Christian leadership development today (post 4 of 4): the NSW Presbyterian ecosystem

Introduction 

This is the fourth and final (and longest – sorry…) of my posts interacting with the observations Geoff Folland, national director of Power To Change Australia, made earlier this year about the opportunities and challenges facing the Australian evangelical Christian higher education sector. 

1. My first post introduced the series and summarised the four institutional approaches to ministry formation which Geoff has observed within the Australian Christian higher education sector. 
2. My second post reflected on how I think post-Christendom has affected the broad cultural context in which Christian leadership formation takes place. 
3. My third post showed how I think Geoff describes three different patterns of theological and ministerial formation which reflect different assumptions about who possesses the authority to define effective Christian leadership therefore form Christian leaders. 

I’m now going to try to apply all the above to my particular pastoral context: the NSW Presbyterian Church (PCNSW) and its theological college, Christ College Sydney. 

Presbyterian confessionalism 

During the 20th century, Australian Presbyterianism, along with most of Western established Christian denominations, was influenced by theological liberalism which systematically marginalised not only denominationally distinct doctrines like election and predestination but core Christian beliefs including the inspiration and final authority of the Bible, Christ’s divinity, his sin-bearing death as the only way to be reconciled to the holy God, his physical resurrection, and his return “in glory to judge the living and dead” (Apostle’s Creed). Most of those theologically liberal influences were absorbed into the Uniting Church in 1977. Since then, the Presbyterian Church of Australia (PCA) has been steadily reclaiming its gospel-centred confessionally Reformed identity. 

Confessional Christianity does not deny the final authority of the Bible. But it is optimistic that Biblical truth and ministry priorities can be articulated – ‘confessed’ – with a high degree of completeness and accuracy in summary documents – ‘confessions’ and ‘catechisms.’ These confessional, catechetical resources don’t replace the Bible. They do communicate what the confessing community – the particular ‘denomination’ – believe the Bible says. They therefore don’t have the final authority of the Bible as the inspired therefore inerrant word of God. But they carry the secondary but genuinely significant authority of the particular church, this particular subset of the people of God, who confess it. 

The PCA’s ordination vows only require elders and ministers to hold to the Westminster Confession as an expression of the Biblical faith. I hold not only the Confession, but the entire system of the Westminster Standards, as the best, most comprehensive and internally consistent expression of the Biblical, Christian faith. I think that kind of confessional identification is becoming more and more common amongst PCA leaders, therefore increasingly the character of the PCA. 

Evangelical fellowship 

This kind of confessional commitment does not preclude broader ‘evangelical’ ecumenism. One can be convinced of classical Presbyterian statements of faith and forms of ministry without disparaging every other denomination and ministry. Rich cross-denominational fellowship is nourished by 

1. Recognising how much we have in common; 
2. The degree to which those common convictions facilitate shared ministry; 
3. A respect for conscientious convictional differences. Different hermeneutical manoeuvres – the way we interpret particular texts; the relative interpretative weight we assign to different ones; and the way we knit them together into a whole – have different theological and confessional consequences. 

I like to think of ecumenical engagements at three levels: 

1. Broad evangelicalism; 
2. Calvinistic evangelicalism; 
3. Conscientious confessionalism. 

At the broadest level of evangelicalism, we agree on the above basics about Christ, the Bible, and the need for faith in him, but may disagree on important issues like the continuation of miraculous gifts and their manifestation in the ordinary course of ministry (Pentecostal and Charismaticism) and the order of the divine will and human will in salvation (the doctrines of election and predestination; ‘Calvinist’ vs. ‘Arminian’ or ‘Wesleyan’ soteriology). The Lausanne Movement and the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) are the best representations of this broad fellowship. In Sydney, I would put Morling College in this category. I have benefited from, and contributed to, the ministry of the broadly evangelical Lausanne Movement, especially its Global Diaspora Network (GDN).  

A theologically narrower but denominationally broad Calvinistic evangelicalism has for decades been strong in Sydney, nurtured by its own ecosystem of colleges – significantly Moore, but also SMBC and more recently Christ College – and ministries like the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students (AFES) and the Katoomba Christian Convention (KCC). The Gospel Coalition Australia (TGCA) has recently sought to nurture that kind of Calvinistic evangelicalism across the country. I’m an authorised AFES staffworker – I contributed to Campus Bible Ministry (CBM) at Western Sydney Uni Parramatta from 2010-13 and Macquarie Christian Union at Macquarie Uni from 2014-19. I have regularly published with TGCA. 

And the narrowest fellowship is with denominations, ministries, and Christian leaders who don’t only hold to a Calvinistic soteriology but who are conscientiously confessional-Reformed, i.e. they intentionally shape their ministries according to the historic characteristics of Protestantism as demonstrated by particular confessional traditions. The Westminster Standards are one of those characteristic expressions. The others are the Anglican 39 Articles; the continental Reformed Three Forms of Unity (the Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism and Canons of Dort); the Baptists’ Second London Confession; and the Congregationalists’ Savoy Declaration. Each of these statements, and the theological movements characterised by them, are slightly different. What holds them together and gives them a shared character is their shared commitment to theological depth and ministry practices which express those deep theological commitments. 

Each of the above three fellowships generate overlapping ecosystems which do not entirely exclude each other, but, being founded on different convictions about the nature and extent of ecumenical fellowship, bear different characteristics. 

Presbyterian ecclesiology 

If the above are the ecosystems of Australian evangelicalism in general, what is the ecosystem of the NSW Presbyterian church in particular? 

Presbyterian ecclesiology is 

1. Christ-centred therefore gospel-centred, in a way which 
2. Prioritises the worshiping community – the ‘congregation’; 
3. While still including broader non-congregational ministries within the ‘church.’ 

The PCNSW is technically the Presbyterian Church – note the singular – of Australia in the State of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. We are not the Presbyterian Churches, plural, in NSW and the ACT. We are one church with various congregations and other ministries (see below). 

In this we differ even from our closest sister church, the Christian Reformed Churches – note the plural – of Australia, the CRCA. CRCA supra-congregational bodies (synods) have less authority than PCA ones (presbyteries and assemblies). This reflects the relative weight the two denominations give to congregational autonomy and denominational unity. When comparing the two, the CRCA prioritises congregational autonomy, the PCA inter-congregational unity. This is an example of the institutional outworking of the theological (in this case, ecclesiological) consequences of different hermeneutical manoeuvres, as I mentioned above. 

This way of talking about ‘the’ Presbyterian Church probably sounds confusing because we’re used to using the term ‘church’ to refer to the particular community of people with whom we gather weekly to worship God, hear his word, and serve him and each other. That prioritisation of the particular Christian community is right. The gathering of God’s people is the main place where God works in and through us, through his word, in the context of our ongoing relationships with each other. The rest of the Presbyterian Church depends on and finally serves those congregations. 

But being most important does not exclude lesser priorities. A centre does not exclude a periphery. Presbyterian congregations exist within an ecosystem of other ministries which serve congregations (and the rest of God’s church and world at large) and give those congregations opportunities to engage in God’s mission of discipling the nations (Matt 28:18-20). 

These ecosystemic elements support congregations and individual Christians, e.g.: 

• Presbyterian Youth (PYNSW) seeks to resource children’s and youth ministry; 
• The Ministry & Mission dept (M&M) resources congregations and leads the rest of the church in evangelistic and church planting initiatives; 
• The Gospel, Society and Culture committee (GS&C) equips the rest of the church to engage apologetical, ethical, and pastoral issues associated with living in today’s post-Christian culture; 
• METRO provides various paths whereby emerging leaders can have opportunities for pre-college apprenticeship; 
• And Christ College seeks to equip all the above with adequate theological and (theologically-grounded) practical skills to advance Christ’s mission. 

Most of them also provide missional opportunities for Christians to disciple the nations. E.g.: 

• Our Presbyterian denominational schools do good to the world at large by providing education within a Christian ethical framework, and thereby also provide opportunities to show young people what it means to follow Jesus, and call them to follow him. 
• PYNSW doesn’t just resource children’s & youth ministries within the church. It also facilitates Presbyterian public school scripture volunteers – Special Religious Education, SRE, which is a significant evangelistic and apologetical opportunity. 
• Jericho Road resources congregations and the rest of the church to do good by caring for the needy, and in the process creates opportunities to build relational connections which facilitate the sharing of the gospel. 
• Australian Presbyterian World Mission (APWM) facilitates international mission. 

So I think the PCNSW is an integrated ecclesial ecosystem which is centred on congregations, which are themselves resourced by other ministries which also provide opportunities for evangelistic, apologetical, ethical and missional engagement. 

The PCNSW serves the whole of NSW and the ACT. We cannot only consider Sydney congregations and ministries suitable for a global capital city. We also need to consider ministry to regional, rural, and coastal centres, with their particular opportunities and challenges. 

This NSW Presbyterian ecosystem does not operate entirely on its own. It operates within, and is in various ways and to varying degrees ‘porous’ to, the ecosystems of 

• The rest of the PCA – e.g. unlike Baptist and other congregationalist churches, minister’s ordination is not controlled by individual congregations nor even by the NSW Presbyterian Church but by the national church which sets the course of training; 
• Sydney and NSW Calvinist evangelicalism as noted above – we are influenced by, and to varying degrees influence, Moore and SMBC, the AFES, and TGCA; 
• To a lesser extent, broader evangelicalism, e.g. local Presbyterian congregations often collaborate with other local churches to resource Protestant SRE; the PCNSW is a member of the NSW Council of Churches; 
• The world at large – see my second post about the effects of post-Christendom. 

Christ College in this Presbyterian ecosystem 

So with both the above theological and ecosystemic realities in mind, what might be the implications for Christ College, our PCNSW theological training seminary? In my answers, I’ll use 

• Geoff’s analysis of the four different structures of theological education as summarised in my first post, and also 
• My observations in my third post about three different models of ministry formation which reflect different locations of formative authority 

AUT consortium 

Being part of the AUT consortium (post one structure two) helps Christ College retain high academic standards, but not in a way detached from the rest of the Church and the confessing community (like the University of Divinity, post one structure one), but intentionally integrated within them. 

The three models of formative authority 

Godly theological scholarship  

I argued above that Australian Presbyterianism is confessional, and that confessional Christianity holds that Biblical truth and ministry priorities can be articulated – ‘confessed’ – with a high degree of completeness and accuracy in significant documents – ‘confessions.’ Those confessional convictions will be different from non-Christian beliefs, therefore inculcate significantly different convictions and ways of life, especially in a post-Christian cultural context. Confessional Christianity will therefore tend to be theologically rigorous. This means Christ College will tend to apply the first model from post three, where we ask trainee leaders to temporarily separate themselves from secular pursuits so as to intensively temporarily immerse themselves in a community of godly scholarship. 

Practical training 

But one aspect of its character as godly scholarship is its orientation towards the worshipping community – the rest of the church (Presbyterian or any other). Again, this is the difference between the scholarly style of structure one in my first post, which is abstracted from communities of people worshiping God, and the other three structures, all of which seek to resource the church in some way. This practical, ministerial, ecclesial orientation means the College can – indeed, needs to be – invested in the formation of ministry skills and character through practical ministry. It also expresses Presbyterianism’s prioritisation of congregations. 

Christ College has already invested in the second model of post three: decentralised practical training under experienced, demonstrably competent ministers. The PCNSW’s METRO apprenticeship program provides this kind of experiential formation before college. Christ College’s traineeship combines it this practical experience with formal reflective classroom study. The College’s internship program integrates practical training into study. 

This kind of decentralised located training may help the college serve the rest of NSW beyond Sydney. We have some significant congregations in regional towns. Could the college use their property to provide decentralised training? 

Broader training 

The authoritative nature of confessional Christianity orients it towards the ‘supply side’ posture of models one and two, where the authority to form leadership resides in the learned theological scholars (model one) and the experienced, demonstrably competent ministers (model two). But it does not entirely discount the broader approach to training envisaged by model three. Confessional Christianity has a high view of Christ’s lordship over all of life – the family, education, ‘secular’ employment, etc. especially in a post-Christian context where Christian approaches to everything are not only ignored but increasingly vilified and punished. Confessional Christianity’s stability means a confessional college probably won’t seek the kind of flexible agility that underpins training model three. But it doesn’t prevent the college from seeking to equip a variety of people for a variety of ministries, including equipping people with skills to live as Christians in an increasingly hostile cultural environment. 

Vertically integrated with diverse elements of the ecosystem 

I argued above that Presbyterian ecclesiology 

• Is focused on localised worshiping congregations (which we normally think of as our ‘church’); 
• But does not reduce all ministry to those congregations (can I call it ‘non-reductive congregation-centrism’?); 
• And provides other ministries – youth, apologetics, apprenticeship etc – that are 
• Within the Church 
• But are not congregations 
• And provide what we normally think of as specialised para-church ministries (can we call them ecclesial para-congregational ministries?); 
• Which both support congregations and provide them with opportunities for ministry. 

If that’s correct, then the Presbyterian ecclesial ecosystem gives a training college like Christ College opportunities to be both vertically integrated and diversified. In fact, as the official training college of the NSW Presbyterian Church, I think it kind of has to. 

Focused on training congregational ministers 

Christ College is I think already vertically integrated through being primarily focused on training ministers for Presbyterian congregational ministry. That’s the centre of the college’s missional bullseye. It also relies mainly on its congregations to raise up students. People arrive at Christ College lots of other ways – from overseas, from other denominations, from para-church ministries, etc. But because the college rightly prioritises its core business of congregational ministry training it also grounds its pipeline in those congregations. 

Diversified to other congregational leaders 

However, Presbyterian congregation-centrism does not imply only training full-time ‘vocational’ ministers. Presbyterian churches are led not by ministers alone but by elders together. Christ College’s Shepherd Leader Training (SLT) program uses a decentralised model, located within the congregation, to equip elders to lead that congregation of God’s people. And while the elders (in session together) have authority to lead the congregation, they do not and cannot perform all the ministry. Other people exercise significant congregational leadership – Bible study leadership, Sunday school teaching, service leading, etc. 

The College’s Leader Foundation Program invokes the ‘agile flexibility’ model by providing evening classes and intensives for volunteer congregational leaders. But Presbyterian congregational priority implies that every congregation could, perhaps should, be a ministry training hub. Could the college invoke the decentralised model to equip ministers and elders to not only teach and pastorally care for their congregation members but also equip them for ministry? Its Timothy Partnership with PYNSW already provides for this to some degree. 

And other elements of the Presbyterian ecosystem 

And speaking of congregational leadership – I argued above that Presbyterian congregation-centrism is not congregation-only. Other arms of the Church - PY, Metro, M&M etc. – exist to equip the it in ministry and facilitate ministry opportunities. 

An ecosystemically integrated diversification might, counter-intuitively, prevent a college from falling into the mission drift. Recognising the roles of other elements of the PCNSW’s ecclesial ecosystem can prevent Christ College from trying to perform their roles and instead seek to help, through its particular scholarly charter, those elements perform their particular ministries better. The body works best not when one part tries to be the body and do everybody’s work, but “as each part does its work” together, Eph 4:16. Christ College can focus on its core business of theological scholarship as it equips the other arms of the Church to perform their ministry - M&M to resource congregations; PYNSW to facilitate children’s and youth ministry; GS&C to engage in, and equip congregations in, apologetics, ethics, and cultural engagement; Jericho Road to lead congregations to reach out to the needy; etc. etc. 

As it interacts with the broader evangelical ecosystem 

And as it equips the PCNSW, Christ College will be able to invest in other people and ministries who share our confessional convictions. The skills, convictions and character relevant for Presbyterian ministry are also relevant to numerous other contexts, e.g.: 

• Other congregational ministers and parachurch leaders can benefit from the training we provide Presbyterian ministers; 
• Leaders of non-Presbyterian churches can still benefit from our eldership training; 
• Leaders of non-Presbyterian youth ministries can benefit from Presbyterian youth ministry formation. 

Conclusion 

Just like it takes a village to raise a child, theological education and ministry formation never occurs in a vacuum; it always happens in an ecosystem. The character and health of the ecosystem with significantly affect the character and health of those shaped by it. 

These four posts have explored my ideas about ministry leadership formation under conditions of post-Christendom. I first surveyed the different institutional structures that Christian colleges operate under. These represent formal institutional adjustments to the challenges and opportunities of post-Christendom ecosystem under which which we now operate. I then gave my thoughts on how post-Christendom changed the Christian leadership training ecosystem. Where Christendom permitted stability, I think post-Christendom has increased and diversified demand for training, in response to both pressures against Christianity and new missional opportunities. I then explored a threefold typology of formative philosophies, distinguished by the location of formative authority - scholars, experienced practitioners, or individuals - which will depend upon and generate different kinds of ecosystems. And I've tried to apply all of that to the existing/emerging ecosystem of the PCNSW and Christ College as best I know it. 

Thank you for making it this far. I hope my thoughts stimulate ministry formation initiatives which are faithful to the Bible, the gospel, and Christ, and which nurture ecosystems which send workers out to God's harvest field (Matt 9:37-38; Luke 10:2). 

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Image credit Wikipedia.