Academic education is undergoing dramatic transformation worldwide. Theological institutions are closing down due to declining numbers in the West, and demand for informal theological education that provides accredited certification is increasing exponentially in the Global South. But the question should be asked, why study theology?
There is still a lingering anti-intellectual attitude.
In Evangelical and Pentecostal circles, which is the constituency that forms my experience within YWAM, there is still a lingering anti-intellectual attitude. I once received advice from a Pentecostal pastor when I was a student: "Don’t get intellectually handicapped". He meant: "just believe, brother!"
Study is part of loving God with all our minds. It involves studying both God’s book of words and his book of works. It is a disciplined search for truth in a world marked by confusion, distortion, and power without accountability. It is how we learn to discern reality accurately, and to act wisely, proactively rather than reactively.
Is it missional?
Study with a missional leadership orientation engages in missio Dei, discerning what God is doing in our neighborhood, city, nation, and world. It is God-centered, not church-centered, or even mission-organisation-centered.
We are sent into a world where God is already at work.
Missional leadership begins with the conviction that we are sent into a world where God is already at work—sent into the complexities of public life, culture, economics, and politics—not to dominate, but to witness, to heal, and to help order society toward the common good. Our job is to discern where God is at work and to join his ongoing work in the world.
Too often we replace Christianity with churchianity. Yet the essence of being a Christ-follower is not church-attendance itself. It’s following Christ into his world and obeying him. Whether in church activities or with a ministry or missions organization, we need to ask ourselves where our focus is: in building up our church or organization, running Bible study courses and worship events? All of which is good—but is it missional? Are we engaging in missio Dei, God’s work in our neighborhood, city, or nation?
What about Europe?
We have a tendency to think of the world out there as something to be saved from.
Those of us with Evangelical/Pentecostal roots find it hard to think about Europe as a moral and spiritual experiment, and to discern where God may be at work. We have a tendency to think of the world out there as something to be saved from.
Yet from the ruins of World War Two emerged an attempt—imperfect and fragile—to bind nations together through forgiveness and reconciliation, in justice and peace, in trust and understanding, with law rather than force, cooperation rather than conquest. That experiment is now under severe strain. Understanding Europe today demands historical awareness, spiritual discernment and moral imagination.
Europe today urgently needs some serious attention. The continent that gave birth to ideas of human dignity, rule of law, plurality, and democratic restraint now struggles to remember the sources of those convictions. The crises we face—war on our borders, erosion of trust in institutions, polarization, migration, and the return of naked power politics—cannot be addressed by technical expertise alone.
The crises we are experiencing are opportunities for the rediscovery of Europe’s soul.
These issues demand people who will point back to the source of that life: God’s Word. Ad fontes (back to the source). The crises we are experiencing are opportunities for the rediscovery of Europe’s soul—that which breathed life into our modern civilization in the first place, the awareness that each of us is created in God’s image, and that each of us contains the spark of divine life.
We choose that as the basis for our solidarity, working toward the best for the common good—not just our own tribe or nation. And we work for communities—locally and across the continent—grounded in trust, truth, and justice for all.
To study, then, is to prepare oneself for responsible engagement with our world. To pursue missional leadership is to align ourselves with God’s purposes. To focus on European Studies, or any regionally focused study, is to concentrate on where the need is urgent for that context. Rooted in God’s Word, aware of what God has done in the past, we focus on his purposes, anticipating with positive expectation about what he will yet do in the future.
May God's kingdom come, in Europe, as it is in heaven!
Originally published by Weekly Word. Republished with permission.
Jeff Fountain and his wife Romkje are the initiators of the Schuman Centre for European Studies. They moved to Amsterdam in December 2017 after living in the Dutch countryside for over 40 years engaged with the YWAM Heidebeek training centre. Romkje was founder of YWAM The Netherlands and chaired the national board until 2013. Jeff was YWAM Europe director for 20 years, until 2009. Jeff chaired the annual Hope for Europe Round Table until 2015, while Romkje chaired the Women in Leadership network until recently. Jeff is author of Living as People of Hope, Deeply Rooted and other titles, and also writes weekly word, a weekly column on issues relating to Europe.
Weekly Word is an initiative of The Schuman Centre for European Studies. Jeff Fountain is a New Zealander holding a Dutch passport, is currently the director of the Schuman Centre for European Studies (www.schumancentre.eu), and lives in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Jeff graduated with a history degree from the University of Auckland (1972) and worked as a journalist on the New Zealand Herald (1972-3), and as travelling secretary for Tertiary Student Christian Fellowship (TSCF) (1973). He has lived in the Netherlands since 1975, and has travelled and spoken in almost every European country. For twenty years following the fall of communism, he was the European director for the international and interdenominational mission organisation, Youth With A Mission. He was chairman of the international, trans-denominational movement, Hope for Europe, for which he organised two pan-European congresses in Budapest in 2002 and 2011. In 2010, he established the Schuman Centre for European Studies (www.schumancentre.eu) to promote biblical perspectives on Europe’s past, present and future, to encourage effective engagement in issues facing Europe today.
