How Can Seminaries Support Missions?

How can seminaries partner with missions organizations and field workers to provide ongoing support?

I think the seminary has a narrow, but important role in working with mission agencies and particularly when working with churches. We are in service to the church. We are not independent operators. We don't stand above the church, we don't keep the church at arms length. We are given a narrow brief by the church of Jesus Christ to train up her men for gospel ministry and that is what we seek to do. Now, in order to offer these men the training that they need we also need to know the kind of work that they're going to be called to do. And so mission agencies provide a lot of real time feedback in terms of the work that needs to be done, the places where the gospel needs to go. And so we need to interact with them, we need to give them opportunities to come and speak to our students about these things. And then after a man graduates from seminary, the church sets him apart and ordains him for gospel work and typically works with mission agencies to coordinate that work. So we have a narrow role, but we have a role that no one else can do, which is training men in these specific ways in order that they might be better prepared, well prepared, to serve the church and to serve the church both here and overseas.