Learning in the midst of action phronesis in the seminary

Digital Commons @ George Fox University Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations 9-2019 Learning in the Midst of Action: Phronesis in the Seminary Kyle J. Chalko Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.edu/dmin Part of the Christianity Commons GEORGE FOX UNIVERSITY LEARNING IN THE MIDST OF ACTION: PHRONESIS IN THE SEMINARY A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF PORTLAND SEMINARY IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF MINISTRY BY KYLE J. CHALKO PORTLAND, OREGON SEPTEMBER 2019 Portland Seminary George Fox University Portland, Oregon CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL ________________________________ DMin Dissertation ________________________________ This is to certify that the DMin Dissertation of Kyle J. Chalko has been approved by the Dissertation Committee on October 7, 2019 for the degree of Doctor of Ministry in Leadership and Global Perspectives Dissertation Committee: Primary Advisor: Mary Pandiani, DMin Secondary Advisor: Mark Chironna, DMin Lead Mentor: Jason Clark, PhD, DMin Expert Advisor: Jim Jessup Copyright © 2019 by Kyle J.

Chalko All rights reserved ii Dedicated to my wife, Anna, who never stopped cheering for me. iii Table of Contents ABSTRACT. VI SECTION 1: THE PROBLEM.1 HOW WE GOT HERE. 8 WHY IS THIS A PROBLEM? .11 The Danger of the Status Quo.

11 AG: A Pioneer in Non-Traditional Education. 13 True Stories from AG Pastors. 14 Ministerial Statistics and Insights. 15 Assemblies of God Statistics .21 Why Didn’t They Teach You That in Bible College?.

23 A Word of Warning for Seminaries. 25 SECTION 2: OTHER SOLUTIONS .27 HIGHER EDUCATION PERSEVERANCE: TRADITIONAL MODELS PERSIST .27 Is the Sky Falling?. 27 The End is Not Nigh. 32 HIGHER EDUCATION RENOVATION: NON-TRADITIONAL EDUCATION .36 Non-traditional Education Remains the Majority.

37 Failing Extension Sites. 39 HIGHER EDUCATION REVOLUTION: THE NEXT BIG THING .41 A New Set of Values. 41 Context is Queen. 44 A CUTTING-EDGE SNAPSHOT: A FEW GOOD INSTITUTIONS.45 Duke University, Villanova University and Whitworth University.

46 George Fox University. 47 A New Mega University .49 SECTION 3: THE HYPOTHESIS. 54 An Ecclesiological Framework – The Harvest and the Laborers. 56 The History of Seminary.

57 Paul, the Wise-Master Builder. 60 Phronesis in the Seminary. 63 iv Effectiveness of Practicum. 66 Effectiveness of Online Learning.

68 Online and Practicum Together. 73 Prior Learning Assessment. 76 Hand-Picked Lead Mentor. 79 Concentrated Online Peer Interaction .83 Teaching Spiritual Formation.

86 Teaching Wisdom and Lifelong Learning .89 PERSONALLY COMMISSIONED BARNA GROUP STUDY .96 SECTION 4: THE ARTIFACT .98 SECTION 5: ARTIFACT SPECIFICATION. 100 GOALS AND STRATEGIES. 100 ARTIFACT SCOPE AND CONTENT. 102 STANDARDS OF PUBLICATION.

103 SUMMARY OF EXECUTION. 104 POST-GRADUATION CONSIDERATIONS. 120 APPENDIX 1—DEGREE PLAN. 120 APPENDIX 2—COURSE DESCRIPTIONS.

122 APPENDIX 3—ABBREVIATED COURSE SYLLABUS #1. 123 APPENDIX 4—ABBREVIATED COURSE SYLLABUS #2. 128 APPENDIX 5—LEAD MENTOR REQUIREMENTS AND APPLICATION. 132 APPENDIX 6—DATA FROM PERSONALLY COMMISSIONED BARNA RESEARCH 136 v ABSTRACT The U.

Assemblies of God Cooperative Fellowship (AG) remains one of the least educated, and least interested in education, denominations. A perceived disconnect between graduate-level learning and practical application deters many AG pastors away from continuing their education, leading to a nationwide trend of not being “well- educated.” AG pastors have a different set of values than mainstream evangelical denominations. Thus, the pastors seek their pastoral development from sources other than mainstream higher education. If universities can create more opportunities for practical training within typical course work, provide wisdom and character development, and facilitate mentoring relationships, then AG ministers would be much more likely to consider returning to higher education for further development.

This dissertation will focus on bringing online practicum learning experiences into leadership and ministerial graduate studies in the Assemblies of God denomination. This dissertation asks the question, in what ways will offering an online practicum experience increase higher education attractiveness and effectiveness to AG pastors, as opposed to a typical online program? This dissertation postulates that communicating the practical usefulness of a master’s degree in Ministry Leadership by incorporating practical learning within the MA will attract more AG pastors to higher education. Incorporating new-to-seminary methodologies, such as competency-based education, prior learning experience, a hand-picked lead mentor, and more concentrated peer interactions will encourage AG pastors to consider and attend higher education in greater numbers. This dissertation will explain the nature of this problem within the AG and the history of how we got there, show what some others have tried, and then present a new vi recipe made from old elements that will produce an entirely new product.

Like in chemistry, how just changing the amount or method of delivery of a familiar compound can change the chemical entirely, so can this new combination of pedagogical ideas change the end product. The artifact presented with this dissertation will outline some of the technical requirements and aspects, such as a degree plan, course descriptions, and a course syllabus. vii 1 SECTION 1: THE PROBLEM Introduction The Assemblies of God denomination is one of the most under-educated religious groups in America. While some may look down on the Assemblies of God (AG) because of this, many AG ministers are proud of that statistic.

Benefits come with being a grassroots movement, and maintaining Jesus’ “take nothing for your journey” mentality of evangelism is one of them. However, being under-educated has its limitations. This dissertation seeks to create a mechanism that will encourage pastors to consider returning for graduate studies and believes this will have a huge positive effect on the pastor’s life and ministry. Imagine a world where the church and seminary formed a mutual apprenticeship with each other;1 a mutual apprenticeship between church and university that will allow both parties to fully understand each other, and to more accurately understand the people they try to serve.

With the seminary and church more intimately, intentionally, and respectfully tied together, realistic and potent breakthroughs shape the next generation of students who will be taught. To accomplish this, this paper will begin by providing an argument for why AG ministers should consider more education in their ministerial pursuits. This introduction will briefly survey AG history, heritage, and values and educational statistics compared to other denominations. This section will then conclude with a look at what currently exists within higher education’s current paradigm.

1 Christian Scharen, Fieldwork in Theology: Exploring the Social Context of God's Work in the World, ed. 2 How We Got Here A Brief History On New Year’s Day 1901, the Pentecostal Revival sparked as Agnes Ozman gave an utterance of tongues after receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This turn-of-the- century event ignited into a movement that today includes almost 10% of the world’s population and growing. After this initial event in 1901, the Holy Ghost movements spread around America to many others who had never2 seen this experience before.

Yet despite not having any formal written theology or leadership structure in place, these people continued to passionately pursue God and figure out their theology as they went along. This observed history of AG, and Pentecostal movements in general, has led to some theologians and academics poking fun at the phrase “Pentecostal theology” by calling it an oxymoron. But with an influx of people from all over the world joining their ranks as they flew in to witness and experience this new outpouring, especially at Azusa Street, the movement had trouble keeping up with its own growth, especially in the areas of church polity and administration. The evangelical core value of being driven to win conversions was exponentially elevated for Pentecostals because of their belief in the imminent return of Christ.

The Pentecostal movement saw more missions impact in the world than any other denomination or movement before it, evidenced by the fact that today, there are over 600 million Pentecostals and Charismatics globally. Within this group of many 2 Roswell Flower, “The Genesis of the Pentecostal Movement,” Enrichment Journal, 1970. 3 denominations, one of the largest is AG, which has over 67 million adherents. All of this growth happened from a vastly undereducated group that compiled their theology as they ministered.

The Pentecostals’ emphasis on conversion doesn’t leave as much room for other values that other denominations traditionally held in its place. Most obvious of these is the value of education. As Figure 1 shows, the AG has placed far less importance on education than almost all other denominations in the U. The lack of value on education by the AG is best reflected by the level of education of its ministers.

While some denominations, like the United Figure 1 - Educational Attainment of U. Religious Groups Methodists, require a Master of Divinity for ordainment before one can even begin pastoral ministry, the AG only requires basic, non-college-level education. Specifically, they require 28 classes that can be taken from non-accredited Bible institutes, the most common being the Berean School of the Bible3 which is unaccredited and intentionally 3 “Berean School of the Bible,” Global University, accessed January 31, 2019, https://www.edu/berean_index. 4 not college-level.

To achieve the minimum level of credentialing through the AG, students need only eight of these Berean classes. This low educational standard for AG ministers represents its values. The national office of the AG tracks the educational sources (Figure 2)4 from which their ministers have received their educational requirements for ordainment. As Figure 2 shows, only about 25% of AG ministers have completed their schooling from Berean, while another quarter have gotten their requirements through a “District School of Ministry,” which offers a variance of Berean, and about 5% have been awarded their Figure 2 - Education Sources for US AG Ministers 4 James T.

Bradford, AG USA New And Transferred Ministers Education 2016 Overview (N.: General Secretary's Office, 2017), 3. 5 educational requirements through “life experience” while only 23% of AG ministers come from the regionally accredited “alliance schools.” In the AG, cultural norms reflect that no one values higher education. To some, this may sound irrational and might lead one to hold less respect for the AG and other Pentecostal denominations, but it is important to understand that these values are simply the consequences of a people who are passionately devoted to the Missio Dei.5 This is the language of an evangelistic (not evangelical) movement, of a denomination that went from zero to over 600 million in less than 100 years. The attitude of these people was, and still is to a certain degree, “Jesus is coming back SOON, so we need to save souls NOW.” For the AG, if people are getting saved, that is good enough.

Pentecostal Values James K. Smith writes in his book Thinking in Tongues about the five tenets of Pentecostalism. Smith’s list includes: radical openness, enchanted theology, a non- dualistic affirmation, an affective epistemology, and an eschatological orientation.6 This important clarification actually places Pentecostalism in an entirely separate category than evangelicalism as understood by a handful of theologians, including Smith and others like Pentecostal scholar Amos Young. In fact, these tenets of Pentecostalism differ significantly from what David Bebbington identifies in Modern Evangelicalism in Britain 5 The Missio Dei, being the mission of God (that all should be saved) that began in the heart of God.

Smith, Thinking in Tongues: Pentecostal Contributions to Christian Philosophy (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. 6 as the four pillars of evangelicalism: conversionism,7 activism, biblicism, and crucicentrism.8 Pentecostals will attest to the four pillars of evangelicalism, but Smith’s five tenets identify that five foundational ways Pentecostals differ from evangelicals. The various ways these two different value sets get played out can hardly be understated. One of the most marked differences is the Christian’s reaction and responsiveness to their personal experiences.

Bebbington says of the Charismatics and Pentecostals in Britain that “experience was… elevated above theology in the charismatic scale of values.