Reenvisioning Theological Education and Missional Spirituality

Abstract

Two challenges facing churches in the West are how to adopt a missional posture to meaningfully engage the broader community, and how to foster genuine spirituality. Western world churches need to engage with a society that is open to spirituality and even inspired by Jesus, but less attracted to church. What does this mean for theological education and how churches train leaders? How can missional spirituality – spirituality that sustains and focuses the mission of the church – be best taught in classes and online? This article addresses these questions by expanding on Robert Banks’s Reenvisioning Theological Education and investigating how spirituality is taught as reflective practice. Reenvisioning theological education and missional spirituality happens best when it cultivates inner contemplation and outer engagement, and when it relates faith to everyday life and local contexts. The article shows how these principles will be the basis of refreshed curriculum design to teach missional spirituality including a new online subject.