education — Articles — Advent Christian Voices

Leadership Development: Where We’ve Been, Where We Must Go

1987. This was the year campus operations ceased at Berkshire Christian College. At that time, Berkshire was the primary means through which pastors were trained and developed within the Advent Christian Church. It had been more than a decade since pastoral studies programs had ceased at the Advent Christian Church’s other college, Aurora College, so with Berkshire’s closure, the Advent Christian Church was left without a clear avenue through which pastors and key denominational leaders could emerge.

Church & Seminary Together: a response to "Where Are Tomorrow's Leaders?"

In the article, “Where Are Tomorrow’s Leaders?” published recently on the Advent Christian Voices website, and reprinted from the Advent Christian Witness, veteran Advent Christian pastor Steven Brown poses an important question. He argues that the traditional model of theological education in a seminary or divinity school no longer serves the needs of the Advent Christian Church.

Where Are Tomorrow's Leaders?

For about one hundred years Advent Christians relied principally on two colleges to prepare church leaders.

While formal theological education was not universally valued in the churches, the schooling model was believed by many to be the primary incubator for people called to ministry. Training leaders in theological colleges (and seminaries) was entirely consistent with accepted practice in the wider North American church, reflecting an educational paradigm highly regarded in the last half of the 19th century into the present era.

3 Things I'm Looking for at Triennial

I’m new to the denomination and have been working as the Director of Student Ministry at Oak Hill Bible Church in Oxford, MA for the last two years. I came in as a Southern Baptist, but through the mentorship of others I found inconsistencies in my view of anthropology and eschatology; I’m now a conditionalist. As my good friend Nathaniel now likes to say, “Erik is a Reformed Baptist Adventist” or in other words, “Erik is two parts jerk and one part confused.”(I'll let you figure out the formula) During my short tenure, I’ve noticed that we have several issues as a denomination that many have tried to fix, most will recognize that we still have a lot of work to do. In this piece, I would like to tell you what I’m looking for next week at Triennial as a new Adventist who plans to stay here awhile.

It's Time To Talk

Why is it that open discussion has largely fallen out of practice in Advent Christian circles? How is it that a denomination that is so full of diversity and was quite noisy during the 20th century is now quieter than a church mouse?

Tom Loghry, DialogueThomas LoghryMarch 7, 2017dialogue, education Comments

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