Ray Bakke – the founder and academic dean of Bakke Graduate University of Ministry – revealed his vision to have Madison, Wisconsin become a laboratory for urban ministry at a reception for Madison’s faith community at Fountain of Life Family Worship Center church on Sunday afternoon, October 15th.
The “urban laboratory” is part of a new, innovative graduate program by Bakke Graduate University (BGU) where Christians build upon their skills in urban ministry and other urban vocations with original research, travel and intensive lecture sessions that lead to Masters and Doctors of Divinity degrees.
The Michael Jordans of Urban Ministry
Bakke told the Madison audience of about 50,“Our vision is to bring the school to you so you don’t have to leave your city.” He explained that people already doing ministry in urban contexts, whether it’s prison ministries, drug abuse programs, or economic development, are the real experts and already know how to apply scriptural principles practically to these areas. “They’re really the Michael Jordans of urban ministry,“ he said, “they just don’t have the degrees to certify themselves.” Bakke also said that rather than uprooting students and whole families from the nucleus of their urban activity for long periods of study, it was more beneficial to turn the urban contexts into learning centers themselves.
Bakke’s Graduate University of Ministry offers a flexible degree plan that allows students to craft their own courses and research subjects from their current ministry or vocation. It connects with accredited universities around the world to bring in professors for a few days, a week or a couple of weeks at a time to teach an intensive section of a course. Other sections of a course involve travel both nationally and internationally to urban centers where practical fieldwork is already being done in one’s particular course or interest. Students can interact with others who are “doing their particular ministry” and gain all kinds of applications in real life experience.
Bakke said his university also partners with existing graduate programs to provide expanded course offerings. He announced that just recently, BGU entered a partnership with Payne Theological Seminary, (affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church), one of the oldest Black seminaries in the U.S. BGU’s program will be the Doctor of Ministry degree for Payne.
Turn Cities Into Laboratories
“Our vision is to turn cities into laboratories, and turn practitioners into professors,” Bakke said. He pointed out that Madison is a prime location since it’s the seat of state government and also the home of a world class university.
Bakke told the audience they could turn their skills into a curriculum. He cited the example of a woman in the Philippines who works with the Grameen Bank and does economic development. Bakke said BGU took her to Vietnam to teach sessions on economic development in an exchange of regional expertise. (The Grameen Bank and its founder, Muhammed Yunus were awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize this month).
“About 80% of the world’s active Christians are outside of the West,” Bakke said, “but 80% of the resources are here in the West.” Bakke said he wants to resource urban Christians to become certified in what many of them are already doing and to enable them to teach and exchange ideas for ministry among themselves, without having to rely on traditional ministry and missionary models.
Focus On The City
Bakke shared that much of the world lives in cities, yet 70% of traditional missionaries are in villages and small towns. He said his goal, through BGU, is to help the whole church take the whole gospel to the whole world. He cited the examples of St. Augustine, Cyprian, and Tertullian, whose theology was developed as they ministered in urban contexts. Bakke said the church has studied their theology, but not the process that helped form that theology. That process, Bakke explained, was informed by urban realities.
One of BGU’s students is the Reverend Alex Gee, pastor of Fountain of Life Family Worship Center and director of the Nehemiah Community Development Foundation. Gee told the reception audience that his field trips to India, Thailand, and Israel/Palestine have enriched him immeasurably as he does urban ministry in Madison. Gee said he wants to open up Bakke’s opportunities for the entire faith community in Madison.
Under the proposed plan, BGU’s “Madison Lab” would be housed at Fountain of Life and available for the entire Madison Christian community. Gee plans to host follow-up sessions at Fountain of Life in the coming weeks on the basics of the graduate program such as: tuition; courses of study; residency requirements; travel opportunities; reading lists; and much more.
Bakke Graduate University is five years old and has about 300 students (200 in the doctoral program) scattered in urban partnership study centers around the globe. Twenty-two students graduated last June, and 55 more are scheduled to graduate next year.
See www.bgu.edu for more information on Bakke Graduate University.
Look for an in-depth interview with Dr. Ray Bakke by Paul Grant on www.urbana.org