who is mainly the Vicar or Parish Priest, or in service training, short time course.
Some dioceses organise a sort of make shift training within the diocese for the purpose of training Church workers including evangelists; but the most conventional system of training is the Colleges of Theology and the Church seminaries. The focus of this section is on the last system, the Theological Colleges Seminaries and Church Universities who provide both ordination and other training for the equipment of the Pastor or Church leader.
Training of leaders cannot and must never be neglected. Training helps to develop the individual leader for better execution of his vision and the organisational goals. As it was noted earlier, the official training system of the Church makes the Church leader more responsible to his duties. Before the late fifties, leadership training was not readily available to many who desired it. The competitiveness was alarming that many were ordained without official/in-depth theological and ordination training. It is also pertinent to observe here that the Church even now still give only theological
184 training to the pastors and to a large extent overlook the ordination aspect of the training which is supposed to equip the pastor for Church leadership.
Currently in the Church of Nigeria, training of Church leaders is done in theological colleges and the few Church Universities in Umuahia, Ibadan, Akure, Okene, Wusasa, Zaria, Bukuru, Awka and Ekpoma among others in the various diocesan levels. The training in these institutions are meant to guide the future leaders in the Church towards achieving their full potentials. Leadership training is a long neglected or under developed component of spiritual leadership of Anglican faithful. The Church of Nigeria theological and ordination training should help to encourage young Anglican ministers who are in the position of leadership to be well equipped to sustain the needed spiritual leadership tempo in and around the Church. This is necessary because leaders of the Church has the role of guiding the secular leaders and making them see what they are not seeing but leaders cannot do this effectively if the pew is higher than the pulpit. Proper effective and efficient training is required for Church leaders to achieve this.
Training in the early days in the Church of Nigeria took place in the village schools and local training centers. With this type of training, the Church members and leaders can read and write and interpret the scriptures before the introduction of theological schools and universities. The problems that the Church faces today among many others includes: First how best to train her leaders for the fastest growing Anglican Church worldwide (like Nigeria). Secondly the formation of a proper curriculum that will take care of the leadership needs of the Church not just the theological aspect of the Church leader. Most of the things that are done today in the theological training
185 institutions should be guarded towards producing students who can be professionals in leadership, biblical interpretation and other human endeavors, Mark 6:3, Acts 18:3, Mark 1:14-19.
Thirdly, some of the available theological colleges are not valuable because the owners like smaller dioceses cannot equip them effectively so they use mainly Pastors and people that they term “no do wells” in the Parishes as lecturers, thereby promoting mediocrity instead of producing good and genuine future Church leaders.
Fourthly there is no much avenue for and orientation and the introduction of basic theology and training of newly employed Church leaders thereby exposing them to danger of underperformance and many mistakes before finally trying to clear what they have in their head already before inputting new ones for the benefit of the Church.
Finally, the duration of training for the Church leaders is not enough, most times secular school graduates who are seeking employments are taken and given only one year or two years theological training with their secular mind of leadership still intact in them. This system runs contrary to the Christian servant leadership requirements and when they come out into the field, it is always difficult for such leader to be humble, serviceable and sacrificial. This is a problem because most of the training institutions we have today are focused on theological education rather than theological training. Due to lack of integrity in some of the leaders of the church, the honour of leadership has been stripped. Satan manipulates the church at will because the church is yet to come to terms with the quality of leadership she envisage.
186 Training in the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) is aimed and should be encouraged to aim at development and achievement of her vision and mission of the self-propagating, promoting, supporting and sustaining Church. The shortage of all round trained Church workers will be a stumbling block in achieving a servant Church. The nature and standard of the curriculum used in the training of Church leaders to a large extent, determines the ability of the Church leaders to adopt themselves into the servant leadership principles. When the curriculum is designed without the leadership aspect of the pastor in mind, it graduates leaders who come out to apply the social leadership principles available to the Church. When a simple curriculum that promotes the training of the intending leader, is developed, it will take care of the servant leadership style and characteristics as recommended in the Church leadership model. This will include the full study of some leaders from the scriptures, like Paul, Jesus Christ, Moses and other servant leaders, and books like the Pastoral Epistles mostly 1Tim. 3 will be studied with emphasis on Church leadership. It will be at least a four year course.
Today, a sample of the curriculum in the theological institutions include: Languages:
Greek and Hebrew, Biblical Studies, Hermeneutics, Theology and Philosophy, Semantic Theology, Contemporary Theology, African Theology, Church History (World, African and early Church), Religion and Society, Comparative religion and ethics. Pastoral Theology, Homiletics, Counseling and Church worship, all these courses do not tell the Church leader what servant leader is. None of them promotes sacrifice and service, but if courses like the leadership and structure of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) is incorporated it will bridge the gap of leadership knowledge that is existing now. Every leader should be meant to go through this
187 leadership training just as they are compelled to pass through the Crowther Language School now after their normal theological education. Let the Church see the need for this leadership aspect of the leader’s training program for a better and stronger Church for now and in the future. Duration of training should not be less than four years to accommodate the new curriculum that will take care of the leadership aspect of the training.
The present curriculum is aimed at producing pastors and Church leaders who are academically equipped for an effective ministry without much emphasis on the governance of the Church which Paul observed as very important in the Church. This made Paul separate his teaching and requirement for all the Saints in Ephesians 4:4-13 specifying the gift that is distributed among the Saints and the one that is expected only of those who desire to become leaders in the house of the living God. In 1Timothy 3:1-16, Paul clearly separated what all the Christians should have as gift, which includes apostleship, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers for the work of the ministry and building up of the body of Christ, from what a Christian should possess as character when he desires to lead in the body of Christ. So pastors and evangelists and prophets or any gifted child of God (born again) should not be easily mistaken to be an automatic leader in the house of God, the Church.
The leaders should be trained on how and what it takes to lead because training and its requirement has its foundation from the Scriptures. Church leadership standard styles and models should be taken from the bible so that the Church can exemplify the mind of her master and avoid intimidation and lording over by those who do not know God.
Just as Paul scheduled in his training syllabus for Titus, Timothy, Philemon and
188 Appiah to teach them both theology and how to be great and effective Church leader, the Church should have an all-round training scheme for her leaders too.
This call for proper training and introduction of Church leaders in “servant leadership” principles is not unscriptural and since the Anglican Church believes in the authority of the Scriptures. They should not neglect this aspect of the Scriptural injunction but be faithful to it. Jesus trained his disciples for three good years before launching them into the mission field. The task of the Church must be done by well-equipped persons. The ability to implement servant leadership principles in the Church today depends greatly on the sacrificial and service foundation that is laid in the training of the Church leader. This will start from their learning years as they practice leadership prowess even in the school as student leaders in the hostel, class and student’s union leadership.
5.5 Implications of the Study for Contemporary Church in Nigeria (Anglican