the changing face of theological education

Friday night was the annual BCV Alumni dinner held at the Lilydale campus. I was there b/c i was being interviewed and to give those there a bit of a feel of what a current student is doing and how they ended up at BCV.

Mike Raiter gave an address that focused on the changing face of theological education and was quite  interesting. He had ten points, which are as follows:

1. The Techo Teacher – the rise of various technologies as educational tools.

2. At home in the classroom – the online and distance learning movement.

3. Confessions of a shop-o-holic student – students being the consumer and shopping around for the college that best suits their needs.

4. Patterns of co-operation – with many different colleges around Melbourne and Australia there is an emphasis on sharing and pool resources together.

5. The decline of the denomination – no one cares about denominations anymore.

6. The donation decline – financially BCV and all charity donations across the country and even the world are declining while we are in the most wealthy stage of history ever.

7. The greys go back to school – with retirement taken early or many years before death many older folk are looking to do something and advance their working life longer.

8. Professional development – no longer does one go to theological college for four years and then head of to ministry. Rather, they are always coming back for life-long learning and development.

9. More than chalk & talk – discussion groups, group work, in-class debates and the like are occurring more often and helping those who have different learning styles.

10. Who goes to the library? – More people are wanting library resources but less people are actually in the library. Online library resources and borrowing is making the library more virtual rather than physical.

That is the summary of Mike’s 10 points. They were informative and interesting. It’ll be interesting to see what changes will be made by various lecturers over the coming few years as the college adapts to these changes.

Bible College of Victoria

Yesterday, during his weekly Principal’s Forum, Mike Raiter made an exciting announcement about the future of the college.

In recent months BCV have been in negotiations to purchase a new site for their campus. A property in Wantirna has come to the attention of Mike and the BCV Council and over the last few months discussions have been taking place. There is a long way to go in the process, but the Lord’s hand can certainly been seen in it thus far.

This change will no doubt affect many current and former students. Mike made the comment that BCV needs to re-invent itself and this is one way of doing so. Along with the possibility of moving is also a name change to better reflect who BCV is. The merging of the Chinese & English-based campus’ into one would also occur if this development went forward.

Please continue to pray for BCV, particularly at this time of possible change. There are many more favourable decisions that need to happen in the coming months for BCV to secure the move. Pray for Mike and the BCV council as they undertake this possibility.

the gospel of John

This year i am studying the book of John (The Fourth Gospel) at college. I am really looking forward to it, particularly with the expert lecturer i have the opportunity to sit under. Already i have begun translating the Greek NT passages which has been an exercise to get my mind back into Greek while also doing what I’ll need to do for class. I thought that it might be a good idea to go through the Gospel of John on the blog also. It will give me something more structured to think about and will keep me disciplined. Some day’s i may get stuck on only one or two verses, at other times i may do a whole passage. If i can do this reasonably regularly I’ll be happy with it.

It’s funny how many people are studying the Gospel of John at the moment. John Piper has been doing a series for the last couple of months. The late James M. Boice is is being transmitted over The Bible Study Hour and we are studying it at college this semester as i have mentioned.

I look forward to this challenge, i hope you will enjoy it also.