Different sorts of seminaries

Northwest Graduate School, People's Seminary plow 'Tierra Nueva' in theological education

by Jerry L. Van Marter

BURLINGTON, WA — The storefront that houses Tierra Nueva ("New Land") is a veritable beehive of activity.

The seven staff members and a host of volunteers, including a Princeton Theological Seminary intern, scurry about teaching English as a Second Language classes, shepherding uncertain-looking mothers, fathers and kids into the family support center, directing shabbily-dressed street people to the "emergency clothing" room downstairs, stopping to offer words of encouragement to the myriad local residents who just seem drawn to the place. Tierra Nueva is also home to a worshiping community — Road to Emmaus — that holds two services weekly, led by Presbyterians and Lutherans.

It's an island of hope and promise to the largely Hispanic immigrant population that comprises much of this agricultural town 30 miles north of Seattle. This is where many of their immediate needs are met — but Tierra Nueva is much much more.

The second floor of its building is home to The People's Seminary, an innovative theological school designed to develop Hispanic lay church leaders and to help equip Anglo Christians who want to serve Hispanic communities.

"We provide perspectives informed by both the street and the sanctuary, the jail and the monastery, the fields and the academy, the marketplace and the migrant camp, the South and the North, the mainstream and the margins," director Bob Ekblad writes in the seminary's catalog.

Luz Maria Cabrera, Tierra Nueva's director of training for the Spanish-speaking communities, says: "It's important, because it's the only program at this level of theological study that's in Spanish. Many churches want to start Hispanic ministries, but they don't have enough trained leaders. We want to help churches open their doors and hearts, which will really empower our community."

In 2003, 750 students participated in the two programs offered at The People's Seminary. The diploma program consists of four courses and is open to students of all ethnicities. The certificate program, which provides entry into Master of Divinity degree programs, is open only to Spanish-speakers.

Seattle Presbytery is a key booster (and client) of The People's Seminary, sending many of its new immigrant church leaders there for course work in advance of being commissioned as Lay Pastors in the Presbyterian Church (USA).

The seminary is ideal, Seattle executive presbyter Boyd Stockdale says, for immigrant leaders "who are hungry for theological education and training, but who don't have the time, money or cultural inclination to attend our more formal theological institutions."

For those who wish to pursue advanced theological degrees, The People's Seminary partners with Northwest Graduate School (NGS) in Seattle, the brainchild of renowned urban evangelist and theologian Ray Bakke.

Seattle Presbytery regularly channels its new immigrant leaders through The People's Seminary and on to NGS.

"We are trying to reach the last, the least and the lost," says John Sharpe, TITLE of NGS. "The academy gets so far away from the people who need it most, and it winds up only being for the privileged few."

NGS offers a Master of Theological Studies degree. "We're trying to create a seamless road from The People's Seminary's certificate to all other degree programs, including ours and the M.Div," says Sharpe.

The 250 NGS students come from all around the world. Twenty to 30 percent are international students. The program is modular and intensive; students immerse themselves in courses, one week at a time.

The school strives to achieve what Bakke calls "global urban transformational ministry."

Clarke says that means "taking people who are effective leaders, not in academy but in mission, and bringing them into the educational grid, so they can teach the next generation of leaders."