BCOM’s Philosophy of Education is predicated on the following presuppositions:
1) Learning is not static. It is dynamic, requiring full student involvement, not as drudgery for fulfilling course requirements but in fascinated pursuit of knowledge. Teachers are responsible for more than the dissemination of information. They are to draw students into learning through creative activities and interaction, giving thirst for knowledge and enabling them to pursue that knowledge through multiple activities and means.
2) Our goal is growth in the processes that lead to competence. Competence is multi-faceted so the educational design must be multi-faceted as well.
3) Students are complex beings; the missionary task is a complex task. Therefore our educational model must be wholistic, developing students towards maturity in spiritual life, developing those character qualities proven to be essential for effective cross-cultural ministry, producing effective interpersonal and social skills, enabling personal and work growth, giving cognitive knowledge essential for the missionary task, and inculcating those cross-cultural ministry skills that will enable them to be effective as missionaries.
4) Education can occur anywhere, so our training will take place in corporate times, private moments, small group contexts, classrooms, city and rural contexts, etc.
5) Our educational model is more androgogical than pedagogical. Students are expected to have an active role in their learning. In fact, our presupposition is that students need and respond to challenge, as long as they can see these challenges as enabling them to accomplish their desired outcomes (i.e. become competent missionaries).
6) There will be equal balance on both formal learning (i.e. classrooms, books, lectures, etc.) and experiential learning (using the flow of active observation, experimentation, conceptualization and reflection, and assessment/evaluation). Both formal and experiential need to be balanced, augmenting each other. Care must be taken that the dichotomies between disciplines and courses, often inherent in traditional education, not be allowed to take place. Courses relative to training need to be offered at the time specific experiential training takes place.
7) Field learning should be ministry-based (i.e. dealing with real existing situations) both in home culture and cross-cultural contexts. Planning must give students a sense of the flow of ministry, not be just the bits and pieces of ministry.
8) Since our educational structure is more androgogical than pedagogical, students need to be involved in the processes of identifying ministry issues, problems, possibilities, needs, the best approaches and methodologies for doing ministry, and evaluation of the results. Teachers become essential guides, giving orientation, guidance, and feedback, connecting theory to the situations at hand, helping students research and analyze their social context, understand problems and issues, think through and apply solutions, and analyze the results. This means that students will have to think through problems, gather information first-hand (usually from their social context), conceptualize application, take action, and evaluate.
9) Though accreditation is not an issue, in planning the program, we should keep accreditation standards in mind, and have quality both in our academics and in our field training. Field training outcomes should be clear enough that they can be transferred as equivalent academics.
In order to accomplish its vision, Bethany College of Missions holds to the following philosophy of education:
BCOM believes in wholistic, life and ministry-oriented, competence-outcomes based education to train missionaries to be able to live and serve effectively in extending the Kingdom of God through church-planting and church-development. To accomplish this, there will be a creative interaction of theory, reflection, and practical experience, utilizing formal (academic) and informal (corporate and individual aspects of school life) components as well as experiential education through field training, all components build upon a carefully designed “outcomes model of missionary competence.” BCOM will use multiple approaches including traditional courses, urban-based evangelism, discipleship, work programs, church-based training, and cross-cultural field training within specific religious contexts to accomplish its goals.
We believe that to be competent, students need to be able to move between academic skills (and the knowledge learned) and practical skills (for cross-cultural effectiveness). They also need the ability to be perceptively engaged in a ministry context and the capacity to detach from the ministry context for reflection and analysis on their ministry. Our multi-faceted training paradigm will enable students to:
1. Gain Biblical, theological, and missiological knowledge with the ability to utilize and apply the Word of God as well as to integrate theological perspectives to self and in ministry.
2. Develop specific ministry skills (both for home and cross-cultural contexts).
3. Be able to research ministry contexts in order to understand how to undertake ministry.
4. Learn how to bring current thinking and research to bear on ministry planning and activity.
5. Apply knowledge, planning, skills, and gifting to a specific context.
6. Have dynamic spiritual and emotional health.
7. Be people who understand the times and seasons they live in.
To accomplish this integration, academics and processes, models will be included in program design so students understand how to undertake ministry no matter which context they are engaged in. Teachers will be colleagues of practitioners, all equally considered faculty in training students. The program will intentionally stretch students for academic, spiritual, and ministry skills growth. Finally, students will finish their training not only with knowledge and skills but also with vision to reach the lost and a driving passion to know Jesus intimately and be His instruments in this world.
