 |
|
 |
 |
|
||||
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
Although the Train and Multiply programme is no longer distributed by SEAN, it has close associations with TEE. It is hoped that the www.trainandmultiply.com website will be up and running soon. Meanwhile PWR has supplied the following explanatory information.
T&M (Train and Multiply) is actually TEEE not TEE - Theological Training by Extension with Evangelism. It is dynamic and fluid. It is a discipline backed up by specially designed materials which follow New Testament principles of church planting and allow for the spontaneous multiplication of churches.
SEAN courses are not actually entirely traditional because of their system and approach but are traditional in the broader sense. T&M would actually be the precursor into which SEAN courses could be placed into the dynamics of T&M for additional reading and training. T&M breaks away from the traditional Bible school / seminary model of teaching, growing leaders planting churches and follows scriptural methods. I believe it to be the needed first step in dynamic church life. It has been exceptionally successful in all cultures.
T&M is more than just materials. It is a relational system
being presented and distributed in the same relational way as the principles
in the material itself. It includes interactive coaching and mentoring, levels
of certification for trainers, coordinators and mentors so that the users in
the field are coached toward the correct use of biblical principle in church
planting and leadership development in a direct way. This is something that
no other set of materials in the world offers.
Please do visit www.trainandmultiply.com and review the article there. This
will give you a good overview. Look at the Origins document and also the Preliminary
explanation, the Organizational chart and all the rest!
We are developing an active ministry from a set of materials which are based on correct approaches and biblical principles.
We are also doing training and seminars in various parts of the world: China, Venezuela, Mexico, USA, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Holland and more this year alone.
T&M is unique in the world. There is no other material that combines dynamically pastoral and leadership training with church planting.
In a practical sense PWR operates the entire ministry. It has rewritten and redeveloped a mountain of things. SEAN distributed the materials. We share the copyright on the original materials with SEAN, and SEAN remains our doctrinal editor and part of the T&M Group. We are so happy for our friendship and ongoing relationship and, as T&M develops, we hope to enhance each others effectiveness and distribution.
Here is a generic comparison of the traditional and T&M methods.
By mentoring new Christian leaders we mean non-formal coaching as Christ and his apostles practised it. They did not train new leaders in the same way that they taught the general public. When our Lord taught the crowds by the sea, his classroom was a beach. But to mentor a smaller group of new leaders he turned, climbed a hill and sat with them to chat. We who train new leaders also need both approaches. By comparing mentoring and classroom teaching we aim not to show that one is better but that we need balance between the two.
Mentoring is too time consuming to be the main tool for general education or for mature leaders whose flocks are already doing the things that the New Testament requires. We recommend more mentoring, however, for new leaders. Where the comparisons below appear critical of traditional classroom education we mean to reprove its abuse, not to question its legitimacy (the writer teaches in a conventional seminary classroom). The most common abuse is an imbalance between the two approaches. It exalts lecture beyond reason and overlooks important biblical norms at the expense of much-needed mentoring.
Classroom teaching alone is not enough for new leaders. Lectures alone fail to help mature leaders who begin a new ministry for which they need coaching. Newborn babies need personal attention; likewise new leaders and new churches need mentoring until they are doing all that the New Testament requires.
Intensive mentoring is temporary, as it was for our Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles. When a leader is taking the right steps and no longer needs mentoring we phase it out in favor of less time-consuming classes or workshop.
As you compare the two approaches we hope will see why we need balance between them.
Location is not important as long as two-way communication occurs
between all present.
Classroom: For training mature leaders we often prefer a classroom designed
for one-way communication.
Mentoring: Trainees walk (or ride) together or sit around a table
as at the Last Supper, forming a circle or some other arrangement that allows
maximum interaction.
Classroom: Our students usually face the same way, seeing only the backs of
other students' heads.
Mentoring: We train potential leaders who meet the biblical qualifications for 'elders’. They are spiritually mature, for example, and keep their children in order. We do not add to the Biblical requirements, lest we deny the pastoral vocation to persons whom God has gifted for it.
Classroom: Our Bible schools, especially in mission fields, often enroll single young people who are not proven as leaders and thus fail to meet the biblical requirements for an elder. Graduates often become pastors because they studied a certain number of years in an institution and have a diploma that proves that they can recapitulate memorized material for examinations.
Mentoring: We seek to keep the group small enough to listen and respond to each student-worker. We help each one plan what his people will do the next few weeks. Christ occasionally took three of the twelve apart for special counsel.
Classroom: We often seek larger classes. Floor space may determine class size rather than learning dynamics.
Mentoring: We do intensive mentoring until new leaders and churches no longer need it. The interaction is too time-consuming to continue indefinitely. Christ phased it out with the twelve, as Paul did with Titus whom he left in Crete to prepare others (Titus 1:5-9). He also left Timothy in Ephesus to do the same (2 Tim. 2:2). Once a leader is can carry on ministry without the mentor's help or a church is functioning well, mentors phase out the personal interaction. Ongoing training takes then takes the form of more conventional lectures or workshops.
Mentoring resumes, however, for a special need such as a change in ministry or a personal matter, such as when Paul wrote Philemon, a house church leader, about a matter of slavery. In this sense, mentoring never ends.
Classroom: Degree requirements, class schedules and semester calendars determine the duration of teaching, often without reference to the maturity of a student's church or ministry development.
Mentoring: Trainers are mentors who show love, care and interest, as Paul who shed tears for new leaders in training (Acts 20:31).
Classroom: For leaders who are mature enough to make their own application of the material, a teacher's main concern is less personal and normally focuses on how well they grasp the subject.
Mentoring: Among Jesus' disciples and in Paul's apostolic bands we see interaction between trainees who serve one another and participate together in current ministry. No students worked alone. They traveled by twos or small groups to minister while they learned.
Classroom: We seldom give attention to students' interaction except for special events or to keep order.
Mentoring: We train leaders as part of normal church life. After Pentecost training took place while raising up or shepherding congregations, also as apostolic bands traveled to sow the seed in new areas. Wherever the apostles made disciples churches or urban cells multiplied. Cells are small churches and may be part of a larger one. New Testament churches met in homes and were part of a highly interactive, citywide 'church' that was a network of tiny house churches or cells.
Classroom: Imbalance and abuses occur when we teach only in an institution isolated from the rest of the Body of Christ. Even in a church building we can use a classroom that is disconnected from the life of the church members and the community around us.
Mentoring: We keep leaders in training in touch with current events. Jesus' disciples were profoundly affected by John the Baptist's imprisonment and death. Paul's companions were constantly affected by community events such as the riot in Ephesus.
Classroom: Imbalance occurs if our students have little or no involvement with outside society. Our institutions sometimes purposely shield them from outside influences.
Mentoring: Our image of the new leaders-in-training includes hands to serve, feet to spread the gospel and heart to obey Jesus in love - a complete body. We consider them as student-workers or apprentice-pastors who serve in some ministry from the beginning. We help them to take on more and more responsibility as Paul did, while they grow in knowledge and skill.
Classroom: If we aim too exclusively for scholarship that's all we'll get - mere students, not servant-leaders. We get a distorted view of a student body if we concentrate on little more than ears and brains.
Mentoring: We serve in harmony within a highly interactive body as Scripture requires in 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12 and Ephesians 4:11-16. A mentor serves those with other gifts while they serve him with theirs. Normally the organization is a church or network of churches, or is an educational arm of the churches in a close working relationship with them.
Classroom: Imbalance occurs when we isolate our teaching in an educational program that remains separated from other New Testament ministries or we isolate our educational institution from churches.
Mentoring: We help congregations to provide the arena for training leaders. New Testament churches sent out apostles to make disciples in neglected areas and trained the new leaders in the process.
Classroom: Church participation in classroom training is nil or perfunctory when we ask pastors merely to recommend a theological student. We also bring imbalance if we implement internships after regular learning has taken place - too late for meaningful involvement by the church.
Mentoring: We recognize pastoral or evangelistic achievement. Assessment of learning depends mainly on results in ministry. Our teaching is good if our students do good ministry. Christ and the apostles placed no value on written credentials.
Classroom: We give praise for good test results and acknowledge achievement with diplomas, degrees, certificates or public honors. Recognition - motivation Mentoring: We help students to aim for effective ministry and to obey leaders in love (John 14:15; Heb. 13:17). We do not urge competition to motivate them. Scripture lists rivalry along with murder, drunkenness and adultery as a wicked work of the flesh!
Classroom: We urge students to aim for good grades or to compete for honors.
Mentoring: Mentors consciously aim to extend Christ's kingdom. Wherever the apostles trained leaders, new churches multiplied.
Classroom: Teachers often aim for academic excellence, growth of the institution and a positive image.
Mentoring: Student-leaders commit to ministry from the start, at least to pastoring their own families as the core of a new cell group or church. Their education integrates more and more practice of pastoral skills as they move forward. Mentors push them into the swimming pool from the very beginning-but into the shallow end, requiring that they do only what their level of training allows. They do no pulpit oratory, for example, while still taking child's steps as new leaders.
Classroom: Students often commit to completing units of study or degree programs. In some programs they commit to an internship that is separate from the classroom experience.
Mentoring: We commit to listen or in some other way learn first what the student is doing with his church or people, to detect current needs and ministry opportunities. Then we apply the Word, history, doctrine and any other relevant discipline. We train in cooperation with other instructors or mentors with skills in areas that we lack. We help students plan activities for their churches or ministry groups, and hold them accountable to follow through.
Classroom: We commit to prepare our presentation well, assign ample reading that is relevant to the subject, and communicate in a way that assures understanding.
Mentoring: When modeling pastoral skills or other activities that new leaders are to imitate and pass on, we use only equipment that is available to them-the light baton for rapid church multiplication. A main concern for selecting equipment is to provide an affordable and reproducible model.
Classroom: For training mature leaders we often seek the latest and highest technology that budgets allow. Our primary concern for selecting equipment is effective classroom communication, without considering if the method is transferable to others in the students' field.
Mentoring: We consider a student to be a leader only if he leads.
Simply teaching is not leading. One must move his people from one point to another.
This movement means growth in Christ-like character, which requires a corresponding
increase in ministry involvement serving others in a practical way. True leaders
initiate and continually improve those ministries that the New Testament requires
of a church, and bring a high percentage of their flock into active ministry.
Classroom: A faulty view of leadership occurs when we fail to balance mentoring
and classroom instruction. Students or pastors who confuse leading with teaching
lead few people into active ministry.
Mentoring: We respond at once to students' ministry needs and opportunities, by observing, listening and empathizing. Jesus did not simply lecture or teach leaders-in-training what they could learn for themselves. For example, He answered questions with questions such as "What do you read in the Law?" Interaction is evident in Luke's version of Jesus' teaching that parallels the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew; Jesus was responding to questions and comments.
Classroom: Imbalance occurs if we lecture with little interaction or limit interaction between students.
Mentoring: Where we need to multiply churches or cells we train in a way that new student-workers imitate and pass on at once, training others who train still others. Jesus commanded His disciples to do only what they had seen Him do first in a way that they could easily imitate. Paul told the Corinthians to be imitators of him as he imitated Christ (1 Cor. 11.1). He trained Timothy and Titus in a chain reaction; one trained others who immediately began training still others (2 Tim. 2:2; Titus 1:5). New leaders begin almost from the beginning to train newer leaders in newer churches or cells. Jethro advised Moses in Exodus 18 along similar lines. For new leaders we 'lower' pastoral training standards until they are simply biblical, to facilitate reproduction.
Classroom: Reproduction is seldom the purpose of our teaching, except when institutions expect graduate students to teach the same subject in the same or a similar institution. We seldom relate instruction to church multiplication.
Mentoring: We expect immediate results in a new student-leader's life, family, society or church.
Classroom: We lack balance if we fail to help students to apply our teaching to immediate ministry opportunities or problems. Some teachers hope only for a vague future application.
Mentoring: We categorize truths under titles that use or imply action. (Good unit titles are action verbs). We form our teaching content around church, community or family activities. Teaching modules or units deal with action balanced with abstraction. We present truths together with plans to edify the church body at its current stage of growth, or in preparation for tasks such as when Christ gave instruction as he sent the 70 to evangelize Judean villages (Luke 10).
Classroom: Our instruction normally categorizes truths under titles that use static, abstract nouns. We present material in a logical and analytical order, comparing similar concepts and listing them together. A unit might deal with all of God's attributes, for example, rather than focusing on one of them and using it to define tomorrow's plans.
Mentoring: We integrate widely different disciplines and applications, focusing them all on the edification of a person, project or church body which is the integrating factor. Paul's epistles taught a variety of doctrines bundled together but related to the current life of a congregation or individual.
Classroom: We normally limit instruction to an area that is well-defined in analytical and logical terms. We relate the subject to other disciplines only where a logical presentation requires it, rather than verifying first what a particular student's church or ministry requires. Our focus from an intellectual viewpoint is often sharper because it is limited to one area of interest.
Mentoring: We use a menu. Students can select content from different sources as required by current situations. Jesus said a good teacher in the Kingdom of God is like a householder who brings forth treasures from his storehouse, things both new and old (Matt. 13:52).
Classroom: We follow a pre-prepared, analytical outline, normally limited to one subject.
Mentoring: We use any relevant material. If we write, edit or compile materials, we present it in a menu format so that new leaders can easily select options that edify their people at their current stage of development and need. For example, the pastoral training program Train & Multiply uses a menu approach with 65 small textbooks, so that students and trainers can easily select material written specifically for current needs, problems or ministry opportunities of a student's new church or cell.
Classroom: Our teaching and reading assignments often follow one or more textbooks written specifically for the subject, with little effort to offer menu options.
Mentoring: We base teaching on the divine authority of our Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles. Jesus commands us in Matthew 28 to make disciples by teaching them to obey his specific commands. The first New Testament church in Acts 2 exhibited this obedience by obeying all of Jesus' basic commands. His commands form the foundation; he is the Rock. Building on it means to obey his words (Matt. 7:24-27). Bible doctrine per se is not the foundation; Christ and our relationship with him are. We establish first a relationship of loving, childlike obedience to Jesus (John 14:15; 15:14). This is foundational-the first floor of the 'building.' The written Word and doctrine are the second and third stories and on up forever. For all eternity we will learn more about God. New Testament curriculum builds upon the commands of Jesus and his apostles, so that students' churches soon practice all ministries that God requires.
Classroom: If we do not balance abstract data with obedience-oriented education, a student can easily overlook submission to the living Word Jesus Christ. This happens if we let our students consider the foundation of theological education to be only knowledge of the written Word and doctrine in the form of propositions or dogmas.
Mentoring: We use the Bible, especially the New Testament, not only as content for teaching or preaching but also as the norm for how they practice evangelism, confirm repentance, organize churches, conduct worship, relate to other congregations, train leaders and deploy missionaries.
Classroom: We often use the Bible merely as content for teaching. Some evangelical churches, especially in the West, seldom use Scripture as the norm for the way they practise the activities required by the New Testament.
Mentoring: We aim for pastors (shepherding elders) to take the main responsibility and initiative to train newer pastors. In pioneer mission fields this is often essential for normal church multiplication. A church's apostles (the 'sent ones' of Ephesians 4:11-12) start the process in a neglected area, as in 2 Timothy 2:2 and Titus 1:5. A mission agency or educational program may provide guidelines, tools and some faculty, but does not take the primary responsibility from the pastors.
Classroom: The faculty of an educational institution assumes the main responsibility for preparing mature Christian leaders. Sometimes faculty members lack pastoral or apostolic gifting; as a result they produce preachers but not pastors, that is, teachers who do not shepherd the flock by leading it into the required gift-based ministries.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|