Many churches will support the men and women that they send to college. But few churches are able to find anywhere near £40-£75,000. It is hard to get accurate figures on the amount of support the average student gets from his sending church, but it is often just a few thousand pounds – sometimes less. For many churches even a few thousand pounds is still a considerable sacrifice – but it leaves the student with a lot of money to find.
That means that many students are going into debt in order to fund their training. Many others are forced to ask their wives to work (sometimes full-time) during the training period, perhaps when they would like their wives to train with them. Others spend years employed in secular work, simply saving up the money that they will require. Still others don’t go to college at all, or take a much shorter course than they really need. Can this really be right?
Continue reading ‘Funding theological training: the options’
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There’s an interesting interview with UCCF director, Richard Cunningham over at Adrian Warnock’s blog. It’s interesting to see Adrian’s perspective (with his roots in NFI). His comments that in the past there has been some CU’s who have not been very accepting of people from charismatic backgrounds. were accepted by Richard, which I suppose adds some balance to the fact that many reformed conservatives feel equally excluded, a point which Richard also touches on later.
But of most interest are Richard’s very encouraging answers are to do with the way that CU’s (should) relate to churches. Here are some highlights:
The Christian Unions is a partnership between students, staff and supporters all of whom are encouraged to be committed to a local church. A CU does not have the breadth and depth of age, maturity and gifting to be a substitute for church… The health of many CUs is greatly affected by the presence of lively, Bible teaching churches in the vicinity.
There are 2 main pitfalls. One is when a CU misunderstands itself and begins to ape a church by putting on more and more meetings… This could lead to some students not having enough time to get involved in a local church… The other is when a local church misunderstands the nature of a CU and criticizes the existence of student led bible study groups…
Continue reading ‘UCCF and local churches’
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