1 October 2007

Richard says,

Well, amazingly, we have been here at Asbury Theological Seminary for over three months! Wilmore, Kentucky, is a small historic town of about 5000 people of whom over 4000 are connected to either the seminary or Asbury College (a private university). Small town America is a very pleasant place to live. Just up the street from our apartment is the post office and our Farmer's Bank and a couple of minute's walk takes us to the main street which, if you took the cars and pick-ups away, could be used for a western type movie!

Its ironic how the quaint small town atmosphere of Wilmore contrasts with the size and sophistication and Asbury Theological Seminary which is among the largest in the USA and certainly the largest seminary in the John Wesley tradition world-wide (see www.asburyseminary.edu). There are over 1700 students with the bulk here at Wilmore and about 500 either at the Florida campus or on the "Virtual" campus. Most are Masters or doctoral students and so the students are "mature" with most being in their late 20s and 30s and a good many older -like me! The student body is internationalist with over 400 at Wilmore being from outside the United States. So the Waugh family from New Zealand is hardly alone.

That said we are the only people here who can say, "We come from Middle Earth!" This goes down really well with Americans and it has been most interesting to us that overwhelmingly people here have good things to say of New Zealand and its well known scenic beauty and easy going populace. More specifically I have had several people say to me that they have relatives travel the world and their common cry has been "New Zealand is the best to visit." This is all very affirming and makes us feel proud to be Kiwis. Interestingly there have only been a couple of New Zealanders here at Asbury as students and they were serving as missionaries at the time from Papua New Guinea. And in the Beeson Doctor of Ministry (D.Min) programme (or is it program?) I am the first New Zealander - so a real privilege.

Let me tell you about the D.Min programme. This is an intensive post graduate course which is funded by the Beeson endowment here at the seminary. A tremendously generous benefactor, Mr Ralph Beeson, was determined that the Church needed better trained leaders and that one of the ways to do this was to offer an advanced post-graduate programme. There is both a residential track and an international track. In the former with me are nine other pastors; eight of whom are Americans from various states and one who is a Nazarene pastor from Scotland. They are a great bunch of guys (see photograph at top right) and we have got to know each other really well these past three months.

Together we have frequent class intensives. These have included Spirituality of Leadership which encouraged all of us to commit again to spiritual practices that will continually enhance our spiritual devotion and Christian "habits". Included in this course was a range of stimulating reading (and equivalent assignments!) and a memorable prayer retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani which is America's oldest and largest abbey with over 60 monks. This was the abbey where Thomas Merton, a famous 20th century contemplative was a monk for many years. A contrasting experience was attendance at the video broadcast of the Willow Creek Leadership Summit at a large United Methodist Church in nearby Lexington ( a city of about 250,000). As usual the array of international speakers was amazing and this really is a "must attend" event for Church leaders and in fact for any leader intent on developing their skills and creative thinking.

Then we had preaching class. This consisted of several days teaching by a wise and experienced practitioner. There was intensive classroom work and homiletic reading of nine books (including Andy Stanley's Me-You-Us-You-We methodology of sermon construction, Luther's and Chip and Dan Heath's fascinating new book entitled "Made to Stick - Why some ideas survive and others die") and several practical exercises. This included three sermons to present in class which were demanding in front of such a seasoned audience of preachers. What was fun was seeing the variety of natural giftedness of each of the guys. Some are natural and passionate evangelists, others more thoughtful and ordered. While you can always develop new skills what does seem to be important is the recognition of one's own God-given unique style and giftedness and to "mature" into that. There are two "preaching rooms"in the Beeson Centre, and these were used for the preaching. With video record it was certainly a very worthwhile experience to preach and then be lovingly critiqued by the professor and one's peers. One other preaching exercise was especially memorable. One at a time each of us were given a text of several scripture verses and asked to go into a lecture room next door for ten minutes and work out the main message of the text, develop a quick outline and come back and preach a ten minute sermon! I can tell you that kept each of us on our toes as we each dipped our hand into the "text pot" for our verses and rushed out to plan our sermon. You might think this was a bit silly but what it did was focus the mind upon the "main thing" in the text and develop an appropriate introduction, points and ending. We did have a lot of fun. Certainly after all my experience I have still learnt a great deal here about sermon preparation. A timely reminder to partner with the Holy Spirit and to live with the text for a few weeks at a time so when it comes to the presentation on Sunday morning I will have lived with the text and the text will have lived with me!

Theology of Ministry class was held over two weeks and covered everything from call to ministry to changing context and how we participate in the Missio Dei (God's mission). In other words we don't have a mission ourselves as Christians. Rather we join God's mission. Included in the course was much emphasis on prayer, healing and the importance of the sacraments. This course was held after our children started school and it was so good that Jane was able to join me in the teaching sessions. In fact Jane is able to audit all of the classes and she has relished this opportunity as well as reading many of my books. Just on that topic I have had already over 50 books supplied over the past three months so there is a ton of reading to do, usually with critical book reviews or other associated assignments related to them. I don't think I have read so much in my life. Well, other than aviation books! I've also found that books here in America are relatively cheap - in relation to average American wages. This means that pastors can easily afford to keep up with a range of contemporary subjects with quality hard cover books related to Christian mission being around the US$10-$16 rate. A contrast to New Zealand where I think the different is probably three times (or more) this and with so many of our pastors being bi-vocational it is a challenge to be able to purchase good quality books. I will certainly be returning to New Zealand with probably 70 or 80 top quality books (all provided thanks to the generosity of the Beeson programme) which will be available to others as part of our National Resource Centre.

Just last week we finished Anthropology class which was about the study of people groups and how this relates to Christian mission. This included some fascinating teaching about changes to the global Christian family especially the centre of gravity moving inexorably southward. An excellent book on this is Philip Jenkin's "The New Faces of Christianity" (2006) where he examines the emerging characteristics of the Global South Church (especially in Africa and Asia). The evangelical emphasis and conviction in the transformational power of the Holy Spirit by Christians in the Global South is very encouraging and may well be the answer to the ills of liberalism. Isn't it ironic to know that missionaries from the Global South are now ministering in Europe and even here in the United States. One key aspect in this move is the impact within the Anglican Church which is being torn apart by the militant fundamentalism of the liberals and post-liberals. With the strength of the global Anglican Communion being increasingly African centered the liberal Episcopal Church in the United States is being increasingly isolated.

On topic of Church politics (!) I have been relishing Asbury's interdenominational flavour. There are dozens of different Churches represented here although most would be within the "Wesleyan" theological stream and probably a majority from the large United Methodist Church (UMC). A couple of weeks ago I met with leaders of the Good News organisation who are the longest established renewal organisation within the UMC. They were fascinated to hear about the New Zealand Methodist/Wesleyan story and how so many evangelicals were expunged from the Methodist Church of New Zealand. They were shocked to hear that our properties were taken from us with no recompense. I said I could write a book about the whole sorry saga (and I will one day) as there are so many salutary lessons for the whole Body of Christ.

A brighter spot just last week was the news from New Zealand that the application of our Wesleyan Methodist Church of New Zealand to be a full member in the World Methodist Council was warmly approved at the executive meeting of the World Methodist Council in Sydney. It was fitting that Rev Edgar Hornblow was able to make this presentation as it followed on from my attendance at the five yearly gathering in Seoul, Korea, in July 2006. Edgar has had an outstanding ministry within and beyond New Zealand, including being our inaugural National Superintendent. As most readers will know New Zealand Wesleyan Methodists are fully committed to ecumenism - in fact this is intrinsic for anyone who takes John Wesley's teaching seriously (His sermon on The Catholic Spirit is still so relevant).

I am also taking the opportunity to mix far and wide with the student body and faculty here at Asbury. The Wesleyan denominational community is about 60 students strong (and with families about 140+ strong) so they are getting to know about New Zealand and the opportunities for service there! There will also be ways that Asbury's resources can assist the Wesleyan Methodist Church in New Zealand and I will be working on this over coming months. Fortunately with me being such a "mature" student (read "with increasing gray hair!") many doors have been opened to me including me being one of the students featured at last weekend's "President's Retreat" in Florida where about 500 guests learnt more about the mission of Asbury and were invited to financially contribute. I told my story on video, and that of the New Zealand Church, and what coming to Asbury means to me personally and to our growing national Church family.

Well, books and reading calls again. Next week we start an intensive with "Biblical Interpretation" taught by Dr Joel Green who visited New Zealand earlier this year. Then it is "Strategic Leadership". Our first class travels commence in November when we attend the National Outreach Convention in San Diego, California. A key focus of the visit will be a case study of Skyline Wesleyan Church so it will be good for some of my colleagues to see the operations a very large and progressive Wesleyan Church. Then in January its off to Houston, in February to Romania and April to Korea. I thank God everyday for all the new experiences and refreshment I am receiving, always conscious it is for the purposes of witness and mission.

God bless for now.

Richard