History

Genesis of the Program

Following story-telling consultations of urban poor leaders in Mumbai (93) and Hongkong (96), the Encarnação  Alliance of urban poor mission leaders in Sao Paulo in 2002 concluded that collectively we should develop our own training processes for urban poor workers. 

The Encarnação  Alliance Consultation in Bangkok in July, 2004 sensed that the Lord was in process of mobilising 50,000 to the slums of Asia, Africa and South America of indigenous and cross cultural new workers to meet the need of deepening poverty, growing migrant populations from rural contexts, and the responsiveness of the urban poor. The delegates at the consultation in Bangkok identified three levels of training and equipping needed in urban poor ministry:

• Grass Roots Training:  Existing workers are to be trained in a storytelling model of training teams of new workers to minister among the urban poor.               
  
  This has been delivered to 3000+ leaders in 27 cities and been developed around 12 course modules available on CD, covering 40 topic areas.  The modules include: Introduction for Trainers; Spiritual Formation; Theological Framework for Slum Ministry; Slum Context; Slum Evangelism; Discipleship of the Urban Poor; Church Growth in the Slums; Leadership Among the Urban Poor; Kingdom and Transformational Development; Urban Poor Mission Structures; Kingdom and Land Rights Conflicts; and an integration module.

• Undergraduate Degree (BA) in Theology of Urban Ministry

The Encarnação  Alliance members saw this as an expansion of the grassroots courses with diplomas into a formal degree structure for equipping existing workers who have had no formal education but several years of ministry experience, or business people who have been assisting urban poor ministry teams on a part-time basis and are now considering full-time service.  It has not been confirmed as a seriously felt need.

• Graduate Degree in Urban Leadership.

• For existing workers with a number years experience and proven leadership ability to be prepared for future apostolic roles to give leadership to multiplying urban church planting movements in the slums across a city.
• Movement pioneers who would catalyse new movements among the urban poor in targeted slums in the poorest countries of the world.

Implementation of Process
From 2002 , Viv Grigg had visited 13 seminaries with these ideas, constantly refining a list of 433 outcomes  indicated by church-planters and development workers from 22 consultations in cities, and from this an initial program design of 23 courses.  Bryan Johnson worked with him in putting the initial course descriptions together. 

From 20 years of discussing some of these needs with schools, even though it is essentially core theology we determined that this should be a leadership program by definition as the new style of theologising took root.  He had used the Transformational Conversations model of doing theology (See Transformational Conversations document) with urban students and in citywide consultations for a number of years.

In Nairobi, Colin Smith developed these, and similar ideas in moving a training school based at Carlile College into the slum of Kibera and launching a BA degree.  At three other institutions there was an immediate sense of compatibility and the MA program was launched at Asian Theological Seminary in Manila (July 2007), Hindustan Bible Institute in Chennai  (July, 2007) and Asuza Pacific University in LA ( Jan 2010).  Rich Slimbach of APU took the initial program design and simplified it down into a Program Proposal which we used as a basis for consensus between the schools.

Program Directors from these schools were invited into the Encarnação Alliance Commission which met in Chennai, Nov 2006, and they, plus selected faculty then met in Bangkok, Feb 2007, to work on course design processes that would enable input and ownership by the Indian and Filipino faculties so this at the outset was a degree from the coal face. Corrie de Boer functioned as chair of the commission.  Lee Wanak was appointed program director in Manila and he and Corrie de Boer recruited 16 adjunct faculty along with some existing faculty to do the course design and delivery.  Paul Cornelius was appointed principal at HBI and recruited two faculty to develop this.   Betel in Sao Paulo launched a third and fourth year of their Bachelors in Theology with the MATUL emphasis.

Corrie became vice chair and Viv Grigg moved from coordinator to chairperson, during the economic downturn.  Viv moved from New Zealand to APU in Los Angles in 2010 to direct the APU launch, while Rich Slimbach continued on as Academic Director in his overload time.  Peter Nitschke took over from Lee in 2011 at ATS, and Saravanan became program director at HBI in 2008.  Colin Smith launched the MATUL at Carlile in partnership with St Paul’s University in 2011, and Mission India Theological School launched that year also. 

At the 2010 meeting of the Commission, there was a sense that Colin should seek the Lord for five schools in Africa, Saravanan for five in India, and ATS was assigned this role in South East Asia.  The Lord began to speak to leaders in various partner schools in Accra, Kampala, Addis Ababa.  Seminario Betel in Rio de Janeiro has worked to launch in 2015 as a Lato Senso (a lower level Masters, less academic, in some ways equivalent to a postgrad diploma). Uganda Christian University now also has permission from the Commission on Higher Education to launch in 2015.