Enhancing Transfer of Learning from Seminary Classes to Pastoral Ministry

The author provides an overview of the research on transfer of learning and makes application to theological education and pastoral training. The author defines the concept and contextualizes it for clergy education as: the effective and continuing application by student pastors to their performance of ministry of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs gained through seminary learning activities. The author surveys several of the most significant models of learning transfer, including Baldwin & Ford’s (1988) seminal model, and discusses the three broad variables that affect transfer: individual learner characteristics, the design of the educational program, and the context of the work and ministry environment. The article concludes with ten recommendations for enhancing transfer of learning from seminary classes to pastoral ministry.

Conclusion

The conclusion argues that the historic preparation of the clergy for public engagement diminished significantly with the realignment of theological education with the modern university. Shifting from a liberal arts paradigm to a university model of specialization (academically and professionally) had the effects of (1) narrowing engagement with the social arenas of culture building, (2) shifting the nature of religious charisma and authority, (3) circumscribing the place and function of public oratory, (4) reshaping theology in relation to a generalized ideal of science, (5) developing new theologies that begin to marginalize confessional and ritual traditions, and (6) leading to the growing divide in the curriculum between the “pure research” of the German model verses the vocational pragmatism of the American approach. The book concludes with “best practices” from earlier clergy education that have much to offer contemporary reforms.

The Battle for the Clergy

Covering the period from 1945 to 1960, this chapter examines a series of clergy education initiatives that attempted to build support for libertarian economic ideas. Launched by conservative activists and organizations, these programs sought to undermine clerical support for the New Deal–era welfare state, but they mostly ended in failure. With financial support from the wealthy oil executive J. Howard Pew, organizations like Spiritual Mobilization and the Christian Freedom Foundation spread the gospel of free enterprise using newsletters, radio broadcasts, and sermon contests. But polls funded by Pew himself found they had little impact on the political or economic views of rank-and-file ministers. The National Association of Manufacturers’ (NAM) clergy-industry program was marginally more successful, though its organizers were similarly disappointed at their inability to stoke clerical opposition to the New Deal/Fair Deal agenda. The chapter concludes with a series of observations on why Christian Libertarianism gained little traction with either ministers or lay people during the 1950s.

Clergy Education and the Development of Emotional Intelligence: An Analysis of United Methodist Clergy in Kentucky

Research on the emotional intelligence of United Methodist clergy in the Kentucky Annual Conference is being conducted utilizing the Emotional Quotient 2.0 (EQ-i 2.0) assessment. Over 20% of active clergy have been assessed thus far and several trends are becoming evident. Specifically, of interest are those clergy persons who have engaged in graduate-level theological education and those who have not. This research seeks to add to the scholarly dialogue on understanding the impact of theological education in the formation of clergy leadership.

The Ambiguity of Theological Education: Angles on Integration

This paper arises out of contemporary pressures on theological education in the Church of England, and responses currently being proposed. It works with the ambiguity of the phrase ‘theological education’, which applies both to the ongoing education of the church and to a more mission-related task of explaining the faith to the wider society. Both are important, as is recognition that the theological education of the church involves laity as well as clergy. Since clergy education is principally in view in the current changes, a discussion of curriculum suggests a broad coverage that attends to relations between topics, combined with some opportunity for exploration at greater depth. Community is stressed as centrally important, with the impartation of a transforming message happening within a community itself oriented to transformation. Such a community can be the nursery for a confidence based on embracing the risk that the faith is true.