Supervised Ministry as a Pedagogical Tool in Theological Training of Baptist Student Pastors in Nigeria

Abstract

Theological education is fundamental to the life of religious organizations. The 
ministry and service of any Christian denomination are a reflection of the 
quality of theological education given to its leaders. Pastors play significant 
roles in nurturing the faith and guiding their congregants which requires some 
special skills, and supervised ministry, a structured mentoring programme 
integrated into theological training of pastors to help them to apply theoretical 
knowledge in real-world ministry settings is central in acquiring these skills. 
This study explores the significance of supervised ministry as a pedagogical tool 
in the theological training of Baptist student pastors in Nigeria, emphasizing its 
indispensability in impacting requisite skills in intending church pastors. It 
highlights the components of supervised ministry that contributed to the overall 
ministerial developments of student pastors in the Nigeria Baptist Convention 
theological institutions. The study adopts a systematic literature review of 
scholarly articles, journals, books, and other academic resources to explore the 
indispensability of supervised ministry as a pedagogical tool. The findings 
reveal that pedagogy is broadly connected with the theory and practice of 
imparting knowledge and the science of teaching. Supervised ministry served as 
a pedagogical tool through its comprehensive frameworks like experiential 
learning, reflection and integration, skill development, formation, and identity development, cultural competence and contextual awareness, professional 
accountability and ethics, pastoral care skills, feedback and evaluation, 
relationship skills, and spiritual and character formation. By using supervised 
ministry as a pedagogical tool in theological training, pastors in training are not 
only exposed to the practicals and complexities of pastoral ministry, it also 
allows them to develop a deeper understanding of their vocational ethics, 
enhance their commitment to serving their congregants within the contextual 
setting and with empathy and integrity. Supervised ministry should be seen as 
an extension of classwork in theological training of Baptist student pastors in 
Nigeria, and therefore should be awarded a course code and with reasonable 
course units every semester to emphasize its importance in ministerial training 
of pastors.