CBTE Mentor Teams Must Be Governed

A Bible-college learner meets regularly with an academic mentor, a pastor from the ministry setting and a formational guide. Together they interpret Scripture, examine ministry practice, pray, offer feedback and decide whether the learner has demonstrated competence. The arrangement seems to answer one of theological education's oldest problems: knowledge, character and practice no longer live in separate rooms.

The same arrangement concentrates unusual power. A mentor may be pastor, employer, spiritual authority, assessor, gatekeeper and future reference. A disagreement may affect a learner's grades, ministry placement, employment, church standing and sense of divine calling at the same time. Adding two more respected people does not automatically make that power fair, consistent or safe.

CBTE means Competency-Based Theological Education. It remains distinct from Kenya's general occupational Competency-Based Education and Training, or CBET. For Bible colleges and church-based ministerial formation, CBTE is principally a contextual, mentored and competence-demonstration model integrating knowing, being and doing. Its mentor team should therefore be treated as an educational and formational institution that must itself be designed, formed and governed.

A current programme page from Martin Luther Christian University in India, describes a one-year hybrid MA in Christian Ministry available through CBTE. It presents contextual ministry learning, online and onsite delivery, mastery assessment and a mentor team consisting typically of an academic mentor, a ministry practitioner and sometimes a denominational mentor. It…