I am passionately committed to the idea that those who are called to ministry deserve to be trained and educated properly for it. It’s a tough and important job, and it’s not enough to depend upon mystical guidance, or to make it up as you go along. Theological colleges, though, are under dire threat, and struggle against amazing odds to maintain what they do. Some think it’s time to shut the colleges down but I believe we must fight to renew, improve and maintain good theological education. Why? Well, The Reverend Dr. Frederick W. Schmidt, Jr. has some good points in his article here:

If the world of theological education were mine to remake—and it is not—I would be guided by the following convictions:

One, rigorous academic preparation is absolutely essential to creative, competent, servants of Christ who are deeply formed and capable of forming others.

Two, that kind of preparation is more important than ever before. We live in a complex and fast-changing world that will require a generation of leaders who are as well trained and educated as are the people in any other profession. It is a crime and miscarriage to require anything less. I often tell my students, “If you were lying in the operating room and some one bounded in and declared, ‘Hi, I’m Fred, and I don’t know a thing about anatomy or the practice of medicine, but I just love the idea of serving God through surgery,’ you would use your remaining moments of consciousness to roll off the gurney and claw your way down the hall. And yet it was Jesus who said, ‘Fear not those who can kill the body, but those who kill the soul.’” Churches that fearfully cast around for quick fixes to the training of clergy, give it scant attention, and then abandon their priests and pastors to the vagaries of forming themselves cannot expect to be a spiritual force in the world. Nor can they expect their clergy to be positive spiritual forces in the lives of others.

Three, I am also convinced that as many new creative approaches to education as there might be, a residential model of focused, face-to-face education and formation in the faith is the best means of preparing a generation of thoughtful, faithful servants of the Gospel. This is not to denigrate those who have been encouraged by the church to pursue alternative means of completing the requirements for ordination. It is to say that the church should instead make resources available for all those who do pursue the church’s ministry to avail themselves of that face-to-face formation.

Read the whole article here. It’s good stuff – nay, I would say essential reading for anyone making policies on education and training in the Church.