International Council for Evangelical
Theological Education
Sponsorship:
ACTEA (Africa); ATA (Asia); CETA (the Caribbean); EEAA (Europe); E-AAA
(Euro-Asia);
AETAL (Latin America); AABC (North
America); SPABC (South Pacific)
ICETE News
an in-house circular
for the ICETE community
February 2007
Doug Birdsall
Joins ICETE Council of Reference
ICETE
takes pride in announcing that the International Chair of the Lausanne Committee
for World Evangelization (LCWE), Doug Birdsall, has graciously accepted
appointment to the ICETE Council of Reference. The ICETE Council of Reference
is composed of distinguished leaders in the international evangelical world who
are closely familiar with ICETE and pleased to lend their name in support of
its role and vision. ICETE has long maintained a collaborative involvement with
initiatives of the Lausanne movement, including
participation in LCWE’s 1989 Manila Congress and in
its 2004 Global Forum in Thailand.
Before coming into LCWE leadership, Birdall served for twenty years in leadership development
and church planting in Asia. Since 1999 he has served as director of
the Centre for World Missions at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, an ICETE
Affiliate institution. He holds degrees from Gordon-Conwell, Wheaton, and Harvard. Doug was
a special guest at the ICETE Consultation in Chiang Mai in 2006, addressing the
Consultation in plenary session, serving on a key panel, and leading several workshops.
In accepting the appointment, Doug stated: “I am
honoured by the invitation to serve on the ICETE Council of Reference. It is
with great enthusiasm that I lend my support to the work and vision of ICETE.”
Other eminent members of the ICETE Council of
Reference are: Rolf Hille of the Albrecht-Bengel-Haus
in Tübingen, Germany; Peter Kuzmič
of the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Osijek,
Croatia; Emilio Nuñez of the Seminario Teológico Centroamericano (SETECA)
in Guatemala; Wilson Chow of China Graduate School of Theology in Hong Kong;
and Chris Wright, director of John Stott’s Langham Partnership International,
based in the UK. ICETE welcomes Doug Birdsall to this position, and looks
forward to the benefits of his wise counsel and involvement in the ICETE global
family.
ICETE’s New
Director in Motion
ICETE’s
new International Director, Paul Sanders, is firmly on the move in 2007. Based
in Lebanon, Paul serves there with
the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary (ABTS). His travels on behalf of ICETE in
2007 include meetings in February in Brazil with Latin American theological
educators; in March he will speak to theological educators of the
Caribbean who are assembling in Jamaica; in August Paul will be in the
Philippines for the gathering of Asian theological educators; and in
October he will lead meetings in Rome of ICETE’s European member EEAA, of which
he is Chair. Additionally Paul is to participate in the “Presidents’
Consultation” being sponsored by Overseas Council International (OCI) in Germany in September. And he will represent ICETE at Lausanne’s International
Leadership meeting being held in Hungary in June.
Before moving to Lebanon, Paul served for
twenty-five years in France, where he was Dean and
later Director of the Institut Biblique
de Nogent. His doctorate, in modern western history,
is from the Université de Sorbonne in Paris. Paul and his wife Agnès, a medical doctor, moved to Lebanon in 1996, where Agnès directs a ministry providing health care, literacy,
and other social assistance in the refugee camps around Beirut. The institution where Paul
is teaching in Beirut, ABTS, has over 200
graduates working in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Palestine. ABTS alumni also lead
Arabic-speaking churches and ministries in Europe, North and South America and Australia.
Paul became a member of the EEAA Council in
1989; he joined the ICETE governing board in 2002; and he was appointed ICETE
International Director in 2006. In this post he succeeds Dieumeme Noelliste of Jamaica, who led ICETE from
2000 to 2006. Dieumeme now serves ICETE as its Chair. Dieumeme and Paul
will be meeting with other members of ICETE’s Executive Committee at sessions
planned for August in Nairobi, Kenya.
Professional
Workshops for Academic Deans
Over 25 academic deans from all over
the world attended a two-day intensive workshop held under ICETE auspices
immediately after the ICETE Consultation in Thailand in August 2006. Facilitators included Drs Fritz Deininger (Bangkok), Steve Hardy (Johannesburg) and Paul Sanders (Beirut). The event dealt with issues such as the job description
of the dean, curriculum development, administrative skills, and faculty
development. In May 2006 a similar four-day workshop was held in Singapore, sponsored by the Asia Theological Association (ATA) and
attended by 60 deans. That event was facilitated by Drs. Deininger
and Sanders, as well as by Dr. Theresa Lua (Philippines), Dr. Paul Mohan Raj (India) and others from ATA. It focused specifically on curriculum
development. This ATA workshop will be followed up this coming May 2007 with
one in Bangkok, this time on faculty development. Similar ICETE-linked
workshops for deans are under discussion for Latin America (AETAL) and for
Africa (ACTEA).
ICETE-Sponsored
Think-Tank
ICETE will be
facilitating a think-tank event in São Paulo, Brazil 27-28 February, in
collaboration with the Association for Evangelical Theological Education in
Latin America (AETAL). Brainstorming sessions will focus on AETAL’s
purposes and accomplishments, as well as practical means for felt needs of the
AETAL constituency to be addressed and appropriate changes implemented. Are
there ways in which AETAL could be better configured to enhance its impact in
encouraging quality theological education across Latin America? How might AETAL be
able to strengthen networking among institutions throughout the region so that
they themselves can become consultants and encouragers to one another? Arrangements
are being coordinated by Steve Hardy, ICETE Senior Consultant. Paul Sanders,
ICETE’s International Director, will also be participating, together with AETAL’s General Secretary, Vera Brock. ICETE hopes to be
able to facilitate similar think-tank events for other ICETE-related members in
future as needed.
Radical
Incarnational Ecclesiology
ICETE
has just participated in a significant exploratory consultation of the Lausanne
Theology Working Group, held 12-17 February 2007 in Limuru, Kenya. The event was chaired
by Chris Wright of Langham Partnership International, and co-sponsored by the
Theological Commission of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA). This was the
first in a series of such gatherings planned by this Lausanne group to articulate key
theological challenges relevant to the task of world evangelization, in
preparation for the Third Lausanne Congress to be held in 2010. ICETE’s
delegates to the event were Douglas Carew of ACTEA (Kenya) and Sergei Sannikov of E-AAA (Ukraine).
The theme of this consultation was “Following
Jesus in Our Broken World,” and focused on the demands of radical discipleship
and the ethical dimensions inherent in Christian conversion. Presentations
considered issues of discipleship in contexts of power and violence, suffering
and disaster, ethnicity, and the globalised marketplace, together with
questions relating to the uniqueness of Christ, and Jesus as the Truth in the Postmodern world. What was found
most needed was a robust theology of incarnational ecclesiology. As truth is
experienced and communicated through proposition, presence, and praxis, our
ecclesiology must be more effectively developed so that we might be both bearers and communicators of the
Truth to our suffering world. Succeeding consultations of this working group
will focus on: the Whole Church (2008), the Whole
Gospel (2009), and the Whole World (2010). The implications for evangelical
theological education are multiple. Part of ICETE’s role is to provide both an
ear and a voice for its worldwide constituency within such venues of global
evangelicalism. LCWE hopes in due course to make the findings of this series
available to ICETE constituency institutions.
Lutherans Ablaze
The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS),
represented by its mission desk for overseas theological education, maintains
formal links with ICETE as an ICETE Associate. Other ICETE Associates include: Church of
the Nazarene; Church of God (Cleveland); Overseas
Council International, Resource Leadership International; Overseas Council
Australia; and SIM International.
In
preparation for celebrating the 500th anniversary of the
Reformation, the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) and its 29 international
partner churches have launched Ablaze!, a decade-long world-wide Lutheran
mission movement for sharing the Gospel. Theological education is not left out
of the celebration. Since Lutheranism began as
a movement in the theological faculty of Wittenberg University,
and since it has traditionally placed strong emphasis on education and on the
training of pastors, theological education is included in the celebration’s
foci. As part of the Ablaze!
campaign, LCMS and its partners have pledged to raise $6 million specifically in aid of Lutheran seminaries and schools in South Africa,
Ghana, Nigeria, Togo, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Russia, Argentina, and Mexico. For further information, visit: www.lcms.org/ablaze
Doctorate in International
Theological Education
Columbia International University (in Columbia SC, USA) is among those North
American post-graduate evangelical institutions that have established a formal
relationship with ICETE as ICETE Affiliates. Other
ICETE Affiliate institutions are: Denver Seminary; Wheaton College; Gordon-Conwell Theological
Seminary; and Bethel Seminary.
Columbia International University (Columbia, SC, USA) announces
plans for a Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership that will have a
concentration in international theological education, and will have courses
offered at Akademie für Weltmission in Korntal, Germany. The programme will be an expansion of CIU’s
current Doctorate in Educational Leadership with a concentration in Christian
higher education. Courses in the 66 semester hour program will be taught in
English through a combination of distance education and on-campus modular (one
week) courses. The program will focus on preparing in-service educators,
through biblically-integrated studies, for roles in leadership, instruction,
and research in international theological education. Completion of the degree
will normally require four to six years of continuous studies. Additional
information on both the current and the projected programmes is available on
the website: www.ciu.edu/edd
Action Time 2007
This year 2007 is action time within ICETE’s
worldwide membership. ICETE is a global participatory community set up by eight
regional associations of theological schools to further international contact
and collaboration in evangelical theological education. ICETE’s member
associations represent all regions of the world, with a combined global
constituency of more than 700 theological schools in 100 countries,
predominantly in the majority world. Almost all of the ICETE member
associations are holding major assemblies in 2007.
· North America. The Association for Biblical
Higher Education (ABHE), which links institutions of biblical higher education
in North America, is holding its 60th
Annual Meeting in Orlando FL 22-24 February.
The theme is “Influencing the Future from a
Foundation of Faith”. Plenary
speakers include Dr Kenneth Gangel of Christian Education Leadership, and Dr Ted Ward
of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Workshops will address such topics
as: Elephants in the Boardroom: Overcoming Obstacles to Board Greatness; The Academic Leader as Team Builder; and Why Are We Doing All This Work? The Benefits of Accreditation. The
Interim Executive Director of ABHE is Ralph Enlow. Further
information is available at the ABHE website:
www.abhe.org
· Caribbean. The Caribbean Evangelical
Theological Association (CETA) will be meeting 19-23 March in Montego Bay, Jamaica, under the theme
“Theological Education in a Globalized World”.
Principal speakers will include ICETE’s Director, Paul Sanders, and CETA’s President and ICETE’s Chair, Dieumeme Noelliste. A
pre-conference seminar will focus on “Preparing Your College for
Accreditation.” The event is being coordinated by CETA’s
Secretary, Errol Joseph. Further information is available from the CETA
website: www.cetaweb.info
·
Africa. The
Accrediting Council for Theological Education in Africa (ACTEA) is not holding
a general meeting in 2007. It announces several personnel changes in process. The incoming
ACTEA Administrative Secretary for Accreditation, Philippe Emedi,
has relocated from Jos, Nigeria, to Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. Stephanie Black (Ethiopia) is joining the ACTEA
staff as Accreditation Officer. Scott Cunningham, outgoing ACTEA Administrative
Secretary for Accreditation, will be transitioning to the staff of Overseas
Council International, to lead their Institutes for Excellence in Christian
Leadership Development. Meanwhile in March an ACTEA team is visiting the
Theological College of Central Africa in Ndola, Zambia, for its decadal
re-accreditation process. Further information is available from the ACTEA
website: www.theoledafrica.org/ACTEA
· South Pacific. The South Pacific Association
of Bible Colleges (SPABC) will be holding its 22nd Biennial
Conference 2-6 July, at the Bible College of New Zealand, in Auckland, New Zealand. The keynote speaker will be
Dr Craig Blomberg from Denver Seminary (an ICETE
Affiliate institution). The purposes of the Conference include fellowship,
professional development, inspiration, refreshment, and intellectual
stimulation. SPABC’s current President, Peter Ralphs, will be presiding. The event is being coordinated
by SPABC’s Secretary, Les Crawford. Further information is
available at the SPABC website: www.spabc.com.au
·
Asia. The Asia Theological Association will
hold its Triennial Assembly 6-10 August in Manila, Philippines, with the theme: “The Prophetic Voice of the Gospel in Contemporary
Asia”. Among the sub-themes to be considered are: Shifting Paradigms in Theological Education; Globalization and Its Effects in the Asian Context; Theological Education in the Context of
Persecution; Theological Education
for the Marketplace; and Information Technology: How
Can It Be Better Used by ATA and its Institutions. Paul Sanders, ICETE Director,
will be addressing the assembly. Other principal speakers will include: Vinay Samuel (India); Ben Pwee (Singapore); David Wang (Hong Kong); and Joseph Suico (Philippines). The event is being
coordinated by ATA’s Acting General Secretary, Brian Wintle. Further information is available at the ATA
website: www.ataasia.com
· Latin America. The Association for Evangelical Theological
Education in Latin America (AETAL) will be holding its 6th triennial
assembly 24-28 September in São Paulo, Brazil. The theme will be: “Theological Education—Its Relevance to People, Church, and Society”. Among principal speakers will
be Dr Steve Hardy, ICETE Senior Consultant and SIM Advisor for Theological
Education, based in Johannesburg, South Africa. The AETAL event is being
coordinated by the AETAL General Secretary, Vera Brock. For further
information, contact: secretariageral@aetal.com
· Euro-Asia. The Euro-Asian Accrediting Association (E-AAA) will hold its 8th
General Meeting in Kiev, Ukraine, 23-25 October. E-AAA links 53 evangelical
theological schools in Eurasia. The Kiev conference, bringing
together more than 150 participants from all the countries of the former Soviet Union, will seek to arrive at
recommendations for developing theological education more effectively to serve
the churches in a context of limited resources. The event will also work to align
E-AAA accreditation services
more sufficiently with the European-wide Bologna process. Attention will
also be given to challenges in publication of Russian-language theological
literature. Coordinating these events is E-AAA Executive Director, Sergei Sannikov. Further
information is available on the E-AAA website: www.e-aaa.org
· Europe. The European Evangelical Accrediting Association
(EEAA) is the evangelical quality assurance network serving theological schools
in Europe since 1978. The EEAA
General Assembly will be held in Rome 31 October-4 November. The theme will be
“Spiritual Development and Mentoring in Theological Education”, with the
principal speaker Dr Gordon Smith of Resource Leadership International (Canada). Seminar sessions will
address topics such as: How Mentoring Is
Practiced Today;
The Role of The Tutor in Spiritual Formation, A
Conversation With Henri Nouwen; The Role of Prayer in Theological
Educational Contexts; and Spiritual Formation
through Distance Learning. The event will be followed by a guided tour of Rome. Arrangements are being
cared for by EEAA’s Coordinator, Marvin Oxenham. For
further information, visit the EEAA website: www.eeaa.org
About ICETE
ICETE is a global community, sponsored by eight
continental/regional networks of theological schools, to encourage excellence
and renewal in evangelical theological education worldwide. ICETE was
established in 1980, and functions under the auspices of the World Evangelical
Alliance.
ICETE Officers—Chair: Dieumeme Noelliste (Jamaica);
Director: Paul Sanders (Lebanon)
ICETE Council of Reference—Rolf Hille (Germany); Emilio Nuñez (Guatemala);
Chris Wright (UK); Wilson Chow (Hong Kong); Doug Birdsall (USA); Peter Kuzmič
(Croatia)
for
further information, or to contact ICETE, go to:
http://www.icete-edu.org
ICETE’s Mission:
Strengthening
evangelical theological education
through
international cooperation