View from the Hill

EN: What’s the point of theological college?

MO: For me, a theological college exists to serve local churches, working in partnership with them to carry out the great commission of Jesus to make disciples of all nations. Everything we do has to be seen in the context of that big picture — we’re here to help churches do what Jesus calls us to do.

One idea which is guiding Oak Hill a great deal just now is that our task is to train the equivalent of GPs, rather than specialists. A good GP has the breadth and depth of medical training to deal with whatever medical problem next walks through the door. They can’t say, ‘I’m only going to treat people who’ve injured their left elbows, but I won’t treat anyone who’s got ingrowing toenails’. The same is true of church pastors. They can’t pick and choose the situations and problems which arise in their churches, but have to offer biblical care and teaching to their people wherever they are in life.

You think about what happens to the average minister. On Monday, they may be conducting a funeral; on Tuesday, they could be making a hospital visit; on Wednesday, marriage preparation; on Thursday, teaching at the midweek Bible study. And then, on Sunday, they are doing a full, formal sermon. Now that’s a vast range of activity, calling on very different skills. So the training we give has those different skills, as well as an overall theological education, very much in mind.

We also want students to continue being involved in local churches while they’re with us, so there’s a continual to-ing and fro-ing between the lecture room and the local church. That way, they see the relevance of what they’re learning as it’s played out in the life of the congregation.

EN: There have been some big changes at Oak Hill in the past year, with several members of staff leaving. What’s the current direction of the College?

MO: A number of long-standing and talented members of staff have moved on this year, some into new pastoral ministries, and some into specific teaching ministries. That’s partly what happens with colleges — people do leave for new opportunities, although, of course, there is inevitably great sadness when they do so.

But these significant changes, and also some other painful challenges that we’ve been through, have made us question ourselves and seek to learn what God would have us learn. We’ve asked: what are we called to do, and what are the fundamental things we need to achieve? If anything, it’s made us even more mission-minded in the way we think about how we do our teaching. What we need as teachers, and in the students we serve, is not only technical or academic expertise, but also a passionate commitment to the fulfilment of Jesus’s great commission.

EN: In practical terms, how are you replacing the teaching staff members who have left?

MO: Obviously, we want to be diligent in finding full-time people to occupy all our teaching positions. People of talent aren’t easily replaced. But we’ve been very blessed in gaining people who will help us deliver our programmes.

It’s a great delight that Peter O’Brien of Moore College will be teaching about justification later this year, and that Carl Trueman of Westminster Seminary, Philadelphia, will be teaching in the area of the Reformation. We’ve also been very fortunate in having two visiting lecturers to help us with our Old Testament teaching, and they’re already proving very popular with our students.

We also have a new Director of our Youth and Children’s Ministry programmes in Mel Lacy, who is currently working as youth minister at St. John’s Church in Knutsford. She brings a wealth of first-hand experience and enthusiasm for training youth and children’s workers, with a thought-through evangelistic and missionary edge.

EN: Oak Hill is unusual in offering training to both Anglican and Free Church students. Potentially that could be an unhappy marriage.

MO: I think having Anglican and Free Church students training alongside each other is of crucial importance for future ministry. One of the great things that’s happened over the past 15 to 20 years is that Free Churches and Anglican evangelical churches have begun working hand in hand for the gospel in local areas. We want that process of co-operation, understanding and charity to start as early as possible.

I look at some of our students and think, you’re going to be working alongside each other for 40 or 50 years, God willing, and I want you to know, understand and love each other. You won’t necessarily agree with each other on every single point, but nevertheless you should be able to work together for the sake of the gospel and for the glory of the Lord Jesus.

EN: Do you think it’s tougher to be a pastor-teacher today than it was, say, 20 years ago?

MO: In some respects, yes. Of course, the fundamental problem of what obstructs the gospel remains human sin, but I think we haven’t always kept track as we might have done of the different ways in which people are now being tempted to reject the gospel. If we want to reach them, we have to understand the audiences we’re talking to. There are many audiences — different races, ages, faiths, social classes and backgrounds — and ideally we want to see every single one of those audiences reached with an attractive and faithful presentation of the Christian message.

EN: What do you see as the greatest challenges faced by the gospel today?

MO: We’re dealing with people now who are unchurched and have no experience of Christian things, and they think they know what they’re rejecting, but they actually don’t. Jim Packer brought this out very clearly in an interview at the College earlier this year, which will soon be on our website. We’re also dealing with people who come from radically different faith traditions, with very different outlooks and understandings, and we have to work out, as any missionary does, how the gospel can best be explained in their particular cultural contexts.

That’s complicated further in that the very ways in which we’re communicating are changing so rapidly. Who had even heard of Twitter three years ago? Who would have thought we’d have something like Facebook, or that it could be as socially significant as it’s proving to be? These are opportunities, rather than challenges, because I’m sure these technological innovations can be used for good and for the proclamation of the gospel, even as others use them for evil.

A theological college is never frozen in time. It’s training people to carry out the great commission in local churches. The great commission remains un-changed, but how it’s brought to a new community, or to a changed community, is something that has to develop over time. We therefore have to be responsive and be ‘a Jew to Jews and a Greek to Greeks’, precisely for the gospel’s sake. That applies inside theological colleges as well as in local churches.

EN: What words of advice would you offer someone who is considering training for the ministry today?

MO: My first advice is to simply open your Bible and look at those things God would have you do or be in order to become his minister. You might read Titus 1, and look at some of the moral qualifications there, which are tough enough.

But there are also, I think, some intellectual qualifications. You’ve got to know the truth. You’ve got to know the truth so well that you can actually refute false teaching when it threatens you or those for whom you’re pastorally responsible. And you should, of course, believe the truth — and that’s something that it’s curiously easy to lose sight of, but so important to do.

So you start by saying, ‘What would God have me be as a minister in his church?’ But you then have to go further and say, ‘And what would help me to be that, not just when I’ve got the youthful enthusiasm I have at the moment? What is going to keep me there in 20 years’ time, when I’m no longer young, and when I may be facing opposition from within my church or from the community in which I’m set? What’s going to enable and equip me to deal with that?’

At that point, we come to realise that the long-term demands of ministry are really very high. And that’s why the most obvious way of helping people is to provide them with the opportunity to dig very, very deep into God’s Word, so they can understand it and be nourished by it. That way, they will be able to face the exceptional demands in ministry over the years to come.

EN: What constitutes a really great day in your job?

MO: I love being on College missions in local churches, but that’s not every day. In the normal run, I love it when I’m teaching and I see students coming to a deeper awareness of how great God is and how wonderful the gospel is. I love it when I hear of a student getting a job and I think of what that can mean in terms of souls saved and faith deepened.

From time to time, I hear comments over the lunch table which remind me that the students are getting a much better and more rounded theological education than I ever had. That’s actually one of the things that’s on my heart, that I want the next generation of local church leaders to be more equipped, more godly and more fruitful than our generation has been.

One of the aspects of teaching I enjoy most is when we’ve reached a point where I can say, ‘We’re going to spend half an hour thinking about the new things we’ve learned, and then simply praying to God and praising him for the things that have been disclosed or that have struck us in new ways’. For me, that’s a brilliant part of what we’re able to do.

For more information about Oak Hill Theological College call them on 020 8449 0467 or visit their website: http://www.oakhill.ac.uk