Moore College is set to launch a new centre to help churches and clergy strengthen their ministries through training and support.
The Centre for Ministry Development (CMD) will be launched in February 2013 and will seek to offer personalised assistance for clergy and churches.
“My prayer for CMD is that it will be a one stop shop for churches and ministers who want to keep getting better,” said the Rev Archie Poulos, the head of the Ministry department at Moore College, who will lead the new initiative.
CMD will cover a broad range of issues and topics and will seek to offer practical advice on anything from how to be a better speaker to how to use a diary properly.
“CMD is different because it seeks local, individual and personal engagement,” Mr Poulos (pictured) said. “One example of how we want to offer assistance is to improve student minister experiences. Student ministers often have very patchy experiences in churches, so we want to say to clergy, ‘come and be better prepared in how to train a good student minister’.”
One of the first steps of CMD will be to do an audit of clergy to discover where their strengths and weakness are.
According to Mr Poulos, Moore College is sometimes criticised for not providing enough practical training for students.
“The College is brilliant in the crucial work of preparing ministers Biblically and theologically and while it does offer a certain level of practical training, any more than that would be at the expense of Bible and theology,” he said. “That is where CMD comes in. It will build upon the courses offered by the college to equip clergy and churches at the ‘coalface’.”
CMD will offer support and training to clergy and churches through some new resources as well as partnering with other organisations who can also assist.
“Faithful Christian ministers always long to serve Christ and his people with more insight, improved skills and greater effectiveness.,” said Moore College principal, the Rev Dr John Woodhouse. “We believe that full-time theological education builds a firm foundation, and that ministers then need ongoing development to be the most faithful and effective ministers they can be. CMD will support this development with the best possible coaching and training tools.”
The work of CMD will not seek to replace work done by organisations like Ministry Training and Development, which Mr Poulos says: “does a brilliant job in keeping people together who studied together and keeping them theologically sharp.” Instead it will seek to offer individual assistance for ministers and churches who require it.
