Innovative

BUILD is an innovative, creative and pace-setting approach to theological training and to tackling the significant capacity building problems that churches face. As such it sits within the wave of alternative approaches to theological education precipitated by growth of the churches in the majority world in the latter part of the last century and training responses to that phenomenon.

In-service

BUILD and its structures and courses take an in-service approach to learning, which best serves its aims and content. This reflects a transformation in training more widely, represented by the ‘I’ in the BUILD acronym – standing for In-service.

This does not mean that BUILD training is lightweight or second-rate. There are theological, educational and practical advantages to the approach. The practical benefits are clear: an in-service course is accessible for the many leaders who cannot afford the time or money for full-time training. The educational ones are also apparent: in-service training for local church leaders has a number of benefits. For example, the learning applies directly to the work local leaders are doing and the problems and challenges they face. This increases their motivation, a hallmark of good adult education. It also means that learning is tested out and applied in practice, which reinforces and moves surface learning to deep learning.

The theological benefits of in-service training for local church leaders are connected to a theological reading of the term ‘in-service.’ The New Testament holds out models of learning in the context of discipleship and mission – Jesus trains his disciples, then and now, as they follow him in his mission.

Integrated

Integration, or bringing separate and apparently disparate elements together for impact, is core to BUILD’s philosophy, and serves and is served by its in-service approach. That integration applies to the three key areas of an educational system: its content, structure and pedagogy – the learning and teaching methodology at its heart.

In relation to content, BUILD’s commitment to reimagining theological education might raise fears of novelty, but its approach to theology is as ancient as it is contemporary. Instead of its theological content following the usual, four-fold, fragmented structure of Bible, dogmatics, church history, and pastoralia, BUILD follows newer approaches to practical theology and in so doing connects with the deeper story of the education of God’s people.

Rather than compartmentalising the different aspects of theology BUILD teaches these in an integrated and interactive way by following the careful learning sequencing embedded in the BUILD training manuals. Biblical texts are encountered in context, key issues they raise are explored through reflection, and outcomes are earthed in transformative action. This integrated approach not only reflects the dynamic of practical theology, but enhances the learning.

But BUILD’s commitment to integrated approaches extends beyond the content, and into programme structure and learning methodology. This in turn integrates aspects of ministry, church, and training that have been separated out or dis-integrated in more traditional forms of theological education. For example, BUILD naturally links home areas of mission and ministry with colleges; it brings together lay and ordained learners; it cuts across educational levels; and, perhaps most significantly, BUILD deliberately and seamlessly connects formal and non-formal types of theological training.

Incremental

The BUILD approach to learning and leadership development is not only integrated, it is also incremental. One beauty of the BUILD name and approach is that this is embedded in its identity. BUILD builds attitudes, skills and knowledge carefully and sequentially as learners move through the BUILD curriculum. For example, the biblical studies aspect of the BUILD curriculum constantly moves between the New Testament and the Old Testament, and gradually progresses through the Scriptures as a whole. This means that approaches to interpretation and biblical theology grow and develop as the course proceeds. Similarly, theological reflection skills, a central component of the diploma, are also developed over time as levels of reflection deepen.

The BUILD pattern of learning can therefore be likened to a person ascending a spiral staircase. From above they appear to be going round in circles but from the side it is clear that they are making upward progress. The student repeatedly goes back over the same processes, but they progress in depth and distance. The very architecture of the Scriptures facilitates this: Israel lays down the foundations of its faith and then reflects on the covenants in the course of its history in multiple ways, which are then carried into the New Testament.

That incremental learning plays out in a number of other ways. For instance, preaching and teaching skills are developed as the learning progresses. It is good learning.

Key values

BUILD’s stated values can be found here [link to Values page]. Those five values are embedded the first unit of the first training module, where participants are introduced to the programme. They also serve there as a learning and teaching tool. Each of the values there is a conviction about Christian learning that is rooted in one of the five words that the letters of the pneumonic ‘BUILD’ stand for, together with a word and a verse in 2 Timothy that they are linked to.

But those five values in the materials are also an expression of four values that have undergirded the development of BUILD and its courses from the beginning. Four values summed up in four words: biblical, practical, missional, and local.

Biblical

Christian leaders must learn to encounter Scripture in the light of the situations they face, and to encounter the situations they face in the light of the Scriptures. Furthermore they must learn to teach the Scriptures and the gospel they proclaim as they lead God’s people and draw others into Christian discipleship.

This dynamic is reflected in the place given to biblical studies and biblical theology within the diploma and its curriculum, which systematically takes learners through the whole of Scripture and the way the different parts relate to one another, as well as teaching them how to handle individual texts in depth. There is a special emphasis on the hermeneutical sufficiency of Scripture: the ability of Scripture to shed light on Scripture on its own terms, which is deemed to be of particular importance and significance in the East African context.

Practical

BUILD is committed to being practical, but not simply in the sense of being useful, although that is very much its intention. Its commitment to being practical is rooted in ‘practical theology’. The integrating power of contemporary (and ancient) practical theology and its significance to BUILD has already been described. While the content of BUILD is primarily in the three domains of biblical studies, practical theology, and leadership development, ‘practical theology’ best describes both the theological component and the theological environment BUILD sits within.

The meaning of the term ‘practical theology’ needs clarification because of the range of definitions in the discourse. Within BUILD ‘practical theology’ does not mean practical theology as in the fourth part of the modern encyclopaedia of theology, sometimes known as applied theology, pastoral theology or ‘pastoralia’. Instead, it is the integrated practical theology of the contemporary practical theology movement.

Furthermore, it is believed here that this form of practical theology is closer to the way in which the biblical writers themselves did their theology and to the way theology has been practised for the greater part of the Church’s history. Thus, while recognising the value of the four parts of theology, the diploma is based on an approach that begins with the context and returns to that context with renewed praxis.

A study of the discourse on contemporary practical theology yields differing numbers of stages in the practice of practical theology, and it contains a range of vocabulary for those steps. However, three phases and terms are particularly well represented: Descriptive, Normative, and Transformative. These indicate practical theology to be a movement that begins with the context and its description, continues via a normative stage of theological reflection, and returns to the context with a view to action or transformation.

The BUILD course regularly transcribes that technical language into the three simple steps of its own ‘ERA’ model: Encounter, Reflection, and Action. With that in mind the BUILD approach provides tools for engaging with the Scriptures and the situations churches and communities face, it teaches theological reflection, and it earths that in practice. This movement enhances the learning itself.

Missional

A further aspect of BUILD’s identity is that it is missional: it keeps God’s mission central. This is an output of the biblical nature of the course, because from start to finish the Bible is about God’s mission to his world. BUILD’s content is missional in a range of ways. For example, from the beginning it highlights mission as a key part of the overall story of the Bible, implicitly in Module One and explicitly in Module Two; Module Five is then focussed on mission; and the course as a whole relates learning to mission throughout.

The missional nature of BUILD apply too, again, not only to content but to pedagogy and delivery or programme structures. For example, it means that in its learning inter-cultural dynamics are important. Wherever possible the course draws on such perspectives, not least from the participants. These cross-cultural dynamics enrich the participants’ understanding of God, the gospel and mission. The BUILD curriculum development process itself brought together leaders from across the different areas of Uganda, together with those from neighbouring countries.

Local

On that note the programme has a strong local flavour having been developed in Africa’s Great Lakes Region. This is in keeping with the practical-theological nature of the course, which believes in local praxis. This is not because the diploma believes global trends to be unimportant, but rather because it seeks to equip students to have an impact on their local churches and communities. Such an emphasis means being more rather than less aware of global changes: “Even the most remote village in Africa is no longer an island unto itself. It is part of a continent that is affected by global realities in more ways than it wishes to acknowledge” (Jurgens Hendriks 2004, Studying congregations in Africa, 15). Leaders need to think through what the effects of globalisation might be and then play their part in guiding the church in local responses.

Nor does this local focus mean that BUILD is unaware of the dangers of so emphasising the local context that the gospel is in some way compromised. The gospel must be expressed locally, but as Mbiti put it, “We can add nothing to the Gospel, for this is an eternal gift of God; but Christianity is always a beggar seeking food and drink, cover and shelter from the cultures it encounters in its never-ending journeys and wanderings.” (In Kwame Bediako 1995, Christianity in Africa: the renewal of a non-western religion, 117). This local emphasis means that the diploma seeks to help the church and its leaders to understand and share that gospel in ways that are appropriate and authentic.