The Jesus School

An innovation in missions preparation happening right under our noses

The Bible Institute movement started in the late 1800s by the likes of A.B. Simpson (Christian and Missionary Alliance) and Dwight Moody. This was a time when formal education was less available to lower and middle class people. The Bible Institute filled a gap to prepare young men and women for Christian service.

These Bible Institutes were marked by the things conventional seminaries were struggling to do. They were pragmatic (as opposed to theoretical), biblical (instead of critically based), discipleship oriented (rather than focused on knowledge), and attainable (only the few could attend a seminary). I am not taking a swipe at seminaries here - I am only noting that Bible Institutes offered something starkly different than seminaries and even Bible colleges offered.

The Bible Institute movement had a significant influence on US and Canadian missions. Hundreds of missionaries were mobilized from the ranks of Bible Institutes. Coming at a time when independent, non-denominational missionary agencies were being founded by the score, the Bible Institute model unleashed a historically large workforce. The Student Volunteer Movement is often noted for its Ivy League origins. Yet, the fuel for the movement, in the form of tough and ready missionaries, came from Bible Institutes. Just in my own short research I believe that there were probably more than 50 of these institutes founded before World War 2.

After the pause in missions sending that happened during World War 2, Bible Institutes once again began to pump out missionary candidates, some of which are well known in missions history. Prairie Bible College, for example, prepared Don and Carol Richardson for missionary service among the Sawi in Indonesia. Peter Dyneka founded the Slavic Gospel Association and was trained at Moody Bible Institute. Roger Youderian, who was martyred alongside four teammates in Ecuador, was a student at Northwestern. The 1950s and 1960s saw thousands of young people study at Bible Institutes and go out across the world as missionaries.

Many schools you know today started out as humble Bible Institutes. Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Briercrest College and Seminary, Biola University, Northwestern College (the one in Minnesota), Gordon College, Toccoa Falls Bible College, and the now defunct Nyack College in New York were all Bible Institutes. There are others as well.

Then the “Great Conversion” started. Throughout the late 1960s and 1970s Bible Institutes became colleges. They pursued degreed programs instead of non-credentialed education with practical ministry skills. They turned their goals and objectives toward pastoral training, nursing, and other skills. I have anecdotally heard a number of Bible College/University presidents say that they were only serving the student’s needs. Today, most have cut back or closed their missions departments. They might say that they are only “folding the missions training into another department,” but in reality, they changed their focus. Killing the missions program seems inevitable once a school decides to become a liberal arts institution or pastor-centric. There are a couple of stellar exceptions to this, but they are few and far between.

As I wrote last week, Evangelicals are institution averse, so seeing these schools institutionalize might indicate that Evangelicalism is growing up. Yet, nobody stepped into the void and thus, missionary preparation suffered.

But then, something new started to form.

In the early 2000s, informal, residential training programs began to spring up. These typically are located in major urban areas, feature outreach to diaspora communities, have a high element of discipleship, often include formal Bible training, and focus on team skills. Here is a short list that I came up without any research:

• TOAG

• Cafe 1040

• Studio

• Apostolic Communities

• International Project

• Launch Global

• Global Frontier Missions

• Numerous YWAM bases

If you see something missing from the list above, I am not surprised. You can tell us who you are thinking of in the comments.

I do not have a good name for these programs. “Training” does not really fit, because of the emphasis placed on discipleship, interpersonal skills, and lifestyle skills captured by these schools. They also have direct ministry application, during the program, which highlights the strength of being in a cross-cultural community.

These programs are also forming globally, either as extensions or organically in the regions they might be found. I am aware of one which is run by a Hispanic agency in a very unreached country. Some agencies have programs like this housed within the structure of their own organizations. You join the agency and move to a different continent where you are placed in a cohort of like-minded people. To the senders, you have essentially already started being a deployed missionary. Yet, you receive mentoring, practice team life, and grow spiritually before your actual field assignment. It is fair to say that some hundreds of students are enrolled in programs like this in the US, Canada, and the UK.

In a recent discussion with a seminary missions leader, I was told that there were not enough students to support a missions program in their school. The proliferation of these in-service preparation programs indicates otherwise. The problem is that education for colleges and seminaries is too often defined by the four walls of a classroom. To be fair, these new training models do not scale easily, requiring mentors and the patience that deep discipleship requires. The financial model of the traditional colleges, universities, and seminaries is completely irrelevant to this new model where the student to teacher ratio is so small.

This is an innovation in missions that is happening right under our noses. Missions leaders are addressing the lack of discipleship among new recruits in this new and exciting format. It would be better if churches were doing this job, but in light of the fact that they aren’t, these models provide a pathway for service that traditional Bible colleges and seminaries are unable to provide.

Maybe we should call these “Jesus Schools.” This model is much closer to what we see in the pages of scripture.