PSDE curriculum revised

Revised distance education curriculum reflects the changing demographics of the Mennonite Church

Elkhart, Ind. (AMBS)—Thanks to feedback from four reviewers representing African-American, Asian, Hispanic and urban perspectives, readers from many different backgrounds will find the curriculum for Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary’s Pastoral Studies Distance Education (PSDE) program more accessible.

“The materials have been revised with an eye for what is culturally bound,” said Rafael Barahona, director of leadership programs at AMBS. “We wanted to appeal to the greater diversity in the Mennonite Church today.”

Each of the four reviewers critiqued all five units of the “Leading God’s People” curriculum, offering suggestions that would help the college-level materials resonate better with people in their particular settings. The instructors for each unit worked to incorporate the feedback. The result? A curriculum that better represents the new demographics of the Mennonite Church, reflecting the realities of urban, racial/ethnic churches as well as rural, Eurocentric ones.

“I think it’s a fantastic set of materials, and I put a lot into the review,” said Freeman Miller, who served as the reader from an urban perspective. A Lancaster ( Pa.) Mennonite Conference bishop who oversees congregations in Philadelphia, Miller suggested including more urban illustrations in the curriculum —rather than only ones depicting rural life. Drawing from his experiences of working with Asian Mennonite congregations in the city, he advocated for including their perspectives as well.

“The crux of my critique would have been to make the materials so multicultural that anyone in one of our urban churches could pick it up and say, ‘This looks like it could be our church, or a picture of someone I might recognize,’” Miller said.

Both the curriculum and the PSDE program came into being in the early 1990s. In the ministry training program, pastors and lay leaders complete coursework via correspondence and meet with a mentor in their area.

Barahona said that church leaders in Asian, African-American, Hispanic and urban Mennonite communities who have used the curriculum have said that it is well suited to their needs.

“It fills a gap by providing an Anabaptist perspective on pastoral education at an early college level,” he said, adding that Mennonite Mission Network staff members have echoed this praise. He anticipates that the newly revised, more accessible materials will serve these constituencies even better.

Joe Rosa, director for church planting and new church development for Lancaster Mennonite Conference and Eastern Mennonite Missions, critiqued the curriculum from a Hispanic perspective. He said that the more its reading level could match its students’ educational level, the more valuable and useful it would be, noting that most of the leaders he works with “are not academics.”

During the revision process, the instructors considered the reviewers’ feedback with care. For example, Mike Zehr and Lois Shenk Zehr of Goshen, Ind.—instructors for Unit 1: Church and Ministry—reworded parts of the lesson, “The pastor as prophet,” in response to notes from Kuaying Teng describing Asians’ general hesitation to confront. Teng, who is minister of Asian ministries for Mennonite Mission Network, was the reader representing an Asian perspective.

“We also tried to rewrite some of the lessons, particularly in the area of urban churches, changing the language and examples to reflect the more multicultural and urban settings where Mennonites now find themselves,” Mike Zehr added.

Maurice Martin of New Hamburg, Ont., a regional minister for Mennonite Church Eastern Canada, is the instructor for Unit 3: Anabaptist-Mennonite History and Theology. He said that after having read the reviewers’ notations, he examined the whole unit for “phrases and thoughts that weren’t as inclusive as they could be. I tried to be more generic and not assume so much knowledge or experience of the Mennonite Church.”

The instructors replaced some of the articles accompanying the lessons with ones reflecting more current content and perspectives.

“Some of the articles based in 16th century Anabaptism were quite laborious in their style and difficult to follow,” Martin said. He solicited articles from writers such as Noé Gonzalía, pastor at First Mennonite of Kitchener (Ont.); current Anabaptist scholar Arnold Snyder; and Regina Shands Stoltzfus, assistant professor of Bible, religion and philosophy at Goshen ( Ind.) College. (Shands Stoltzfus also served as the reader representing an African-American perspective.)

The revision project was funded by a grant from the Schowalter Foundation, Inc., Newton, Kan., which also provided for the curriculum to be reformatted and redesigned. Other unit titles are The Biblical Story: Old and New Testament; Salt and Light: Preaching, Worship, Evangelism; and Tending God’s Flock: Pastoral Care and Counseling, Administration.

The PSDE program has attracted students from a variety of educational levels and backgrounds, such as a dairy farmer, a homemaker who followed a call toward camp ministry, and a person with a Master of Divinity degree who wanted to strengthen his understanding of Anabaptism.

“PSDE was a wonderfully practical way to engage in study while being involved in active ministry,” reflected Judith Froese Doell, who began the program as a lay leader and now serves as lead pastor of her church, Whitewater Mennonite in Boissevain, Man. “The program helped me grow into an Anabaptist pastor.”

For more information on the PSDE program and the Leading God’s People curriculum, call 574 296-6245 or see online: www.ambs.edu/psde

Annette Brill Bergstresser / January 13, 2009

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Here’s a sampling of how people who’ve recognized the value of these curriculum materials have used them in contexts outside of PSDE:

• Area conferences of Mennonite Church USA have encouraged new pastors who wish to be licensed but have not studied Anabaptist history and theology to take Unit 3 (Anabaptist-Mennonite History and Theology).
• All five units are used in the Journey program, a conference-based leadership development program co-sponsored by AMBS.
• Mennonite Mission Network workers Nancy Frey and Bruce Yoder are using Unit 3 (Anabaptist-Mennonite History and Theology) in the context of a Nigerian Bible school.
• The materials have been translated into Korean and Vietnamese, and the revised version will be translated into Spanish.
• Maurice Martin used the entire curriculum with leaders from Hmong, Laotian, Korean and Chinese congregations in Mennonite Church Eastern Canada in Baden, Ont., in 2003, in response to their desire for leadership training appropriate to their cultural context. Mennonite Church Canada and AMBS collaborated to translate the books into these languages and to offer this multicultural leadership training in three Canadian conferences.