Christian Post discusses George Barna:
(O)ne of the most troubling trends Barna highlights is the decline in discipleship and a lack of solid, biblical training from seminaries. He criticized the prevalent metrics used by churches to gauge success — attendance, fundraising and infrastructure — which he stressed have little to do with Jesus’ mission.
“There is poor leadership in seminaries that mislead local churches into thinking that they’re actually training individuals whom God has called to be leaders and are qualified to be leaders and certifying them to lead local churches, not knowing any better bringing them on,” he said.
Barna clarified that while many seminaries have “good intentions,” they set young ministry leaders up for failure...
To address these issues, Barna advocated for a radical return to biblical roots — but that, he said, might require rethinking the modern church structure.
“If we were to go back to the Bible, I think we’d recognize the local church, the institutional church, as we’ve created it, is man-made. It’s not in the Scriptures,” he said. “The programs, the titles, the buildings, all the stuff that has become sacrosanct in American culture and around the world is not necessarily biblical.
“Jesus didn’t come to build institutions, He came to build people. And we see that model in His life. He devoted the ministry portion of His life to investing in individuals.“
Clearly there needs to be some radical change in what is being taught in the seminaries. Can this happen ? We can only pray that it will be done.
The problem, Fred, is that the seminaries have been “captured”– to varying degrees, depending on the denomination. To change it would require reversing the fact they have been captured.