Training men for ministry: more correspondence

Dear Editor,

Evangelicals Now recently published an open letter from John Brand, principal of Edinburgh Bible College. It’s addressed to 'church leaders training men for ministry.' Well, that kind of sounds like me, so I hope that John and en will accept an open letter in response from those of us seeking to train future pastors.

First of all, John seems to assume that those who are offering to train and prepare people for gospel ministry are leaders of large churches. It is certainly true that some of the larger churches around, St Helens and All Souls in London, Christ Church Fulwood in Sheffield have put a particular focus on providing training and development programmes. Several, including larger churches here in Birmingham offer Ministry Training schemes. However, in most of those cases, the assumption is that the church is only providing the foundational aspects of that training with those involved. Those seeking to serve in full time capacity will often go on to train full or part time at one of the main theological seminaries.