For Anderson University, it began with an elemental question: Suppose there were no such things as seminaries, and you had to create a program from scratch to train effective ministers for the 21st century. What would you do?
Sam Isgett, dean of the graduate school at North Greenville, also teaches ethics to students in the master of Christian ministry degree program.The South Carolina Baptist university answered with the establishment of the Clamp Graduate School of Christian Ministry, consecrated on Aug. 6 and set to begin classes in the fall.
Studies at the master’s degree level in the field of Christian ministry are available now at all three South Carolina Baptist universities.
Charleston Southern University formed a partnership with Southeastern Baptist Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., in 2002 and is moving toward its own graduate program in the field of Christian ministry.
North Greenville University launched its T. Walter Brashier Graduate School in 2006, offering graduate degrees in Christian ministry to mostly Southern Baptist students preparing for, or already involved in, church-related careers.
“There are many great seminaries doing wonderful work,” said Michael Duduit, dean of the College of Christian Studies at Anderson, “but with the needs of the 21st century churches, it seems that there might be a place for an alternate model.”
The master of ministry degree at Anderson was created last year when Duduit came to the school. For the past year, he has been the sole member of the David T. Clamp Graduate School of Christian Ministry, begun with an $8 million gift from the Clamp family.
More faculty members will be added in years to come. The university also will make use of pastor-teachers who will form a “strategic faculty team.” They include pastors Frank Page of Taylors First Baptist, Don Wilton of Spartanburg First Baptist and Mike Hamlet of North Spartanburg First Baptist.
Michael DuduitDuduit said the core of the student body in the graduate program will be “persons who are already serving in ministry, either full-time or part-time, who want to take their training to the next level.”
Anderson also will offer a non-degree option for those without bachelor’s degrees.
“Our goal is not to compete with the seminaries,” said Duduit, “but to provide an alternative model for ministry preparation.”
James Colman, vice president for academic affairs at Charleston Southern University, said that the school’s partnership with Southeastern offers “a conduit for students to access a strong seminary program in the Charleston area.”
Colman said that CSU has plans for its own graduate program in Christian studies, but wants to “avoid direct competition with their program.” Currently, the university is developing a program “in an area that Southeastern doesn’t offer.”
“In this way,” he said, “we will maintain our strong seminary connection while enhancing the academic offerings of Charleston Southern.”
Within the next year, CSU will offer an online Christian studies certificate program aimed at pastors and others “who are called to the ministry, but who have never had the opportunity to complete a degree.”
James ColmanColman emphasized, “Offering biblical education opportunities is central to the mission of a Christian university, and Charleston Southern is actively engaged in finding new opportunities to provide Christ-centered, biblically based education to all students.”
North Greenville University operates its Brashier graduate school from the former Fairview Baptist Church in Greer. Thirty-two students – “mostly Southern Baptists, a couple of African-Americans and two or three women,” according to dean Sam Isgett – enrolled for that first term.
“From the start,” he said, “we intended to offer a program that would meet the needs of more than just pastors.”
Isgett said the graduate program in Christian studies registers from 35 to 50 students every semester, with six to 10 graduating at the end of each term.
“Enrollment is broadening as to where the students come from,” Isgett said, explaining that online offerings have enhanced the outreach of the program. “For example, our enrollment includes students from New York, Florida and Tennessee.”
But North Greenville’s program grew from a homegrown need. “We have kept an eye especially on North Greenville students who majored in Christian studies, “Isgett said, “and discovered that only about 20 percent of them were going to seminary, although most of them were serving churches primarily in South Carolina.”
He continued, “They apparently didn’t feel that the Lord was leading them to pull up stakes and go to seminary, or they didn’t have the financial resources to do so.”
In the graduate program in Christian ministry at North Greenville, there is no residency requirement, which also is true at Anderson.
A guiding truth behind North Greenville’s graduate program is that a call to ministry is a call to prepare. “Many have not answered the second part of that call,” Isgett said, “so we have a significant opportunity to make it available where they are.”
For several years, Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Ky., operated an extension on the campus of North Greenville, but eventually the university couldn’t provide adequate space, given its own expanding enrollment. “It was an amicable parting,” said Isgett. “Our relationship with Southern and with all of our Southern Baptist seminaries is very positive. Most of the students that we reach are established in their ministries and have families. For them, pulling up their roots to attend seminary is not an option.”
Isgett said that half of the studies in Christian ministry will be available online in the fall and all of them by the fall of 2010.
Bennie Durham, pastor of First Baptist Church in Marietta, was an early graduate from the school’s master’s program in Christian ministries. “I had been a pastor for 20 years when I decided to go to graduate school to further my education,” he said. “I always had a desire to pursue a graduate degree, but because of the love I had for pastoring the churches that I served, I never felt led to move away from the area. As soon as I heard of the plans for the graduate school at North Greenville, I knew that I would be in the first class.”
Durham said that he knew “immediately that the ministry God has called me to was becoming better through the training I was receiving.”
“I knew,” the Marietta pastor said, “that God had used this educational experience to help me serve him better.”