Rochester College’s New MRE in Missional Leadership
I’ve written a few times about my confidence in Rochester College. That’s been true for a long time, but it’s especially true now under the leadership of their president, Rubel Shelly, and their provost, John Barton.
Here’s just another example: you can now receive an MRE degree in missional leadership through (primarily) online courses. Mark Love — fresh out of his doctoral program in this area from Luther Seminary in St. Paul — is going to lead the program. I can’t think of anyone better for the position.
Check out their brand new website here. You can also receive more info by writing Mark at mlove@rc.edu.
Here’s the announcement:
This story is an increasingly familiar one: congregations and their leaders do everything they know to do and with greater skill, but with diminishing impact. The fact is, the world has changed, and many of our understandings of congregational leadership are built on assumptions related to a world that no longer exists. The days of “if we build it they will come” are fast vanishing. Increasingly, congregations are awakening to the fact that we are in a missionary engagement with our own culture.
It might be tempting to see these new circumstances as a loss, as something to mourn, and pine for the good old days when everyone played by a familiar set of rules or expectations. But this change of circumstances might also be interpreted as God’s leading. Is God calling congregations and their leaders into a new kind of engagement with the world? If this is God’s work, it will require bold and brave imagination from congregations and their leaders.
This shift in congregational imagination will also require new imagination related to leadership preparation. In keeping with this need, Rochester College is pleased to announce a new Master’s degree in Missional Leadership beginning this Fall. This 36 hour degree is unique in both conception and design and brings together a combination of resources we believe to be unique in the world of ministry preparation.
First, this degree assumes that the primary classroom for ministry is the congregation and its context, not the college campus. We don’t see the congregation or its context as a place where you simply dump what you learn in the classroom. We see the congregation and its context as the primary source for learning what God might be up to in the world. You can’t prepare for ministry on this new frontier apart from an immersion in a congregation.
This means, among other things, that we don’t expect students to leave their ministry context to participate in this degree. Most of the courses will be completed online. Students will be required to be on our campus two weeks each year for intensive face-to-face courses. All other courses will be offered online.
Online courses offer many advantages for this kind of ministry preparation. Because we are not limited to one location and agreed upon meeting times, we can include a greater variety of participants in the learning experience. Not only can we use non-resident faculty (more about that below), but we can include coaches, Christian leaders from around the world, who can look in on our work and provide on-the-ground wisdom. Our new cultural situation demands that we find wisdom not only from professors, but from our peers and from other practitioners in a variety of settings. We are designing an online learning experience that takes full advantage of the new ways that people collaborate online.
Rochester College has an outstanding faculty, and we are proud that many of them will participate in this program. But the design of this degree allows us to bring leading thinkers in the emerging and missional church movements as faculty and resource persons. For instance, Dr. Pat Keifert from Luther Seminary, has agreed to teach the opening seminar, “Leading Congregations in Mission.” Pat is not only an accomplished systematic theologian, but is the president of Church Innovations, an organization that has coached congregations for over 25 years. We are thrilled to have this leading voice in the Missional Church conversation leading our first seminar. We are in conversation with others about having a special role in our program. We will announce other names in the near future.
This degree will feature cohort learning. Students will work toward degree completion over a two-year period within a cohort of 15 students. Cohort learning encourages deep community and allows formation over time in ways that other education models find more challenging. We believe that formation for ministry requires far more than just good information. It necessarily involves the development of spiritual practices in community that allow leaders to discern God’s leading for themselves and others. Students will be asked to commit to practices with and for each other that go beyond sitting in classes together. These experiences will be coached by persons with training and experience in spiritual direction.
There is so much to say about the design of this degree that is unique. For now, one last item. The degree offers courses in three primary areas: Scripture, Theology, and Leadership. Many of the course titles may be similar to ones offered in other programs. The nature of the assignments, however, may look very different. Students will not take a single course that does not require them to engage a congregation and its immediate context. In fact, the leadership core moves a student in a very deliberate way through a transformational engagement with the student’s ministry context. Congregations will benefit, in essence, from a two year period of coaching and consulting from some of the leaders in the area of missional church.
This degree is for leaders of all kind: staff ministers of all stripes, elders and other lay leaders, persons anticipating a career shift involving ministry. Help us fill our first cohort. For more information, you can contact Dr. Mark Love, Director of the Resource Center for Missional Leadership at Rochester College, at mlove@rc.edu. Join us on this exciting adventure.
WOW! What a unique thought and process – engage a congregation in missional ministry.
Increasingly, congregations are awakening to the fact that we are in a missionary engagement with our own culture.
Isn’t this really what the Church was originally in concept? Over the centuries the Church has been slowly degrading into a ‘building’ goal and center of teaching. The irony of it all is we keep building huge buildings waiting for ‘them’ to come, all the while training, supporting and sending missionaries to the out most edges of this world. The application of a missionary’s approach to new disciples seems to be an apt basis for congregations to serve their own culture as missionaries.
Most any returning missionary will tell us that their great frustration is returning to a void in this ‘new’ concept – engaging in missionary approach to our own culture.
However, we do well to remember that “church” really is a slow moving ship when attempting to change course. I truly pray this new MRE from Rochester will jump start that change in course we so desperately need.
Congratulations to Rochester, Rubel, John Barton and who we consider our own, Mark Love! May our loving God smile on this venture, bringing His harvest of those so hungry to know Him!!
Music to my ears! I pray that many churches will invest in their own future (survival) by allowing and supporting their staff’s participation in program’s like Rochester’s. I believe this is one of many that will spring up over the next few years. It’s about time.
It makes me wonder if this is the wave of the future. MDiv training is wonderful and comprehensive, but I wonder how all those skills, mainly aimed at biblical scholarship, theology and church history, translate into effective leadership within the local congregation. Perhaps degrees in Missional Leadership will prove to be more potent and relevant training for a new generation of ministers, preachers and change agents.
When I first heard the name of Kiefert’s enterprise a couple of years ago (my church is in PMC with Highland), I chuckled at how I would hate to have to explain my involvement with it to certain CoCers. Perhaps we’ve come a long way if Rochester College can state that in their announcment.
I am so far into Mommyhood and surviving parenting and laundry (okay, I know that is pitiful, but that’s my reality), that I am not going to venture far, here. But, there is something about this Missional approach that has my attention. Part of it might be alarm at it pulling me toward something and I am not sure I will be comfortable there.
But, if what we are saying is that we are trying to listen to a God who is still letting us know He IS, and that despite the great chasm between His holiness and our world, Jesus’ work still stands solid, and that His desire to benefit and care for our world is so strong that He will lead and empower us in new and creative ways to let others know about it….well, I can get excited about that. I mean, is there really anything more exciting than realizing that HE really is engaging with us to accomplish something He wants done? Thats holy ground, and a profound place to be.
But how you lead a congregation there, I don’t know. So much comes into play with people’s individualism and stories. The course sounds great (and as long as I remember that God will be leading and anointing and empowering me from within my relationship with Him, I should be okay with the challenge. Right?)
Thanks Mike for sharing this news. We are excited to see this new program take off and we are looking forward to working and living in community with Rochester College. Blessings friend on your own new adventure – peace, Nancy
This sounds awesome! I e-mailed Mark this morning and look forward to learning more. Thanks for the heads up, Mike.
For several years now, I have appreciated the efforts of Rochester College in making a positive impact for Christ in our world. My life and ministry has been benefitted greatly by these efforts. As a proud and grateful alumnus of Rochester College, I am glad to see that Rubel Shelly has placed this new program in the capable hands of Mark Love. No doubt, many lives will be blessed through this new and practical approach to ministry training.
I am very excited for Mark and Nancy and this great new ministry. I know God will use them in powerful ways. It has been a pure joy to work with Mark in our PMC cluster these last 3 years (Mark, if you read this, try hard to convince Pat to get on FB
).
What a phenomenal concept!! Using what you learn while you learn it!! Not only that but utilizing teachers who are currently working with congregations and other works.
I’m impressed.
Too often, I have had courses taught by people that have forgotten what it’s really like in the field.
This is good
There is a new blog post from Mark explaining how this will look here.
Hearing Mark Love speak at Lipscomb’s Summer Celebration was probably the highlight of the conference for me. (sorry Mike) I really appreciated his emphasis to connect with out communities. So many churches don’t. However, there’s an awfully long transition process for our traditional CoC members to go through before the get excited about this.
I wonder how long it will be before we see some of the present “Church Growth” classes in our seminaries (sorry, Grad Schools) replaced by courses like this? As always though, the biggest challenge is implementing these ideas from the classroom out in the street.