The folks at Redeemer do not seem to see the need to cooperate in church planting with existing denominational structures or even with the existing seminaries. Apparently, a special kind of minister is necessary for urban churches.

Philanthropy: You mentioned earlier that another very serious bottleneck is not having enough trained leaders. Could you also envision some kind of philanthropic effort to expand and improve seminary training?

Keller: Seminary scholarships ought to be very appealing to donors, because it’s a relatively small investment with the potential to have very powerful results for decades after. Our big problem today is that ministry in a complex society takes graduate training, yet, unlike law and medicine and business, the prospects of higher salaries to pay off student debt are not there. So, candidates who would love to enroll can’t bear the expense. And the seminaries don’t have wealthy alumni to turn to for support, like other graduate schools.

I have to tell you, churches don’t partner very well with seminaries. Some say to seminaries, “Minister training is your job, not ours,” and wash their hands of any responsibility. Others say, “Today’s seminaries are stupid, they’re terrible, we’ll do it ourselves,” which isn’t a full solution. I could see a donor investing in partnerships where one or two large churches, or a group of smaller churches, partner with a seminary to create excellent, affordable instruction. The seminary would be responsible for the many academic pieces that go into training a minister. And the churches could oversee formulation of better, more practical, more hands-on training.

I was on a call recently with leaders of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and they are talking with their donors about more partnerships with churches. Their idea is that the seminary would send faculty right out to local church organizations to teach classes, maybe instruct over video, teach at night, reach more students. The traditional model is that you have 20 professors on campus and all the students have to live there. That’s great for faculty—no night courses, no weekends, no travel. But it is extraordinarily expensive now to do it that way. And it eliminates candidates who have a day job or a family to support. Distributed instruction would also benefit lay leaders, Sunday School teachers, unconventional ministry candidates, and others.

The irony is that this was the same sort of mindset that fed the formation of Bible schools and colleges.