Critical evaluation of mentoring programmes in theological seminaries of the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA)

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The concept of mentoring has received substantial attention in the literature, as is evidenced bythe quantity and quality of empirical and theoretical scholarship on the topic. In the post-modernera, we have seen a proliferation of evangelical schools engaging in the effort to better equip ourpresent and future leaders. No longer can it be assumed that incoming seminary students have aworking knowledge of the basics of the Christian faith.The aim of this study is an attempt to explore the impact of mentoring in theological seminaries.It is true that mentoring programmes are increasingly popular interventions strategies in manyorganizations; and although successful mentoring relationships can promote a range of positivedevelopmental outcomes, relationships that fail can lead to decrements in a person's functioningand self-esteem. This study explores the various mentoring programmes in three ECWA(Evangelical Church Winning All formerly Evangelical Church of West Africa. See details ofname change in footnote 3, Chapter 1) seminaries and evaluates its impact on both the graduatesand the mentors. The study further explored if mentoring can contribute to the holisticdevelopment of seminary students, and what avenues there are for mentoring involvement in theseminaries under consideration.Graduates between 2011 and 2005 of the 3 seminaries who went through mentoring programmeswhile at the seminary, current faculty mentors and the heads of the 3 institutions were includedas respondents. A qualitative approached was used, applying focus groups and individualinterviews to obtain data. The empirical findings of this research reveal that mentoring plays animportant role in the holistic development of seminary students especially in three areas, namelyspiritual formation, character and ministry formation. It has shown that integration of mentoringin theological seminaries is both biblically necessary and practically possible. Despite the factthat respondents identified mentoring as helping them in their holistic development as graduates,they still believed that mentoring is not effective in the seminaries. The heads of institutions andthe faculty respondents also agreed that even though mentoring is taken place in the 3seminaries, it lacks several aspects of effectiveness, i.e. lack of documentation on mentoring,lack of supervision of mentors, lack of proper mentoring administration, lack of standardizedprocedures with regards to mentoring, lack of training for mentors, etc. The study makes several recommendations as to improve the effectiveness of mentoring, with special focus on the youth.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University