Hey Dan, it's been a pleasure connecting with you and your ministry. For those who don't know you, can you share with me a bit about who you are and how the Underground Seminary began?
Sure! I've been pastoring and teaching theology for the last 20 years or so. I really love equipping the saints with biblical doctrine and apologetics. That's what drove me to put together Underground Seminary. I was blessed to take a lot of advanced theology and apologetics courses in my Master's Program. I noticed that a lot of people dealing with doubt or who were "deconstructing" had not been exposed to the training that really grounded me. I wanted to give people the chance to see the beauty of God's truth, and I wanted to make sure it was affordable. I had friends that went off to seminary and added several thousand dollars of debt to their already high undergraduate debts. Many ended up with too much debt to take ministry jobs. Others came out of seminary ill-equipped for ministry life. There are some great seminary programs out there, but I was seeing that many were wasting time and money and were leaving men unprepared for the work to which God called them. I realized that the best thing we can do is allow academic training to focus on the truth of God (Bible, theology, apologetics, etc.) and let pastors disciple up younger pastors as Scripture teaches them to do. Underground Seminary started with me wanting to train my elders. I started pulling together content simply to equip them. Pretty soon, we opened it up to the church. Then, we put it online and started training our missionaries and other people with it. Lord willing, we hope to start making it available to churches as a package deal so that the price is exceptionally low and pastors can integrate the content into their equipping. You have a passion for equipping house church leaders in addition to ensuring every disciple makes disciples. How does the Underground Seminary play a role in that? Underground Seminary allows us to train House Church Leaders (elders) without sending them away to seminary. I can put one of our guys through the program in 18 months while he's also being discipled by another elder in the church. It makes church planting much more efficient, and it ensures that our leaders are grounded in the Word. Also, since we make it free to anyone in our church, a large percentage of our laypersons study the material too. It builds depth at every level. The biblical calibre of seminary education is pretty low here in Canada. I believe that is partly why so many churches have weak leadership and malnourished congregations. Can you share with me what it's like in the States and your thoughts on how the level of biblical literacy and training impacts your nation? This is a great question. My experience is that a lot of churches and seminaries in the US are suffering the same malnourishment you are seeing in Canada. Evangelicalism here seems to have espoused a kind of theological minimalism that gives lip service to the fundamentals of the faith but lacks any kind of robust idea of the cohesiveness of our faith or the implications God's Word has for every facet of life. Pastors think their congregations can't handle theological teaching through exegetical sermons, so they dumb down teaching and add in as much entertainment value as possible. Seminaries have, in turn, focused on "leadership" classes as opposed to any form of advanced theology. I've even noticed an attack against theological training. I could talk for a while about all that is involved in this, but it is heartbreaking to me. Pastors are failing their congregations by neglecting to teach the whole counsel of Scripture and avoiding any talk of its implications for faithful obedience to Christ as King in the face of an apostate culture and government. With this in mind, I'm noticing a lot of faithful pastors getting with the program, teaching Scripture, advocating for family worship, discipling faithfully, and doing the good work. There are a lot of churches like mine, made up of 40-50 people building faithful families, homeschooling kids, studying well, evangelizing daily, and applying the Word to the public sphere. I'm optimistic about the unseen faithful. Also, there are a few good seminaries out there doing good work. Often good Seminary education is out of reach simply because of logistic and financial reasons. Can you share how your Seminary addresses these matters? Definitely! First, our content is entirely accessible online. The goal is that you don't have to leave ministry to train for ministry. Also, we are presently uncredited (and plan to remain that way for now). We deliver knowledge. Simple as that. We avoid issues related to cost because we aren't playing the academic accreditation game. We've curated content based on what we know students need, not on what will check the box for accreditation. We offer the content as a subscription ($35-45/month per person). So, you can work at your own pace rather than in a semester format. We recommend doing one unit per month, but some people like to move slower and do one unit every 2-3 months. Others like to move quickly. In any case, you don't have to worry about the deadline or losing out on money because ministry crises got in the way of studies. You have access to all of the content for as long as you are a subscriber. In any case, most people can swing $35/month. It might mean sacrificing one meal out per month, but it is doable for most. By the way, we are planning to offer bulk packages to churches at a rate of $1,200 per year for twelve people. This works out to about $10/month per person. We are also switching our content delivery into a learning management system that will make for a really user-friendly experience. I'm excited about expanding the program and getting more churches involved at an even lower price. As we come to the end of the interview, can you share with my readers how they can access Underground Seminary? Sure! They can visit UndergroundSeminary.net to try it out for 30 days FREE! We don't ask for a credit card, so you don't have to remember to cancel later. It really is a free 30-day trial with no strings attached. If you like it, you can subscribe after that. If you are a pastor, and you are interested in the program for your church, you can contact me by email at [email protected].
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