From Tim Johnson
Director of Field Education
ATS Accreditation Visit
In just over a month, from October 30-November 2, The Association of Theological Schools (ATS) will be sending a team to visit us and review the way we do our work at NPTS. This is the culmination of the rigorous work of accreditation that we have been immersed in during recent months. Every ten years we as a seminary have done this work of self-scrutiny as well as submitting to the wisdom of this body that holds us accountable.
Vocational Excellence
Also happening this month, from October 13-16, is an offering of our Vocational Excellence course. What do these two sets of dates have to do with each other? When one looks at how our Field Education requirements have changed in this last ATS accreditation cycle, VE is one of two major changes in our program.
About seven years ago we discerned that some core considerations would be helpful to our students in the front end of their degree work. Hence, we incorporated the class that the Evangelical Covenant Church developed for their Orientation Program for ministers transferring into the ECC. Some of the topics include:
- Care and Discipline of ECC Pastors
- Credentialing Requirements and Process
- Self-Awareness (making use of assessments, therapeutic counsel and spiritual direction)
- Self-Care
- The matter of Caring, Leading, Preaching and Teaching Well
- Adaptive Leadership
VE has proven to be a very helpful experience for many of our students as a way of surveying the vocational landscape near the beginning of their time in seminary. This Field Education requirement as well as the rest of the NPTS Field Education program is intended to be a means of supporting and even thickening the discernment process which is at the heart of seminary education.
Cultural Competency Module
The second major addition to our Field Education program is the Cultural Competency Module (CCM). This is linked to one of the learning outcomes for all our degree programs. There has emerged a consensus at NPTS that fruitful ministry in the 21st century largely hinges on having an increased awareness and capacity for doing intercultural work in our ministry settings. Therefore, we have added this second case-study module (along with the Theological Reflection Module) to focus on this. The CCM is linked to some sort of intercultural ministry experience as well as to the Intercultural Development Instrument. The IDI is taken twice. It should be taken early on during the NPTS experience as well as toward the end (linked to the CCM) of the student’s time with us. The goal is that advancement can be marked, awareness enhanced and a plan for further development put in place. Additionally, we as a seminary can access measurable data to discern how we are doing with this crucially important learning outcome.
October is a month of discernment this year. For many of our students, their first IDI and VE experiences. For NPTS, our ATS self-study visit. When genuine discernment is taking place, the Holy Spirit is at work. It is my hope that this is the case.