Theological Education by Extension (TEE) was developed as an adaptation to the prevailing leadership development methods in the latter half of the 20th century. As evidenced by its rapid spread and continued usage forty-years later, TEE has specific strengths that are still relevant today. (See my previous post re the history of TEE’s development)
First, TEE eliminates the issues of extraction by allowing learners to remain in their home environment. Unlike residential formal education models, the learner is not forced to assimilate to a foreign culture in order to obtain the needed training. This also lessens the temptation for learners to not return to their home area, since they have not become accustomed to a different standard of living. Furthermore, the tendency to force the two-thirds world church into western molds is mitigated, since the learners directly apply the training in their daily ministry context. This is in keeping with the biblical model of training leaders in their everyday context of ministry.
Second, TEE allows those with demonstrated spiritual gifts, who are already involved in ministry, access to the training they need. Rather than selecting people who can fit into the formal educational model restrictions and pre-requisites, TEE provides the learner with the opportunity to grow and adapt to the specific needs of their area of ministry. Furthermore, by training the people who are already in ministry roles, indigenous authority structures are less likely to be violated. This is in keeping with the biblical concept of the equality of all cultures in God’s eyes. Acts 15 makes it very clear that no cultural model should be considered sacrosanct.
Third, the two-thirds world Church is growing at an explosive rate. For example, Berg and Pretiz found that in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil an “average of five new churches were being founded each week.” TEE allows for a much broader range of leaders, both ordained and lay to be trained. Under normal circumstances, these potential leaders would be unable to receive training, due to a lack of economic resources and obligations to family and community. As previously noted, some estimates of TEE enrollment indicate that there are approximately 100,000 learners currently undergoing training in Africa, with similar trends in Asia and Latin America. Just as Paul adapted his training methods in the New Testament to serve the ever growing number of churches, so must we adapt now.
Fourth, based on Johnson’s Looking Forward report, 62.5% of all Christians now live south of the equator where, according to World Bank data for 2006, the average income per capita is approximately 1343USD. Furthermore, this area also represents approximately 97% of the 1.2 billion people existing on less than 1USD per day. It seems untenable, therefore, to have a leadership development system that requires thousands of dollars over a period of three or four concentrated years when people cannot even make enough money to provide for basic necessities. In contrast, TEE requires very little in terms of cost, depending on the location and degree of National Church involvement. In some cases the cost of TEE materials for the students is as little as 2.30USD per term. Thus, TEE makes leadership development accessible to a much broader segment of the Church at-large.
Finally, TEE breaks down barriers between the ordained and the laity. As previously discussed, the current FEM focuses on a very small number of people, tending to create an elite class within the churches. As Kinsler notes:
The ordained ministry tends to become a professional guild in which specialists fulfill prescribed roles and standards and receive significant benefits, prestige, and power, while others are considered as uninformed and unprepared “laity” . . . TEE fosters an alternative understanding of ministry by providing open access to preparation for ministry, lay and ordained . . . [recognizing] that the seedbed for ministry is not the seminary, from which that name derives, but the local congregation.
This can result in a return to a more biblical view of the entire Body of Christ, with all of the spiritual gifts functioning, as essential to the Missio Dei rather than focusing an elite professional few.
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