Christians know that our most effective service before the Lord is that of prayer, and that prayer is the first step when offering anything to the Lord. In this continuously challenging ‘new normal’ of the pandemic, we need to pray for God’s wisdom and spiritual discernment in training his servants. We thus covet your prayers for five challenges the College is facing:
1. Facilitating an onsite and online community of learners
The College has been working on communal learning spaces through smart classrooms and library reconfiguration to increase participation, interaction, and collaboration. The challenge is to ensure interpersonal interactions, character building, spiritual formation, and ministry shaping whether students and faculty are onsite or online, on or off campus, and residential or non-residential.
2. Charting a course for curriculum development?
To enhance onsite and online teaching and learning, we need to train faculty and students to use digital tools efficiently. The College has thus been pouring resources into our EduTech project (see “Teach, Learn, and Collaborate from Anywhere, at Any Time” in SBC Heartbeat issue 278: /resources/sbc-heartbeat/). This project will influence how we develop our courses, and hence our pedagogical approach, student recruitment policy, and campus infrastructure redevelopment. The challenge is to keep our curriculum development focused on equipping students from different disciplines with needed skills and practical training in local and overseas churches and organizations.
3. Optimizing the uniqueness of theological education at SBC?
Our College has been blessed with a community of learners from diverse nationalities, cultures,
languages, ethnic groups, denominations, and independent churches. To nurture servant-leaders for churches, parachurch organizations, and mission fields, the challenge is to groom staff to utilize resources to achieve our theological education goals, and to recruit local and overseas faculty who inculcate an integrative and context-relevant theology with
their cross-cultural mindsets and global views on missions.
4. Shaping the master plan of campus redevelopment
To maximize usage of our precious campus space and location, we are planning to redevelop some buildings. The challenge is to avoid overbuilding and underuse of facilities, especially in view of digitally enhanced education and distance learning. Moreover, we hope to make our facilities available to other users during weekends and seasons of low activity. We have been seeking advice from experts in education, architecture, and construction, and current users of our facilities and stakeholders of SBC.?
5. Raising local and overseas faculty
Raising pastor-scholars who contribute to theological education and train the Lord’s servants is crucial for this region and beyond, given that the growth of Christian populations in Asia will be one of the fastest in the world for the next two decades. The challenge is to provide these local and overseas faculty with stronger financial support, and sufficient research and teaching resources.?
We face huge challenges and needs, but we believe prayer to be the first and most effective step in any offering to the Lord. Please walk with us first and foremost in prayer.
