The Erskine Global Diploma in Theology and Christian Leadership: Part Two

Training Those Who Will Train: Finding Apollos

Martha Margaret Cotten, MTh., D.Min.

Acts 18: 26-28 26 He [Apollos] began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. 27 And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, 28 for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus.

Imagine a world where you must preach a sermon each week, evangelize, and teach Bible study, but all you have is your Bible. You have had no training. You have no commentaries, no Logos software, no podcasts, no Substack – not even a YouTube video.  You have had no exposure to universal Christian creeds such as the Nicene, and much less, doctrinally specific confessions such as the Westminster Confession of Faith. Added to this, your country has begun to require leaders like yourself to have a credential in order to preach. The threat of your church being closed and your sheep wandering from the sheepfold looms over you.

This is the reality for many pastors and church leaders in the Global South/Majority World. Like Apollos, they are bold for Jesus, yet they do not yet know the “way of God…accurately.” They are teaching what they have heard taught, which is often a version of the prosperity gospel. But they are good shepherds who love their people and know that they must obey the laws given by their civil governments.

When the World Witness Missions Agency and Erskine College and Theological Seminary realized this need, they saw the opportunity to meet it by partnering together to offer theological education formally (through Erskine) but in a culturally sensitive and sustainable way (through World Witness). The Erskine Global Diploma in Theology and Church Leadership was born.

The Global Diploma continuing education credential is offered to Majority World students who have no geographic or financial access to theological education. The vision is to provide these Apollos’ with a solid framework of theological understanding and biblical interpretation given by academically-qualified professors, while allowing the content to be adjusted to each specific cultural context by culturally-sensitive missionaries. The members of the World Witness ministry of MT3 (mobile theological training team) which was begun by Dr. John Carson among others, was built upon and expanded by Erskine. This partnership now has five full-time missionary-professors and two part-time, with Erskine and the ARP itself providing many visiting professors. Another major initiative in this ministry is to train up local professors to slowly replace our professors. This is the only way to provide long-term sustainability to the ministry. We have 3 students seeking higher education who have participated in the Global Diploma and at least one more in the pipeline. Right now, we have six cohorts located in three countries: Rwanda, Pakistan, and Mexico.

 Our Global Diploma students come from a context of poverty, limited access to healthcare, corruption in government, faith-based persecution, and injustice. This context, utterly incommensurable from the average Christian experience in the West, deeply affects perspective on and application of biblical texts. Leaders need tools and training to help situate their context within the teachings of Scripture.

Global Diploma trainings are offered in an in-person, intensive, one-week format with translated student notes and lectures. To graduate with the Global Diploma, a student must complete and pass 16 week-long modules.

Erskine supplies a director for this program who oversees the day-to-day academics, curriculum, faculty, student records, enrollment software, faculty schedules, and the accredited formal backing that many governments are looking for. The director also partners with World Witness on emerging global opportunities.

The weekly costs for the courses themselves are provided through the John and Sarah Ellen Carson Scholarship Fund housed at Erskine College. Each course includes food and tea for the students, printing costs, classroom equipment, food and lodging for the drivers and translators, and petrol for vehicles used. In addition, the Carson Scholarship provides one full-time (or multiple part-time) scholarship for a global A.R.P. to enter the Erskine MATS or M.Div. program. Depending on funding, the Carson Fund also administers various translation projects.

World Witness, through the SEED Ministry field, provides the Global Diploma program with support staff in each country, such as administrative and translation staff, drivers, and vehicles. Most of our Global Diploma missionary-professors are World Witness employees. Their personal missionary accounts pay for their salary and benefits, their plane tickets and travel expenses, their food and lodging when overseas, and other miscellaneous needs. The Global Diploma is truly an agency-partner-project that the ARP Church is blessed to have.

We often tell stories of Rwandan pastors and other church leaders walking miles to our Erskine Global Diploma classes each day. Less of you may have heard stories of the oppressed Christians in Pakistan and other regions where Christianity is the minority and persecuted religion. These men and women are so committed to their biblical and theological education that they count it a joy to sacrifice their time, energy, and income to receive training even under the threat of persecution.

Please consider becoming a partner with Erskine and the Global Diploma Program. Reformed theological education is one of our greatest strengths and we are in a unique position as a denomination to follow the Holy Spirit in what He is doing in the world!