Master Builder Institute for Leadership Development
Global Church-Based Theological Education
MINISTRY PHILOSOPHY
There are two basic principles
that guide our ministry philosophy:
1. The
church is at the center of God's redemptive work during this age, and God has
revealed an administration for the Church (Ephesians 2:11-3:12).
2. Every
aspect of Christian ministry (evangelism, discipleship, missions, theological
education, theology, etc.) needs to find its identity and purpose in building
up the Church and align itself with the revealed administration.
On a large scale, the
administration of the Church organically links what historically has been
called the universal Church and the local church. From a New Testament
perspective, the term "church" is used interchangeably for both
entities. So, aside from Western individualism, which is so pervasive in the
Church, the Church functions in a spiritually connected state of local and
global representation. The global Church is made up of local churches.
Local churches are parts of the larger, global body.
Within this global and local
organism, every function of the Church is addressed in the revealed
administration of God. Briefly, this concept informs the above
"institutions" of Christianity in the following ways:
Missions and Evangelism: Missions is the multiplication of
local churches, not just the multiplication of individuals. Local
churches have an obligation to network and support the ongoing sending of
apostles (missionaries) for expansion into unreached areas and to provide a
living testimony of Christ's love in their own local geographical area.
Theological Education: The context of theological education
must be the multiplying and establishing of local churches. In that way,
character, skills, and academics are integrated into a hands-on, apprenticeship
type training and development under a qualified and proven minister of the
gospel within a community context.
Theology: Theology has been institutionalized. It must
be returned to the activity and sphere of local churches, and not as a field of
Christianity delegated to scholars in institutions. For theology to
become fresh, engaging, and applicable, it must again return to the living and
ministering local church.
Discipleship: Discipleship is not a one-to-one function, but
a community exercise, building upon the strength of families, not just
individuals, and is shepherd by a qualified team of spiritual leaders.
Discipleship prepares all Christians for an active and integrated individual,
family, and community walk and service to God and His people.
CERTIFICATE OF MINISTRY - Portfolio Transcript
The Certificate of Ministry (C.
Min.) is granted for demonstration of rudimentary competencies associated with
being a minister of the gospel (pastor, church planter, missionary) and other
ministry leaders.
A Portfolio System is used to
support development and provide evidence of competencies related to the
program. The following is a list of competencies that must be
demonstrated in a portfolio and validated by MBILD/Antioch School faculty.
At the heart of each
MBILD/Antioch School program is an emphasis on life and ministry development,
not a set of courses. Further, the training modules themselves are
not just an accumulation of isolated academic experiences, but development
opportunities that are interwoven with the unique needs of individuals and
particular ministry situations in a manner that support comprehensive growth.
1. Life and Ministry
Development
i. Motivated
Abilities Pattern (MAP) Responses demonstrate your ability to use insights
from the MAP about how you are “hard-wired” to understand yourself and develop
for life and ministry.
i. Initial
response
ii. Annual
Responses
ii. Personal
Development Assessments demonstrate that you are receiving benefit of
in-service mentoring by those whom God has put into your life with a primary
responsibility for your development. Each is to be completed by a
designated mentor at least quarterly while in the program.
i. Life
and Ministry Assessment
ii. Becoming
Established Assessment
iii. Giftedness
Self-Assessment
iv. Ministry
Team Profile
v. Current
Ministry Assessment
vi. Journal
of Mentor’s Assessment
2. Training Modules
(Leadership Series 1 Course)
2.1 Acts:
Keys to the Establishment and Expansion of the First Century Church. Determine
the fundamental biblical principles regarding the mission of the Church and its
role in missions and developed guidelines and strategies from these principles
for a local church’s involvement.
2.2 Pauline
Epistles: Strategies for Establishing Churches. Determine the
fundamental biblical principles for growing and strengthen (establishing) a
church to maturity and develop a strategy for implementing the biblical forms
and functions of a church necessary to make and keep it strong.
2.3 Understanding
the Essentials of Sound Doctrine. Build a contemporary didache – the
term used by the early church to refer to a church manual to establish
believers in the essentials of the apostles’ teaching. This
contemporary didache must be founded solidly upon the faith delivered by the
apostles; seasoned by the historic effort of the church; and be eminently
relevant to our present cultural situations.
2.4 Leaders
and the Early Church. Recognize that leadership should be centered
in the local church in a way that will empower churches to participate in the
expansion of the gospel, with the same vision and effectiveness as the first
church at Antioch.
3. Ministry
Practicum (Learning by Doing). Contracted learning through ministry
experience, including written description of preliminary plan and learning
goals, report of actual experience, and evaluation and reflection of learning
accomplished. (Credit is granted at a rate of 1 semester hour of
credit for each 45- 60 hours of approved ministry practicum.)
BACHELOR OF MINISTRY – Portfolio Transcript
The Bachelor of Ministry degree
(B.Min.) is granted for demonstration of basic competencies associate with
being a minister of the gospel (pastor, church planter, missionary) and other
ministry leaders.
The general objectives of all
MBILS/Antioch School programs are:
· Comprehensive
development in character, skills, and knowledge for effective ministry.
· Life
development and lifelong learning orientation.
· Recognition
of and participation in the centrality of the local church in the plan of God.
· Ability
to master biblical content, benefit from significant contributions of scholars,
and build strategic models of ministry accordingly.
The general objective of Ministry
degrees is to help train those who desire to be part of a leadership and
ministry team that is one-minded in ministry vision and philosophy. Out
of this team would come those who commit themselves long term to local church
leadership or those who desire to train to be part of a missionary team
involved in planting or establishing churches in other areas.
Specific program objectives of the B.Min. include:
· Mastery
of Scripture relevant to church and leadership development, particularly
through study of the biblical theology of Acts and the Pauline Epistles.
· Reflection
on the contributions of leading scholars regarding church and leadership
development.
· Address
the pertinent issues related to church and leadership development and analyze
Scripture and other contributions related to those issues.
· Formulate
conclusions and personal applications regarding those issues.
The following is a list of
competencies to be demonstrated in order to earn the degree:
1. Life
and Ministry Development - 6 Credits
i. Motivated
Abilities Pattern (MAP) Responses demonstrate your ability to use insights
from the MAP about how you are “hard-wired” to understand yourself and develop
for life and ministry.
i. Initial
Response
ii. Annual
Responses
ii. Personal
Development Plans demonstrate your ability to plan according to your
unique purpose, story, abilities, roles and responsibilities, resources,
disciplines and determinations, and lifelong wisdom.
i. Initial
Plan
ii. Annual
Revisions
iii. Personal
Development Assessments demonstrate that you are receiving benefit of
individual service mentoring by those who God has put into your life with a
primary responsibility for your development. Each is to be completed
by a designated mentor at least quarterly while in the program.
i. Life
and Ministry Assessment
ii. Becoming
Established Assessment
iii. Giftedness
Self-Assessment
iv. Ministry
Team Profile
v. Current
Ministry Assessment
vi. Journal
of Mentor’s Assessment
2. General Education - 30
Credits
a. “Integrated Core” of General
Education courses, equivalency tests, or transfer credit
i. Language: The crucial Connection
ii.
Art: The Esthetic Experience
iii. Heritage:
The Living Past
iv. Institutions:
The Social Web
v.
Nature: Ecology of the Planet
vi. Work:
The Value of Vocation
vii. Identity:
The Search of Meaning
ii. Community/Service
Learning Projects and/or Great Books Reading Program (contracted learning at a
rate of 1 semester hour of credit for each 45 hours of approved assignments and
reflection)
3. Core Training Modules
(Leadership Series I Courses) – 30 Credits
3.1 Acts:
Keys to the Establishment and Expansion of the First Century Church. Determine
the fundamental biblical principles regarding the mission of the Church and its
role in missions and developed guidelines and strategies from these principles
for a local church’s involvement.
i. Develop
a basic understanding of biblical keys to the establishment and expansion of
the first-century Church and how to use these keys in the establishment and
expansion of the global Church.
ii. Design
a model to use as a guide in planting and establishing churches today from the
core elements of Paul’s strategy used on his missionary journeys.
iii. Determine
a biblical definition for missionary and missionary work.
iv. Develop
a conviction on the role of the local church in missions today and design a
model of how a local church could be central and vitally involved in missions,
while networking with other churches and mission agencies.
3.2 Pauline
Epistles: Strategies for Establishing Churches. Determine the
fundamental biblical principles for growing and strengthen (establishing) a
church to maturity and develop a strategy for implementing the biblical forms
and functions of a church necessary to make and keep it strong.
i. Develop
a biblical understanding of Paul’s concept of establishing local churches,
while discerning the difference between what Paul understood to be a normative
for all churches in every culture and generation and what he intended to be
merely cultural for his time and situation.
ii. Develop
a biblical understanding of how the Church fits into the overall plan and
eternal purposes of God.
iii. Develop
a biblical understanding of the philosophy that is to drive the ministry of the
Church and the guidelines (i.e. “house order”) by which each local church is to
abide.
iv. Bring
all of this biblical understanding together into a contemporary model for
establishing local churches in the twenty-first century, including general
procedures consistent with Paul’s establishing model and normative “house
order” instructions.
3.3 Understanding
the Essentials of Sound Doctrine. Build a contemporary didache –
the term used by the early church to refer to a church manual to establish
believers in the essentials of the apostles’ teaching. This
contemporary didache must be founded solidly upon the faith delivered by the
apostles; seasoned by the historic effort of the church; and be eminently
relevant to our present cultural situations.
i. Gain
an understanding of the preaching (kerygma) and the teaching (didache) of the
Apostles – the core doctrines – and their importance to churches of every
generation, summarizing the doctrines in statement form, which will be used as
a foundation for all contemporary theological formulations.
ii. Write
a modern kerygma/didache type doctrinal statement, which can be used by
churches as a guide for establishing believers in their faith, for doing
theology as a community of believers, and for aiding all believers in beginning
their own practical theology for everyday life.
iii. Gain
an appreciation for the historical effort of the Church as it has sought,
through the centuries, to provide the Church of its generation with a relevant
understanding and defense of the faith delivered by the Apostles.
iv. Lay
out a strategy for establishing everyone in a local church in both the gospel
(kerygma) and the essential teaching of Christ and His Apostles (the didache),
as well as understand how the curriculum grows out of the didache.
3.4 Leaders
and the Early Church. Recognize that leadership should be
centered in the local church in a way that will empower churches to participate
in the expansion of the gospel, with the same vision and effectiveness as the
first church at Antioch.
i. Develop
a basic understanding of leadership in the Early Church with all of its
complexities, focusing specifically on the work of ministers of the gospel and
that of elders and deacons and how their work is complementary in nature.
ii. Rediscover
the Antioch tradition of the Early Church, which lasted over five centuries,
and design a model for how to build this tradition back into our churches, as
we seek to have similar impact globally for the expansion of the gospel in the
21st century.
iii. Design
an effective, multi-level leadership development strategy for churches, which
is truly built upon the foundation of the New Testament and that will carry on
the Antioch vision of turning the world upside down.
3.5 Preaching,
Teaching, and Worship in the Early Church. Develop the ability
to preach and teach within the five sermonic forms of the Early Church:
evangelical, catechetical, expository, prophetic, and festal. These
forms grow from the integration with sound hermeneutical principles rooted in
author’s intention, literary design, theology of each book and canonical
section of the Scriptures, and related to the multi-level needs for teaching
and establishing local churches in the Apostles’ teaching.
i. Develop
a basic understanding of the teaching forms of the early church – evangelistic,
catechetical, expository, prophetic and festal – and the importance of each of
the forms for the contemporary expansion and establishing of churches
worldwide. Special attention will be given to the importance of the
reading of Scripture, and to a fresh understanding of Paul’s idea of rhetoric.
ii. Gain
a comprehensive understanding of the five preaching forms of the early church,
a basic approach to preparing sermons around these five forms, with special
attention given to the methods needed to employ these five forms in
contemporary preaching and teaching.
iii. Introduce
the student to the importance of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to the
integration of these forms into the worship of the life of the church in
appropriate cultural forms of worship design to enhance the effectiveness and
application of these forms to the everyday life of believers in these churches.
iv. Guide
the student into the integration of both the preaching forms and worship into
the Lord’s Supper, giving shape to the church gathering, as delivered by the
Apostles and as observed by almost all churches of the first 300 years of the
early church.
v. Integrate
culturally appropriate forms of both preaching/teaching and worship into a
contemporary meeting of the churches in a culture, with a view to create
“civilization” expression of music, drama and the arts.
3.6 Shepherding,
Counseling, and the Early Church. Develop an understanding of
the biblical model of pastoral care practiced in the early churches as a basis
for formulating a philosophy of pastoral care that is consistent with the New
Testament guidelines for living in community and treating problems in our own
lives and churches.
i. Formulate
a clear perspective of the gospel and the work of the Spirit in our
lives (from an examination of the message of the gospel in Paul’s early
epistles), as a basis for addressing the foundational needs and
life-controlling problems of new or un-established believers.
ii. Examine
the contemporary practice of integrating psychology and theology and assessing
the legitimacy of such an endeavor and its implications for the practice of
counseling within the church
iii. Lay
necessary foundations for skillfully handling the Scriptures in counseling and
developing convictions regarding the sufficiency of the Scriptures in the
counseling process.
iv. Critique
the contemporary emergency of a new Christian profession – Christian
psychologists and psychiatrists – and the Church’s reliance upon it for
pastoral care, while examining its implications on biblical authority
structures and responsibilities.
v. Design
a contemporary and comprehensive pastoral care strategy, consistent with the
biblical guidelines set forth in the Scripture for the life of the church and
an individual’s growth in the Spirit.
3.7 Interpreting
the Word I: Principles and Procedures. The overall objective of
this course is to gain skills and insights for identifying the author’s
intention for writing as it is expressed in the text he has written as the
determinant of meaning. Then, out of that meaning, the objective is
to determine the significance of that text for today.
i. Develop
a basic conviction on the importance of handling the Word accurately, paying
careful attention to the author’s intended meaning as expressed in the text as
the determinant of meaning rather that one’s own preconceptions.
ii. Gain
a basic grasp of the discipline of hermeneutics (the art of interpretation),
with foundational principles essential in interpreting and validating the
author’s intended meaning expressed in the text, as well as translating its
relevancy to the twenty-first century.
iii. Gain
a basic grasp of the discipline of exegesis (basic procedures for studying and
interpreting the Scriptures) as well as a basic proficiency level in accurately
drawing out the author’s intended meaning from the text and relating it to the
twenty-first century.
iv. Gain
an understanding of and proficiency in many of the recent literary
contributions, which are very significant in the process of interpreting the
Word, paying special attention to cross cultural interpretation and
application.
3.8 Interpreting
the Word II: Linguistics, Languages, and Study Aids. The overall
objective of this course is to develop the ability to skillfully use Hebrew and
Greek in the interpreting, preaching, and teaching of the Word, using the
advancement of linguistics and computer technology.
i. Develop
a basic understanding of linguistics which applies to any language, with
special attention being given to how to develop a functional equivalency
between Hebrew and Greek and the language to which one is translating the
Bible, as well as the specific skill of determining the semantic range of
words.
ii. Gain
a basic understanding of both Hebrew and Greek linguistics (in essence
identifying the unique characteristics of the Hebrew and Greek languages beyond
those of any language), followed by an introduction to The Translator’s
Handbooks – Old and New Testaments (55 volumes) created to guide an English
translator in applying general language, and Hebrew and Greek linguistic
principles in accurately translating the Bible into another language.
iii. Introduce
the student to Logos 3 Library System with an impressive array of Greek and
Hebrew tools, and how to use the exegetical and passage guides to make full use
of the Hebrew and Greek in the interpretive process.
iv. Guide
the student in building a digital library appropriate to the level of biblical
study needed, as well provide an extensive review of Hebrew and Greek tools,
commentary sets and reference works needed at various stages of development as
a leader.
v. Integrate
the skills of this course back into the work of Interpreting I: Principles and
Procedures, and Preaching, Teaching and Worship in the Early Church, in a way
that brings a mastery to the whole process of developing a hermeneutically
trained judgment, and to the process of study and preaching and teaching.
3.9 Habits
of the Heart. Discover the root causes and effects of the
present-day separation and fragmentation that has taken place within and
between “devotional life” and serious “theological studies.”
i. Examine
the life of the Early Church, identifying the habits and personal disciplines
necessary for increasing soundly in faith as individuals and as churches, being
protected from the constant infiltration of unsound doctrine.
ii. Identify
the “core habits of the heart” that ministers of the gospel and spiritual
leaders must maintain in order to visibly progress in the Scriptures in a sound
manner and identify the general development phases characteristics of most leaders,
sketching a lifelong strategy for growth and development.
iii. Sharpen
reading skills and develop a guide for building a lifelong reading program.
iv. Design
a strategy for a church in which corporate, family, and individual habits are
modeled and practiced in an orderly and natural manner.
3.10 Covenants, Unity of
Scripture and Biblical Worldview. Design an approach to studying
the whole counsel of God and discover, systematize, and articulate its central
message.
i. Summarize
the basic message of Scripture, including key strands (i.e. themes, motifs)
and/or historical movements, in the form of a basic statement or summarize in a
chart or graph.
ii. Surface
the basic issues of tension between the Old and New Testaments, studying the
basic lines of continuity and discontinuity between the Testaments on each
issue.
iii. Translate
the central message of the Bible into a “worldview manifesto,” which can serve
as a guide for life, bringing life direction and goals into harmony with this
worldview.
4. Ministry Strategy Plans – 6
Credits
i. Initial
Ministry Strategy Plan that integrates ministry and mission strategy from
Acts; strategy for establishing churches from the Pauline Epistles; a clear
distillation of the of the core gospel (the kerygma) and the teaching of Christ
and His Apostles (the didache); and a clear strategy for training leaders in
the way of Christ and His Apostles – integrating the training of both local
(modality) and mobile (sodality) leaders.
ii. Interim
Ministry Strategic Plan that integrates insight gained from the content of
at least four other Leadership Series courses.
iii. Final
Ministry Strategy Plan that integrates insight gained from the content of
all the Leadership Series courses required for this program.
5. Ministry Practicum
(Learning by Doing) – 9 Credits
i. Contract
learning through ministry experience, including written description of
preliminary plan and learning goals, report of actual experience, and
evaluation and reflection of learning accomplished. (Credit is
granted at a rate of 1 semester hour of credit for each 45 hours of approved
ministry practicum.)
6. Teaching Practicum
(Learning by Teaching) – 9 Credits
i. Contract
learning through teaching experience, including written description of
preliminary plan and learning goals, report of actual experience, and
evaluation and reflection of learning accomplished. Students should
receive evaluation in the following manner:
· A
ministry leader should evaluate the student’s teaching to identify strengths
and weaknesses related to the course content (not necessarily the student’s
teaching skills);
· Participants
should evaluate what they thought was accomplished in terms of their own
learning, as well as what would have been helpful in better accomplishing the
course goals because this may be a key indicator of areas that the student
doing the teaching may still need to develop.
· Students
should evaluate themselves in terms of what they accomplished related to the
course content, including what they identified as areas that may still need
further development.
ii. The
First Principles Series
i. The
First Principles Series I
iii. Leadership
Series Courses
i. Acts:
Keys to the Establishment and Expansion of the First Century Church
ii. Pauline
Epistles: Strategies for Establishing Churches
7. Other – 30 Credits
i. Additional
Competencies – Determined by certified leaders for everyone in that
partner program.
ii. Free
Electives – May include additional Leadership Series courses, Lifelong
Learning Reading Program, Leading “Great Books” Community Discussions, Ministry
Practicum, additional Teaching Practicum, credit by testing, or other transfer
credit.
MBILD Class Pictures
