Seminary offers resource for laity
The Rev. Craig Hill likes to ask deep questions.
That’s why the professor of New Testament at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., is heading up the Wesley Ministry Network, an initiative to put scholarly Bible study material into the hands of lay people.
“We were trying to meet the need for a deeper, richer curriculum for people in churches, targeting people who have been through Disciple Bible Study and who want something more,” said Hill who added that the studies have been ordered by churches across the United States, 15 countries and five continents.
Among the newer studies is “Religion and Science: Pathways to Truth,” featuring renowned scientist Francis S. Collins, former director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, and other important scientists who are Christians, such as Nobel Laureate William Phillips.
Like the other Network studies, it includes a leader’s guide, workbooks, a publicity kit and a series of short DVDs, in which speakers delve deep into evolution and Creation, ethics in science and faith, and scientific discovery.
The idea for these in-depth studies was born about eight years ago, when seminary president, the Rev. David McAllister-Wilson, and others, sought to use the Internet to connect with churches. In the process, they discovered that what churches wanted help with was seminary-quality curriculum.
That’s about the time when Hill finished the Bible study course “In God’s Time.”
“At that point in 2004, we finished the pilot phase of trying it out locally with 15 churches, and we saw it met a need, so we decided to jump in with both feet,” Hill said.
Making the in-depth studies for lay people has been a learning process. Topics are chosen based on what seminary faculty are interested in, what people have told the Network they’d like to see, as well as what’s fundable.
So far, there are eight studies available for churches to buy. More are in development and each gets more sophisticated than the last, with more time, scholars, graphics and details.
“The first studies were pretty spare in terms of graphical content, but now if you look at the Religion and Science course, it’s lavishly illustrated,” Hill said of the newest course that includes 17 prominent speakers.
Each study takes six months to a year to produce.
To pay for a study’s creation and design, Wesley Ministry Network depends on grants and donations. The Science and Religion grant came from the John Templeton Foundation, a philanthropic foundation that supports discovery and science.
Careful not to step on the toes of Disciple Bible studies, Hill and colleagues set out to continue where Disciple leaves off.
“Bishop Richard Wilke (co-creator of the Disciple series) was a consultant with us and we talked with him at some length on the churches’ needs,” Hill said. Disciple is somewhat limited, where each class studies in intensive groups for some nine months. Then there comes the question: What do you do when that’s done?
Now Hill and his colleagues are working on a much bigger project made up of three different courses: one on Methodist history, one on doctrine and one on evangelism in Methodist history. The project involves 50 scholars from 11 countries.
“I think it will set a standard for Methodist education for the next decade,” Hill said. The leaders’ version of the study will contain some 12 hours of video per course. Interested lay people may want to wait for the edited church group-friendly version, which will feature 20 minute lessons.
“It’s always struck me that there is a great hunger for high quality, substantial Christian education in church, and I know there’s a great resource out there in Christian scholars, so why not bring the two together,” Hill said, “and make these wonderful teachers accessible to the local church.”
In addition to the class on Pathways to Truth, the Wesley Ministry Network offers seven other studies on Devotion to Jesus, N.T. Wright’s Simply Christian, Serious Answers to Hard Questions, Christian Ethics, the Bible and the Future, Women in Church History and the Psalms.
Find out more at http://www.wesleyministrynetwork.com.
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