PIBC Objectives #6 Ministry Competency

At PIBC/PIU we hope to never lose the original vision that we are training ministers for the church of God in the islands and around the world. However, it is important to recognize that the organizational church is just the training ground for all the church body to all be ministers to their community and world around them. Thus, we are training not only pastors and missionaries, but also teachers, businessmen and women, and people of other professions who can be ministers wherever they work. We also recognize that many pastors in the island communities will need other jobs to finance their ministries as their churches cannot afford full-time pastors. Our training enables a "tent-making" pastor to have some ministry training along with gaining skills in a secular profession.

That being said it is still important to train pastors for the organizational church in the Pacific Islands who will be providing pastoral care, training and encouragement for the church in the community. This is the focus of the pastoral emphasis in the bachelor's degree program and especially of the seminary Master of Arts in Religion program. Thus, the mission of Pacific Islands Evangelical Seminary is to be the leading provider of theologically trained leaders to the churches of Micronesia and a key developer of effective missionaries to the unreached peoples of Southeast Asia. This dual mission is accomplished by providing a devotionally centered, biblically solid, theologically informed, and practically focused foundation for ministry. There is a great need on Guam, in Micronesia and throughout the Pacific islands for this kind of church leader.

Competency in Ministry Skills: It is our aim to develop leaders who can serve in the church, community, and around the world. Some will exercise their leadership in secular realms and family. Others will minister within the church and mission structures. Most will become family leaders. We aim to provide skills which will help our graduates serve in many capacities. For those who will be pastors and church leaders, we provide classes in pastoral leadership, teaching, preaching, and counseling. We do this on both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Likewise, for those who will serve as missionaries, we provide training in cross cultural service. For those who will serve in secular professions, we teach ethics and skills in communication, business, education, art, and leadership geared toward their needs. We require supervised and reflective field education of all of our students --

• that the student will show competence and have experience in biblical and culturally relevant church ministry inside and outside the institutional church.
• that the student will possess the skills necessary to lead professionally in the church, classroom, and other areas of community service.

One other thing: one of the ways we show our commitment to this objective is that almost all of our teachers in Bible and theology have years of experience as senior pastors, including many with experience pastoring in cross-cultural churches in the islands. This is fairly unusual in seminaries in the Western world. The point: At PIBC we are not just teaching theory, but out of our own experience of working with God's people in many parts of the world.