On a recent trip I had the pleasure of visiting both Oxford and Princeton in the same week. I am sure I had some work to do that week, but my daughters had assigned me the task of purchasing a T-shirt or sweater, one from Oxford and one from Princeton. So, between activities, I found myself in stores imagining their sizes and colour preferences. As it turned out, I achieved the goal, straying neither to the disappointment of too small, nor the embarrassment of too big. As for colour, I fluked that too.

But, as I fulfilled my absent-father duties, I reflected on the greatness of the institutions I stood amongst. The sweater I bought in Oxford had the date 1249 on it. Historians of Oxford will point to beginnings going back one hundred and fifty years before that! The first residential college was founded over seven hundred and fifty years ago. Princeton is a relative newcomer, being a university from only 1896, but it too has a history of clergy education that began in the middle of the 17th Century!

It seemed to me that the two things needed in establishing the great traditions of academic institutions are time and money. (Of course, Overseas Council is committed to something more profound than just academic institutions, but more of that later.) When I consider the colleges that OCA supports, the majority of them are twenty to forty years old. By definition all of them are in places where the church is weak, or at least where it is poor, so the colleges have few resources. Could any of them ever be great international learning institutions? Well not tomorrow. But that is why we need to think in terms of two hundred years time. If the Lord tarries, and if things go well, what might they look like in that time?

Why Western Christians should support developing world Bible Colleges

There is no college I know in the world, including in the West, that supports itself merely from the fees of its students. They all get help from denominations, or from earlier government or private endowments which provided them with a foundation, or from the support of churches and individuals. The problem is that in the developing countries the wealth base is not there because the church is either too small, or too poor, or both.

Overseas Council stands in the gap because of the church's smallness and poverty by exciting donors in the West to contribute to the colleges of the Developing nations. There are many advantages of this strategic support for leaders in their training years. While the training phase is relatively expensive everywhere, the ministr y costs of the nationals once they have been trained is commensurate with the local salaries. Local churches can bear the burden of their local leadership, but not necessarily the training costs.

By comparison with the strategy of funding Western missionaries, funding nationals to train in their own environment is far more cost effective.

Depending on the country, five to thirty nationals can be trained for the cost of one Western missionary. Furthermore they know the culture and language and they stay ministering for thirty or forty years after college.

As a strategy for helping build the church in a strategic way, support of theological education in Developing countries is an excellent investment for the kingdom.

Are theological colleges really the right model?

This question is common enough and worth asking.

Some people in the West are critical of theological education which is too academic and not related enough to real ministry. When I see what is happening in the West, I agree with the criticism.

The stand out feature of theological education in the Developing world is the commitment the colleges have to students doing practical ministry while they study. When I was in college it was books first and ministry a distant second. In the colleges I now visit in Asia and Africa (and elsewhere) there is a far more sensible coherence in the program between the two elements of training. In my opinion it is the most noticeable difference between the West and the rest. Furthermore the ministry practice in the West is by and large focused on maintenance of existing ministries. The focus of Asia and Africa is on growth ministries where students are actively part of church planting teams. What is true of the students is also true of the faculty. Few lecturers in the West have a role beyond being an occasional preacher, whereas in country after country elsewhere it is standard for lecturers to be church planters and pastors.
The other reason the theological college model is questioned has to do with the academic level of training. We hear so many stories of church planters, in India for example, who have little training and yet begin a new church every year or so. If this great work of evangelism proceeds without diplomas and degrees, why support colleges which seem unnecessarily academic?

In response I would say that it is not a case of "either/or' but "both/and'. The great leaders of grass roots mission movements typically have good training even to masters and doctoral levels. That is part of the reason why they can be so competent in their ministries. They have reflected on the Scriptures and ministry in a structured way over an extended period of years. Furthermore the quality of Christian preaching and evangelism by the grass roots evangelist can only really be assured by good teachers who mentor the person over years. This is what a good theological college is actually doing. It fills hearts as well as heads, and equips the hands at the same time.

The danger of syncretism (blending of the faith) is always present if leaders are not well trained. It is easy to take for granted a whole system of healthy churches and decades or more of stable Bible teaching, such as we often enjoy in the West. However where such foundations do not exist then energetic evangelists can plant weeds of disaster amongst the new churches.

Why not use the great colleges of the West which have so much to offer?

The granting of scholarships to the brightest students of the Developing world has, except for a few notable exceptions, been a disaster for the sending churches. Overseas Council is critical of the whole system which merely encourages a church "brain drain' paralleling what we see in the secular world. The best are chosen, offered an opportunity, and few return to their home church. The return rate to the home country typically is less than half and when the student does return, their learning is from such a different context that it takes years to readjust, or after a time they merely return to the West. It may assist the individual to have a more comfortable life and perhaps an ethnic congregation in the city that they go to in the US or UK, but it is a systematic pillaging of a church which is desperate for leaders and least able to afford losing them.

A notable exception to this lack of return problem is the work of Langham Partnership, founded by the great evangelical leader, John Stott. Langham puts a premium on scholars returning to their home countries to be of genuine benefit there. Needless to say Langham Partnership shares many of the same values as Overseas Council. Interestingly they now recognise the value of colleges outside the US and UK and sponsor some students to study not in the West, but in the better colleges of Asia, Africa and elsewhere.

The ministry of Overseas Council is even more focused on changing the whole system. We seek to build on the capacity of colleges that already exist in the Developing World. Our strategy is to choose the best evangelical colleges in each country and without dominating them, support the college to fulfill its dreams for growth. This is done through scholarships for new students coming into the college, through supporting building programs, libraries and computers, but also through training senior faculty and Board members in how to fulfill their roles more effectively. Our vision is to completely transform the capacity of the church in every country of the world so that it can train its leaders. With over one hundred of the best colleges currently supported in over sixty countries, our prayer is to grow even further in fulfilling this vision.

The Rev Stuart Brooking is Executive Director, Overseas Council Australia. This is an edited extract from the book, A Different Perspective: Asian and African leaders’ views on mission (OCA books, 2006) which is available for $14.95 from Koorong.