangelicals who could be candidates for full- and part-time Christian service if a WCF type curriculum were made available to them in a "degree completion" mode by Christian colleges across the country.

So Winter's solution is twofold. Missions should give serious consideration to accepting candidates from among these hundreds of thousands who have been considered "unavailable" because they have not yet completed college. And churches, missions and individual Christians should give a larger place to Bible-based, off- campus education.

To expedite this solution, Winter and his able associates-- his wife Roberta, William Osborne, James Oliver Buswell III, and Corrine Armstrong among others [Ed. drawing on courses by Walter Kaiser, Jr of Trinity/Gordon-Conwell, Walt Russell of Biola/Talbot, Paul Pierson of Fuller, and John Gration of Wheaton Grad School]-- have developed a thirty-two-semester-unit curriculum called World Christian Foundations. Currently available on an experimental basis directly from the Institute of International Studies of the U.S. Center, it is primarily being prepared for use by other schools around the world in their off-campus programs. Already a number of Third World schools are adopting it, as are several major U.S. seminaries. The new field surveyors division of Wycliffe Bible Translators is one of those suggesting that the undergraduate version be made available in the near future.

The primary features of the World Christian Foundations course of study, then, are as follows:

1. A Field-based Design. Whereas on-campus programs of the kind that characterize traditional Bible college and seminary programs require that students (and often spouses and children) relocate in the area of the school, WCF allows them to remain in the area of employment and church involvement. Whereas off-campus programs such as those sponsored in TEE and many other extension courses often require professors to meet with students at a distance from the main campus, WCF requires personal input from only one (local) mentor and allows for more flexibility as to meeting places and times of meeting.
2. A Missionary Perspective. More often than not, Christian education, including training in Bible and theology, focuses on either the subject matter of the particular course of study and/or the particular type of ministry envisioned by the student. The student who is preparing for a pastoral ministry, for example, takes systematic theology and pastoral theology. In systematics the student examines what the Bible says about the nature of God, the fall of man, the means of grace, the church, and so on. In pastoral theology the student focuses on preaching, administration, officiating at weddings and funerals, etc. What is all too easily lost in all of this is the overall purpose and plan of God, and the progress of His plan through the ages. Also overlooked, or at least minimized, are such things as the global church, world religions, the impact of culture, and so on. The very theme of the WCF curriculum, on the other hand, is "Declare his glory among the nations"!
3. A Chronological Structure. The WCF course of study is based on a "time-frame sequence." This means that, instead of moving willy-nilly through course materials in accordance with whatever sequence or progression might be adopted by the professor, the structure of the entire course of WCF study is based upon the movement of history, especially upon history as "His story"--the large picture of what God is doing, past and present. To be more specific, the entire course of study is broken down into four modules:
   
   First Things Creation to 400 B.C.
   Formulation 400 B.C to A.D. 200
   Fruition A.D. 200 to 1980
   Finalization 1980 to the Present
   
   What is most important here is not the periodization as such, but rather the emphasis on the unfolding of God's plan from the beginning to the end of history as we know it.
    
4. An Interdisciplinary Approach. Fragmentation and nonintegration are avoided by refusing to "partition off" the various fields of study. The materials of the disciplines that go to make up a well-rounded education are studied in relationship to history. For example, the materials that go to make up a course in cultural anthropology are woven into the fabric of the four-module outline. So readings on the meaning of culture, distinctions between the cultural and the supercultural, and the development of separate cultures appear in relation to a study of the early chapters of Genesis. Kinship systems are considered in relation to a later study of the book of Ruth. And so on.
5. A Student-Mentor Relationship. In an arrangement reminiscent of that of pastoral studies in the early days of North America, and also reflective of many doctoral programs currently, each WCF student works under the tutelage of a mentor. The mentor may be chosen by the student but, in any case, the mentor must qualify by meeting the requirements of the directors of the program. Mentoring is taken seriously by the directors. Mentors are provided with a wealth of information on program philosophy, course materials, the student-mentor relationship, and procedures. Students meet with their mentor on a weekly basis and for an extended period which is carefully structured.
6. Extensive Course Materials. Though students are expected to take full advantage of library resources available to them, the Institute of International Studies provides information on volumes to be acquired by the student, video taped lectures, and manuals written and produced specially for the WCF course of study. Each component is important. Student purchases largely consist of the kind of reference works that will serve them well over a lifetime. Audio lectures, for example, feature a complete series on Old Testament theology by Walter C. Kaiser and are augmented by his writings on the subject. (Since Kaiser takes a chronological approach to the study of Old Testament theology, both his methodology and materials fit hand-in- glove with the WCF program.) Manuals prepared specifically for students in the WCF program include detailed workbooks, integrated readings gathered from a wide variety of sources, and an illuminating mentor's handbook.
7. A Detailed Schedule. Unlike most correspondence degree programs, the WCF program is carefully designed to assure that students undertake a variety of learning activities, adhere to a regular schedule, accomplish specific goals, and complete the masters degree within a two-year period. The materials provided by the Institute both require and enable the student to accomplish well- defined assignments on a daily and structured basis.
8. Inductive Bible Study. From the very beginning to the very end students are not only encouraged but also required, not only challenged but also instructed so as to ensure that they will study the biblical text for themselves. For WCF students, a concordance, (preferably a concordance of the original language), takes precedence over a commentary. In fact, the commentaries are the last books to be consulted as students are led through the study process. First comes the larger context, then the particular passage at hand, the structure, the phraseology, the etymologies, the parallel passages, and, finally, the Bible commentaries and Bible handbooks.
9. A Heuristic Philosophy. Closely allied to the inductive method of Bible study is the deep-seated conviction that what a student discovers for herself or himself is much better remembered and used than what a student accepts from another. The words are a part of academic jargon but are used quite widely even in relation to Bible study so that it is important to distinguish between the two adjectives "heuristic" and "serendipitous." The latter refers more to chance discovery while the former has to do with demonstrating sound investigative methods. WCF students are taught to investigate for themselves and come up with defensible answers. But having done that, they are also taught to consider the works of those who have gone before. After all, the Bible is to be understood in the context of the church, not only or primarily the closet or cloister.
10. A Discipling Component. Convinced that the best way to learn--really learn--any given body of material is to teach it to someone else, program planners have included assignments that require students to devise plans for teaching the various lessons. Moreover, they are expected to teach them to groups or at least share what they have learned with a friend, spouse or other family member.

Conclusion

[Selections only] Preparation today often extends over many years. Student families are relocated and must try to find new church homes and employment near the school. Budgets are strained to the breaking point. Studies are intense but fragmented. And graduates may still be unprepared to face the multi-cultured, multi-religious and still materialistic and morally bankrupt world of tomorrow.

The innovations of the WCF course of study are designed to resolve some of those problems by providing a new kind of integrated training for actual and potential church and mission leaders. Envision a situation where the motivated student studies under the tutelage of a mentor who is both a thinker and a practitioner, one who does not replace the experts but serves as a link to them. Where the primary textbook has been authored by the Living Lord of the universe, and all human productions and progress are measured by His revealed truth. Where studies are so arranged that geology and astronomy are studied concurrently with the Genesis account, and where the life and teachings of Confucius, Lao-tze, Gautama and Zoroaster are studied along with those of great Old Testament prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel.

My purpose in writing this chapter is not…to promote the World Christian Foundations curriculum as such, even though I am not aware of any other comparable curriculum on planet earth that incorporates and integrates such a massive amount of relevant knowledge into a framework that is so thoroughly and unapologetically biblical. Rather, my purpose is to encourage all who have important roles in selecting and training the Christian leaders of today and tomorrow to take another look at what is happening and what should be happening…we would do well to review the World Christian Foundation program and philosophy. WCF makes integrated training available to leaders in the field and leaders in process.

[This is the last half of Chapter Ten, pages 158 to 167. Chapter Ten is entitled, "Ralph D. Winter: Training and Consecrating Future Leaders." The book: Scripture and Strategy: The Use of the Bible in Postmodern church and society, William Carey Library, 1994. See page 52 to order.]