Teaching Theology

Dear prospective students,

We know this is the time of year when many of you are thinking about enrolling for theological education and here at Corpus Christi seminary, we want you to know that learning with us aims to change you and give you a foundation for the rest of your life. Here is how you could change. (Just to help you remember as you take your decision, I have put them in alphabetical order.)

1. Attitudes – We expect you to go away at the end of your course determined to live your life for God and His mission in the world.
2. Biblical understanding – not that you will know the dates of the kings of Judah, but that you will know how to exegete the different genres of scripture.
3. Companions – warm community will give you relationships and friendships which will last a lifetime.
4. Disciplines – disciplines of a successful human life, good study disciplines and the practice of the spiritual disciplines.
5. Employment- colleges are often judged by this; for us this means a knowledge of your gifting and an understanding of your vocation for God.
6. Formation- The big one; growth in spiritual, academic and ministerial formation blended together to form Christlikeness.
7. Gladness- Knowing that serving God is not a miserable thing but it can lead to a happy fulfilled life in Him.

These are our desires for our students. They are true and very beautiful, but there is another set of truths you should be aware of in coming to us;

These things can happen, and have happened to many students from good theological schools. Sometimes they don’t happen. There are three players in this game. Firstly, there is God, who alone by his Spirit does these things, makes these changes in students. The school can only provide some conditions in which these changes are possible. Secondly, there is yourself and your commitment to work hard to grow and to change with the help of God and the school. Thirdly, there is the school itself and its own mission, staff and hard work.

I can’t even say that we as a school will do our best because sometimes we fall short of best in this work because we are human, not all wonderfully gifted, sinful and often tired. Truth is, as a staff, we would love more of these changes in our own lives.

But perhaps you as a student and us as staff, being sinful, weak human beings relying on God, can get together at Corpus Christi Seminary this year, come under His word and see what can be done for our mutual change in these areas, for God’s glory.

Now do you want to come?

[posted early this month because of holidays]

This entry was posted on July 18, 2017 at 7:40 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.