The World is Here Now...
I was invited to participate in a conversation with two students scheduled for the same day I departed for a consultation on the impact of globalizing forces in US seminaries. The two students are leaders in their ecclesial community, seminary students looking to pastor, and Spanish speakers from very different Latin American countries. They came to our office to ask “how can the seminary become a bridge for Hispanic or Latino/a communities in West Michigan?”
The students shared something I did not expect: Holland, Michigan is home to more than 20 Spanish-speaking congregations. This news was jarring to me, and I am not able to shake this information. Really?!?.... Holland, Michigan, this assumed Dutch colony in middle America, has a vibrant Spanish speaking Christian community?!? I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. I am not sure that our faculty knows this reality; I am quite certain that our students, who are temporary citizens of Holland, know this reality. Leading the church in mission expects faculty, students, and pastors/leaders to understand that this is a reality in towns and cities of all sizes.
The students articulated why a seminary is a better bridge for Hispanic leaders than any one congregation or ministry. We began discussing how this bridge could be built and immediately found ourselves (ourselves being academic admin/faculty) trying to create ways to make this possible, including how we could lead the conversation and partnership. The modus operandi and our dominant cultural ways of being are so innate that we fail to initially see our privilege. The two students nodded in apparent agreement, yet there was a growing atmosphere in the conversation that the seminary could be host without being the primary leadership presence.
The conversation turned when one of the students was speaking; he was looking for the next word, as we all do when we are passionate, and instead of using an English word, he turned to his colleague and said a Spanish word amidst an English sentence. He did not explain the word to us; he simply used it amidst the moment. This moment shifted the conversation away from the seminary administrators being the responsible party and toward the two students taking the lead while the seminary could provide the space and resources for the students to do so. We completed the conversation and agreed to meet again. I left for Chicago and the consultation. The story in our office meets the consultation through the following question:
I wonder if seminaries, a current form of theological education, have the internal/institutional depth to be/come a place to engage the above such space in a faithful way – to become a theological and educational institution for a dynamically globalized/globalizing world? An outcome of this is a place that prepares leaders as disciples and Global Citizens who are able to navigate a changing world with wisdom, grace, and skill. This means that faculty and students recognize how global privilege affects their perspective in order to have a broader view for those who have a different relationship to global privilege.
This will require content, process, partnerships, and outcomes around globalization matters, including attention and engagement with political, economic, social movements/migration, and religious commitments and practices.
Sure, two administrators arrived by the grace of God in the presence of two students to see a new way forward in a partnership that initially appears promising to this end. Yet we are early in the discussion and we have not institutionally agreed to move this bridge-building forward. My worry is that our discussions and actions will move to simply “talking about partnerships with Spanish-speaking ministries” and we will not become an institution whereby these types of partnerships are ingrained habits.
I desire the people in, with, and for theological education to have the capacity, habits, and skills to navigate the United States context(s) that is/are: constantly changing; filled with alterity at every level; and increasingly multi-religious and multi-perspectival while decreasingly Christian. I believe that this is a new missionary understanding for the US context, yet even more this is a formational and educational request that takes the intersection of church, academy, and society seriously. This is a Christ-centered task that continues to view the world as a world God deeply loves - Immanuel.
The world is here now.
The students shared something I did not expect: Holland, Michigan is home to more than 20 Spanish-speaking congregations. This news was jarring to me, and I am not able to shake this information. Really?!?.... Holland, Michigan, this assumed Dutch colony in middle America, has a vibrant Spanish speaking Christian community?!? I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. I am not sure that our faculty knows this reality; I am quite certain that our students, who are temporary citizens of Holland, know this reality. Leading the church in mission expects faculty, students, and pastors/leaders to understand that this is a reality in towns and cities of all sizes.
The students articulated why a seminary is a better bridge for Hispanic leaders than any one congregation or ministry. We began discussing how this bridge could be built and immediately found ourselves (ourselves being academic admin/faculty) trying to create ways to make this possible, including how we could lead the conversation and partnership. The modus operandi and our dominant cultural ways of being are so innate that we fail to initially see our privilege. The two students nodded in apparent agreement, yet there was a growing atmosphere in the conversation that the seminary could be host without being the primary leadership presence.
The conversation turned when one of the students was speaking; he was looking for the next word, as we all do when we are passionate, and instead of using an English word, he turned to his colleague and said a Spanish word amidst an English sentence. He did not explain the word to us; he simply used it amidst the moment. This moment shifted the conversation away from the seminary administrators being the responsible party and toward the two students taking the lead while the seminary could provide the space and resources for the students to do so. We completed the conversation and agreed to meet again. I left for Chicago and the consultation. The story in our office meets the consultation through the following question:
I wonder if seminaries, a current form of theological education, have the internal/institutional depth to be/come a place to engage the above such space in a faithful way – to become a theological and educational institution for a dynamically globalized/globalizing world? An outcome of this is a place that prepares leaders as disciples and Global Citizens who are able to navigate a changing world with wisdom, grace, and skill. This means that faculty and students recognize how global privilege affects their perspective in order to have a broader view for those who have a different relationship to global privilege.
This will require content, process, partnerships, and outcomes around globalization matters, including attention and engagement with political, economic, social movements/migration, and religious commitments and practices.
Sure, two administrators arrived by the grace of God in the presence of two students to see a new way forward in a partnership that initially appears promising to this end. Yet we are early in the discussion and we have not institutionally agreed to move this bridge-building forward. My worry is that our discussions and actions will move to simply “talking about partnerships with Spanish-speaking ministries” and we will not become an institution whereby these types of partnerships are ingrained habits.
I desire the people in, with, and for theological education to have the capacity, habits, and skills to navigate the United States context(s) that is/are: constantly changing; filled with alterity at every level; and increasingly multi-religious and multi-perspectival while decreasingly Christian. I believe that this is a new missionary understanding for the US context, yet even more this is a formational and educational request that takes the intersection of church, academy, and society seriously. This is a Christ-centered task that continues to view the world as a world God deeply loves - Immanuel.
The world is here now.
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