For a while now, we’ve been thinking about a way to expand the youth ministry training we do in Mexico. We already started one of the only Bachelor’s degrees in youth ministry in Latin America. But we know that it’s not enough to offer a bachelor’s degree in youth ministry.
Although the bachelor’s program has been growing, we recognize that not everyone who is working with young people can come to the Seminary full time for training. With the problems that come from living in Mexico City, it makes it difficult to do a lot of informal training.
Saturday was the first day of the long-awaited Diploma in youth ministry. We started with 6 students who are working in various churches. Each one of them told us how important it is to get training in youth ministry, and they are all very happy to have this informal type of training.
The purpose of the diploma program is obviously to provide practical training for youth workers as well as promote the other youth ministry programs at the Seminary.
We are praying that this Saturday morning course (9 months out of the year) will help many local church youth workers and spread throughout the country.
We’ll keep you up to date with this new program, which we think will grow and expand in the coming months.
That’s great, Dennis! Sounds exciting. We were just talking about some of these challenges yesterday with training leadership. Sounds like a step in the right direction.
i agree with jaime – awesome to hear it grow.
your post reminded me of something – D and I had lunch with a director of recruitment from bethel seminary. they are growing a masters in transformational leadership program here in dc. one of the key ideas of this specific degree is that it’s for people who are already in ministry and the work is split between distance learning and on-site intensives [for like 2 weeks at a time]. it’s also cohort based, so you go through with the same group of people – who ideally are near you and serving in similar capacities. all that to say – those ideas might be interesting for you guys to think about as it continues to grow.
@Jaime Thanks. We have to adapt what we do to the culture in order to reach it better.
@tony Thanks for the ideas. That’s a great way to do distance education and keep the community part of learning going. So…is that in your future? (email me)
haha – it sure sounds like fun. but i think i’m done with school. who knows though, right…..?
@tony You can never be done with school.
moral of the story – never tell a seminary prof “i think i’m done with school…” 🙂