Multiple Paths to Ministry

New Models for Theological Education

Lance R. Barker, B. Edmon Martin, Lance R. Barker, B. Edmon Martin

• Publisher: Pilgrim Press
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9780829821802
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Experimental Methods in Education

Changing Models of Ministry EducationIn a rapidly changing church landscape, how should ministers be prepared to serve in diverse contexts? "Multiple Paths to Ministry" affirms the continued role of seminaries and divinity schools, yet also asserts that American Protestantism can no longer rely on graduate theological schools as the sole educational institutions charged with ministerial preparation.The essayists in "Multiple Paths to Ministry" researched the graduate theological education programs of the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in American, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Church of Christ, the United Church of Canada, and the United Methodist Church, from which they share powerful models for successful ministerial preparation. Contributors include Janet Silman, Carol Bell, Isaac McDonald, Richard Sales, Bert Affleck, Minka Shura Sprague, Glenn Miller, Ken McFayden, and Thomas Ray.

Part One

ALTERNATIVE
MODELS

One

Keepers of the Vision

Aboriginal Community-Based Learning for Ministry

JANET SILMAN

This chapter describes the program of the Dr. Jessie Saulteaux Resource Centre, an Aboriginal learning center for Christian ministry located in Canada. I introduce several communities that the Saulteaux Centre students serve and then explore an Aboriginal community-based learning model that emphasizes “life in the learning circle.” I conclude by offering some reflections on the Centre’s contributions and challenges both to theological education and to the wider church.

Flying north from Winnipeg, the geographical center of Canada, our small plane passes over miles and miles of water, rock, and trees. Below us now lies the rugged Cambrian shield, which is punctuated by gold Tamaracks, deep-green spruce trees, and countless sparkling lakes and rivers. This is the country that hunters and fishers from the United States pay huge fees to visit. But none of us is here because of the terrain or the wildlife. We are here to visit students of theology.

We land at the First Nations¹ community of Island Lake. There to meet our plane are the chief and the tribal council. Quite to our surprise, they ask for our help. They ask us to come with them immediately and speak with the local high school students, many of whom are alienated and acting out in self-destructive ways; some are suicidal.

The three of us are theology teachers and strangers to this community; we wonder how we can be of help. But we agree to the trip because, according to the tradition of our Cree and Ojibway elders, one always says yes if asked for help.

Arriving at the high school, we find a modern building populated by a variety of young people, many of whom are wearing the colors of urban street gangs. Successively, we visit classes, talking with students about respect — the topic that has been chosen by the community elders.

For us, who are visitors, underscored repeatedly is the notion that a massive generation gap exists in this twenty-five-hundred-member reserve.

The elders grew up hunting, fishing, and trapping in a pristine wilderness. The Bible was their only book. To this day, many of them speak little or no English, whereas large numbers of the youth speak only English. Furthermore, by means of watching satellite-dish television programs and video-store movies, young people have come to identify with a global monoculture. They view the world through a corporate-media lens, yet have little or no access to the glamour and material wealth that they see portrayed on television or in the movies. Not surprisingly, confusion and frustration, rage and despair characterize the young people of this First Nations community.

Our visit to the high school leaves us with haunting and disturbing images. We are reminded that students of the Dr. Jessie Saulteaux Resource Centre live and work in a cross-cultural context of struggle, desperation, hope, and crisis. The primary challenge facing the Saulteaux Centre is offering a program of theological education that will equip its students with the tools and inner resources they need in order to serve effectively and faithfully in this most difficult of contexts.

Before recounting how the Saulteaux Centre came to be and how it operates, I would like to take you on one more trip, this time to visit “Dr. Jessie” ministry students who serve in the province of Saskatchewan.

To reach the reserve communities in Saskatchewan, my colleagues and I drive for several hours on straight, flat highway. Then we follow many miles of paved sideroads. Finally, we turn onto the seemingly interminable gravel roads of the reserve. At each of several communities, we spend a day or two with the resident student minister; we talk about that person’s ministry, family, and congregation, and also about the wider community. We meet with elders and other members of the church, learning what we can about their concerns, joys, and hopes.

In one community we learn that a congregation’s church building has been condemned and must be moved onto a new foundation. The White Bear band council (similar to a town council) has offered to help with the restoration project, but the council’s resources are quite limited. Nor are there funds available for the project from the national church (United Church of Canada). The congregation has faced this situation for years. Although the church membership has used other sites for worship services, everyone loves and remains committed to the old church. We meet with the student minister and the congregation, discussing possible strategies for moving forward on the restoration project.

Four hours’ drive down the road brings us to the church in File Hills. We join the congregation there as it celebrates the completion of renovations to their building. The membership has worked together to restore the sanctuary, to insulate the remodeled basement hall — even to evict birds from the rafters! This dedicated congregation has had to face many difficulties, including the lack of regular worship services for a period of several years, but through it all they have become a strong, inclusive worshiping community. A sensitive, empowering student minister, who has taken the time to listen to the hopes and needs of the people, has facilitated what amounts to a congregational resurrection.

From File Hills we travel three hours to the city of Regina. There we visit with students involved in “core-area ministries.” One such student, Mariah Shepherd, grandmother and respected elder, serves as the Regina Native United Church Outreach Worker. Working from her home, she provides a ministry of presence and advocacy among the First Nations people who live in this urban environment. Many are hospitalized; most struggle with poverty, various forms of addiction, and insidious racism. Mariah’s deep spiritual wisdom weaves together the customs and values of both Christian and Aboriginal religious traditions. With humor, sensitivity, and patience, she carries out a ministry that receives little financial support beyond the salary and housing she receives as a student minister.

The second student whom we visit ministers to street people and sex-trade workers. In addition, she supervises an after-school latchkey program for inner-city children. Darlene Shepherd’s life experience, including her healing journey as a First Nations woman, helps her work effectively and compassionately with the people she encounters. When we visit a grocery store, numerous people stop Darlene to talk with her and to tell her their news. Walking down the street, we hear neighborhood children greet her in friendship. After spending thirty minutes with this student minister, we can see that she knows her community in depth and has a highly respected place within it.

None of the ministry students we have visited during this journey has chosen to attend a mainstream theological school. Even the few individuals who possess the academic requirements to enter a master of divinity program have chosen “Dr. Jessie,” primarily because the program is deeply informed and shaped by Aboriginal values and ways. In addition, many Native people have had extremely negative experiences at white-run schools. Many Saulteaux students have spoken of the emotional scars they carry from their years spent in the residential schools run by church and government. For generations, First Nations children (some as young as five years old) were taken forcibly from family and community. These children spent their early years in the brick dormitories of government boarding schools, far from family and home. Student ministers also relate their negative experiences in white schools, where racism and ignorance about First Nations culture and history were, and are, pervasive. One consequence of such racism has been the fact that, until recently, many First Nations churches were served exclusively by white pastors.

Origins of the Dr. Jessie Saulteaux Resource Centre

The story of the Dr. Jessie Saulteaux Resource Centre (DJSRC) begins in 1984 at Fort Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan. The Centre was named in honor of an Assiniboine woman who was a highly respected elder both in her community of Carry-the-Kettle Reserve, Saskatchewan, and also in the wider United Church of Canada community. Born in 1912, Jessie Saulteaux was prevented from pursuing her chosen vocation of nursing because she was considered “too dark, too Indian.” As a result of this impediment to her dreams, she decided to offer her gifts of leadership at home — in her village and in her church.

In the early 1980s, Jessie Prettyshield Saulteaux was awarded an honorary doctorate by St. Andrews College, Saskatoon. She continued to promote educational opportunities for her people until her death in 1995, exemplifying the quiet strength and deep wisdom of many elders who carry “the twin sacred bundles” of Christian and Native customs and beliefs. The Centre that carries Jessie Saulteaux’s name is grounded in the conviction that Christianity and Aboriginal spirituality share a great deal and that they share sacred ground.

Jessie’s daughter Bernice Saulteaux was one of the first students at the Centre. She recalls that DJSRC began with one teacher, one room, a few Bibles, and two or three students. In 1987 the Centre moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba, a more central location for students from the northern regions of Manitoba. Since its modest beginnings, the Saulteaux Centre has developed into a remarkable locus of both ministry training and cross-cultural retreats. The campus includes five buildings on thirty-five acres of river parkland.

I began teaching biblical studies at DJSRC in 1989. Of mixed-blood ancestry (English/Cree/Scottish) myself, I chose to minister primarily in First Nations communities. To an extent I am bicultural and, like many mixed-blood people, live between two worlds. During my ten years at the Centre, I taught Bible and, during the latter part of my tenure, served also as codirector. In 1999 I relocated to the west coast of Canada. I continue to teach courses at the Centre, and I remain committed to the life and work of DJSRC students and staff. The picture I hope to offer of the Dr. Jessie Saulteaux Centre and its wider context is from a quite personal perspective.

Origins of Community-Based Theological Education in Canada

In 1980 Aboriginal members of the United Church of Canada (UCC) held their first-ever national gathering. At that seminal meeting, the elders identified education for church leadership as one of their priorities. The elders said they wanted Aboriginal people to be trained as ministers for Aboriginal communities. Previous to 1980, few Aboriginal people had received formal theological education, and almost none of these ever served in First Nations villages. It was, and is, common wisdom that after graduating from university, Aboriginal people “speak another language,” and their own people can no longer understand them. At the 1980 gathering, the elders stated clearly that they would not endorse ministry training for Aboriginal church leaders that removed those leaders from their communities for long periods of time. The elders’ vision provided both a starting point and a guiding principle for the development of community-based theological training in the United Church of Canada.

Subsequent to the 1980 meeting of United Church elders, two First Nations learning centers were established: the Dr. Jessie Saulteaux Resource Centre, located on the Canadian Prairies, and the Francis Sandy Theological Centre in Southern Ontario.

I would also mention another Canadian initiative in community-based theological education known as the Native Ministry Consortium, which was established in 1985 and which offers an ecumenical master of divinity degree. Native theological students are able to remain in their home communities and take courses at a distance. The Native Ministry Consortium consists of the British Columbia Conference Division of Native Ministries (UCC), the Diocese of Caledonia (Anglican Church of Canada), the Diocese of Alaska (Episcopal Church), and Vancouver School of Theology. Because the Native Ministry Consortium program follows a different educational model from that employed at the Dr. Jessie and Francis Sandy Centres, a description of the Consortium’s program would take a separate chapter.

A Culturally Appropriate Community-Based Model for Native Training

Following the 1980 gathering of Aboriginal leaders, and in response to the elders’ vision for their people, the United Church formed the National Native Ministry Training Committee (NNMTC). This committee took on the task of developing a model for theological education that would be informed by Aboriginal customs and wisdom, and, at the same time, would meet the UCC’s requirements for ordained and diaconal ministry. In 1984 the national church approved the nonresidential model developed by the NNMTC. That same year the Dr. Jessie Saulteaux Resource Centre was founded. Then in 1986 the model received a second incarnation with the establishment of the Francis Sandy Theological Centre.

Although the two schools are free to tailor the model in response to specific regional needs and cultures, both schools must work within certain guidelines. Each has an autonomous board of directors that oversees all aspects of life in the respective organization; most, or all, of the board members are Aboriginal. In the case of the Dr. Jessie Saulteaux Centre, various presbyteries within the All-Native Circle Conference (ANCC) appoint several board members. Consonant with the Centre’s ecumenical vision, two board members are recruited from other denominations. Board meetings at DJSRC partake of both European and Aboriginal traditions. Staff and board members meet in a circle, decisions are made by consensus, and traditional ceremonies are practiced. The mood is informal; there is much laughter; there are prayers and sometimes tears; elders always, and occasionally children, take part in the circle. At mealtimes students and staff share news about the far-flung “Dr. Jessie” community, and they reminisce about times and people. Led by an elected executive, the board of directors adheres carefully to the terms of its charter, both as a nonprofit organization and as a theological college of the UCC.

The United Church of Canada authorized the two First Nations schools to educate persons for both ordained and diaconal ministry. The Dr. Jessie Saulteaux and Francis Sandy Centres offer certificates upon completion of the program, but neither grants academic degrees.

The DJSRC board has stated emphatically that the ministry program must remain autonomous, with its primary accountability being to First Nations communities and not to the academic world. The opinion has also been expressed that granting degrees is foreign to Aboriginal culture and traditions. On the other hand, the board has recognized that some students — particularly younger ones — are desirous of pursuing academic degrees, and that academic credentials are ...