Migori Bible College, where pastor Lydia aspires to join.

Should a pastor be academically qualified?

by Eric Bosire • 22 February 2024

As a Christian believer I have heard sermons from various pastors around Kenya and around the world. Surprisingly some of these pastors have not gone to Bible school, but their mastery and delivery of the word of God is exemplary. After the controversial Shakahola incident in Kenya last year, that saw many Kenyans lose their lives, the government came up with some regulatory measures for the church in Kenya. One of the regulatory measures put forward is to have academically qualified pastors to lead the church.

Education is important and it is good to have trained pastors leading our churches, but we have some untrained pastors doing God’s work so well. This regulatory measure brings a serious bone of contention in the Kenyan church, so I went to talk to some of the involved people to get their perspectives.

I met Bishop Joseph Otieno, the presiding and the founding bishop of Trumpet Tabernacle Church, Kisii. He is the holder of Bachelor of Arts in Bible and Theology and Doctor of Divinity. He is also the Director of Trumpet School of Ministries Bible School, the main reason I sought comments from him.

From the onset, Bishop Otieno said that he has no opposition to theology, he is a theologian himself, but he insisted that he wanted to debunk a fallacy that has been swallowed by our policy makers in the nation of Kenya, he had to call it out as it is: “This fallacy is buttressed in the claim that theological training is the answer to the malady facing the church today particularly in our local setting, that theological training is a necessary requirement for authentic Christian ministry, I beg to disagree,” said Bishop Otieno.

He reminded us that the church only embraced academic approach to Ministerial training in the 4th century, in the first three centuries of the church, there wasn’t much emphasis on academic training, because Christ, the founder of the church, began a model of raising church ministers and church workers that was premised on apprenticeship, otherwise called the son-father model: It was the age-old Jewish approach to training where a father passes on the trait and skill and qualifies a son to be competent and finally adopts or ordains or commissions the son. “That was exactly what Jesus did and there is no need to be reminded that he chose twelve men who were not qualified as ministers and he walked with them, raised them, trained them, he assessed them and eventually qualified them, then came the season of apostles,” said Bishop Otieno. And with the Apostle Paul and Timothy we again see the apprenticeship model.

He continued and said that the early church in the book of Acts, the apostles devoted themselves to expounding the doctrine, the church was the school and the believers were taught daily and as a consequence they carried sound doctrine. All they needed was the recommendation of the seniors and they would go and serve without reproach.

“As this heavenly method was gaining traction, the church historians know that in 4th century is when church fell into full blown apostasy during the reign of Constantine and the church became Romanised: Intellectualism and academia took over from that point what had been a preserve of the church family,” said Bishop Otieno. These intellectuals proceeded to establish seminaries and monasteries, where professional ministers were made. It was also during that season that the term clergy and laity was introduced, because before then the church never had lay people and clergy men. The church was a family, a body priesthood where the entire church was a priesthood. There was no demarcation of the priestly people vs the non-priestly or the clergy vs the laity.

The danger today, according to Bishop Otieno’s observation is that we are being hoodwinked to believe that it is the method that should be used to produce ministers. That we should encourage building Bible schools, build seminaries and insist that people go to Bible schools and seminaries to be trained and to become competent ministers. “I beg to disagree and I will still proceed to give my reasons,” he said. If that was the case, then Europe and the West would be scandal free because in the West, Seminaries and Bible schools and theological institutions are in their thousands. “The people who have committed horrendous scandals are a product of seminaries in the west. I want to say that seminary theological education per se does not change the heart. If the heart is wicked, it is wicked,” noted Bishop Otieno. By insisting on seminarian and theological training, there are people who are hell-bent in making sure that whatever is there of the remnant church dies.

“As a matter of fact, the remnant church has never been a product of theological training,” said Bishop Otieno. Church history is replete with examples of how the Lutherans broke out from Catholicism and the reason they did that was that they had revelation of some truth that was suppressed. As a consequence, the flood gates were opened of church reformation and reformation movements. “Largely, when reformation begins, it does not begin at the seminary level, it begins at the passion of the heart, over time then doctrine is developed which you can call theology,” noted Bishop Otieno.

According to Bishop Otieno, the church never has its source in theology. Theology is a body of truth that is built and established after considerable time of experiencing the Biblical blessings. When Pentecostalism began in the early 20th century, Pentecostals rejected Bible schools and theology. The experience was great, and it was after about 13 years that the pioneer Pentecostals began to embrace Bible school. As they did it, the revival of Azusa died, but Pentecostalism has gone all over the world with solid Pentecostal theology. “So theology comes at the end of a movement, every movement that is birthed is birthed in the spirit. But overtime some level of theology is developed. Now, to begin by insisting on theology therefore, would be to put the cart before the horse. It would be akin to saying that a child is born perfect. We know that children are born and then they are raised, they are educated. But we insist that we put to strict theological training people who are budding in the spirit is to kill the passion of the spirit because theology deals with the intellect with the mind not the spirit,” said Bishop Otieno.

Training is very important and therefore Bishop Otieno is not opposing it, however, the training should be tailored to the need. And the need in this regard should not be a knee jack reaction to some overzealous individual who has caused havoc in some part of the nation (Bishop Otieno referring to the Shakahola incident). “Even where people are theologically trained, they are still susceptible to such kind of overzealousness. So theological training is not a cure to misadventures, the law must be vigilant to deal with any form of misadventures,” said Bishop Otieno. Lack of theological training should not be used as a scapegoat.

The alternative that Bishop Otieno gave is that the church should be striving to go back to the foundational practice of apprenticeship where those that are founders, those that have matured in the faith, take it upon themselves to raise, to mentor, to ordain and to commission. A father-son mentorship apprenticeship model where for someone to qualify to be a minister, they must spring from authentic upraising or upbringing having grown.

Paul in the Jewish model said he grew under Gamaliel and later on Timothy grew under Paul. This kind of system will ensure that people who get commissioned, have commendation and are aligned to people who can vouch for them. “But to merely adopt a narrative that theological training will be the panacea, will be the solution even when we are aware that in theological seminaries there is a lot of corruption going on, then we are not true to ourselves,” said Bishop Otieno. As seminarian, he saw students cheating in the seminary, some come just to get certificates for promotion while they had no passion for God at all.

When Bishop Otieno came to the land of Kisii, sent by God as a local missionary, there were a lot of seminary trained clergy people leading the church but the land was still bound by a lot of ungodly beliefs. “Over the years we have proceeded from the spiritual resources and embarked on a work that is passion driven, spirit driven minus or with very little theological training. And we don’t need to over emphasize the fact that the spiritual terrain in Kisii has changed over the last 30 years,” noted Bishop Otieno.

Basically the people who are responsible for this change, as Bishop Otieno puts it, are the people who have been discipled, mentored, and raised with almost zero theological training. “We cannot insist that only trained chefs can cook in our homes. Whereas we need some trained chefs to provide the standards, we cannot insist that every family should have a chef. My mother does not need to be a chef trained in college, but my mother can prepare good food, having being mentored, having being prepared, having being equipped by a competent cook,” He said. To insist that the church which is a family must be led by a theologically trained person, is like insisting that every family must have a chef prepare the food.

Conventional wisdom teaches us that through the age-old system of passing on knowledge, people become competent, because they are mentored and trained through the school of life. The church is a family and being a family, the church has a culture. When people grow within the culture of the church, in a father-son relationship, the children are able to learn from those who have gone ahead of them and get qualification to be competent.

Bishop Otieno quoted Paul writing to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:2, “The things that you have heard and seen in me, commit to faithful men who will also teach others.” Now that is a method, the Biblical method. “Paul did not say build a school, the problem with a school is that a school is out there while church is in here. While I was doing seminary, I was out there in the seminary but the church is back here. So I don’t have a chance of experiencing church life in the seminary, but when you teach in the church setting you become a model,” said Bishop Otieno.

Some of the people that train in seminaries are technocrats with no experience at all in leading a church family. Sometimes most of the things they teach are not practical, so that when you come back to the church, you realise they cannot work. You are forced to adapt them and to contextualize them. The best context to train therefore is directly in the church.

Bishop Otieno noted that he has a system whereby he is raising ministers under him and depending on their calling and desire he then recommends them for further theological training. Be that as it may, he is also aware that there are people who come to faith who don’t even have Kenya Certificate of Primary Education, KCPE certificate, yet they grow up with great passion to serve God. “Through in-service, father-son mentorship training this people qualify to become ministers by commendation because I train them through the father-son model and they become competent cooks. Just like Paul is telling Timothy that if we pass on these things we are able to raise competent people,” said Bishop Otieno.

From Bishop Otieno’s point of view, the government should lay the axe where it belongs, where it should be laid. “The root of the problem is not lack of theological training; the root of the problem is lack of recommendation. Everybody who wants to be licenced as a minister should have a letter of recommendation from a competent and proven minister who has credentials and legacy out there,” he said.

Bishop Otieno believes that by insisting that theological education is what is going to solve the challenges the Kenyan church faces, we are buying a false narrative which is being created, a narrative which incorporates the lie that theological qualification and having certificates substitutes for character development. “What I have recommended is what I believe should be the solution: Only those who aspire to acquire more knowledge, to be more enlightened and informed so that they can develop curricula for training in various fields — those are the ones who should be required to possess theological training.”

For another perspective, I met Pastor Lydia Miruka who is not a trained pastor, but has aspirations to join Bible school. She started by saying that the Bible tells us to respect governments and the government that are in place are elected and are put in place by God. Whatever the government requirements are for people to be able to serve then that is also coming from God. “A person is able to show through the certificates that he or she is competent by meeting the requirements set by our Kenyan government,” said Pastor Lydia.

According to Pastor Lydia, people get impartation from learning, when Paul was talking to Timothy, he told Timothy to give himself to learning or engage himself in learning. “When I’ll be going to Bible school, I’ll find people who are more learned and equipped than me and they will be able to impart that knowledge on me so that I may serve better in the ministry,” said Pastor Lydia.

Pastor Lydia continued and noted that it is also good to remember that God is spirit and that God is cannon. So whatever we are able to do or we are able to learn in the Bible colleges or institutions. It is good that we realize that God is served in the Spirit and He is the owner of the church. He is the one that distributes the gifts and he is the one that expects things to be done by his own standards. “It is good to realize though we learn and though we go to school our total dependency or our place of service is through Christ,” she said.

To Pastor Lydia, the wisdom that we learn or the education that we get does by no means nullify the will of God in our lives. She quoted 1 Corinthians 1:12 which says that the Spirit is the one that distributes the gifts and Ephesians 4:7 which says that it is God that who has given us individual gifts so that we may be able to serve Him. “So as much as we learn and as much as we engage in reading, we are supposed to know that this wealth of knowledge is supposed to help us to come to a place of obedience that we may be able to serve him,” said Pastor Lydia.

Pastor Lydia keenly noted that learning by no means excludes the will and the purposes of God because that is the main thing. She emphasized this by quoting 1 Corinthians 1:26 where Paul says that among the men that were chosen at that time, not many were noble, and not many were educated, not many were regarded highly in the society. He is saying that God chose men that in the natural eye were not very abled or not very high classified in the society, but God used them.

In 1 Corinthians 1:27 it says, “God has chosen the foolish things of this world to put to shame the wise. God has chosen the weak things of this world to put to shame the things which are mighty.” What Paul is trying to say in the church of Corinth is that it is not the education or it is not the status of a man. He is saying it is the obedience to the calling, or it is the obedience to the working of Christ in our lives.

In Pastor Lydia’s perspective, as much as we study, what matters is not the wisdom that we get from Bible school or the wisdom that we get from reading in those institutions, but obedience. “We can go to these institutions of learning and learn wrong doctrine or learn something that is contrary to the word of God. Obedience is key. I remember Samuel telling Saul that obedience is better than sacrifice. Everything we do, everything we put ourselves to do, must be in obedience to the Spirit and to the word of God. Either by studying or not studying, the Lord must be able to lead our way because he is the owner of the church,” concluded Pastor Lydia.

Next:
Is greenhouse produce toxic? by Bosibori Osusu.

Notes:

About the author:
Eric Bosire is a Kenyan Journalist. He is based in Kisii.

About the image:
Photos by Eric Bosire.

Suggested citation:
Eric Bosire: Should a pastor be academically qualified? MissionField News (ISSN 2813-2270)
https://missionfield.news/2024/4_Academic_qualification 2024-02-22.