I'm not usually THIS excited, but I can’t get over the possibilities! We've been talking for years about the looming leadership crisis, and now it's finally upon us. Increasingly, we've got more leadership vacancies than leaders to fill them! This is as acutely true in the church as it is in the world at large. But what if we had a workable solution? What if we could REALLY move the needle and actually see a quantity of competent Christian leaders, trained and ready for service? I think we can! Of all the [...]

(Continued from Part IV) A Future for Christian Higher Education, Part V Collaborating Across the Christian Higher Education Sector There is often a spoken or assumed expectation by those outside the sector that Christian higher education institutions ought to find deeper ways to collaborate. The sentiment is affirmed by those within the sector44 and in practice institutions are generally generous about things like sharing policy, referring students to rival institutions that better suit the student's academic aims, and offering friendship, moral support, and prayer across the aisles. For deeper collaboration, however, it needs to be [...]

(Continued from Part III) A Future for Christian Higher Education, Part IV Practically speaking, how can Christian higher education overcome its lower enrolments and decreased financial supports and continue to fulfil its leadership pipeline mandate in Canada?   Solutions: Christian higher education must adapt, collaborate, and secure new support. There are many possible solutions to the Christian higher education crisis, but all of them need to own up to the commonplace perception of "how little my [Christian higher] education had actually prepared me for the day-in, day-out responsibilities of leading a church."32 For Daniel O. Aleshire, [...]

(Continued from Part II) A Future for Christian Higher Education, Part III Problem #3: Christian higher education is facing a crisis in Canada. Leaders in Canadian Christian higher education collectively express difficulty in recruiting students, often citing Christian parents as a primary obstacle. Increasingly, Canadian Christian parents want their children to go directly into a career track at public institutions, not to waste time and money developing faith. Recruitment is further hampered by a growing trend among churches to hire clergy who have little or no Christian education, or for churches just to do their [...]

(Continued from Part I) A Future for Christian Higher Education, Part II Problem #2: We have a Christian leadership crisis in Canada. Currently, most Canadian Christian leaders are in their late 50s, with 41% in senior positions aged 60 or older14 and two-thirds of senior pastors serving as their church's only leader.15 Statistics Canada predicts that 25% of all Canadians will be seniors by 2031 with Millennials holding 50% of Canadian jobs in 2020 and 75% by 2028.16 For the church, however, there has been a sharp decline in the numbers of young adults pursuing vocational Christian leadership.17 [...]

A Future for Christian Higher Education, Part I Problem #1: The Church is experiencing a crisis in Canada. Canada is experiencing rapid changes in its social, spiritual, and moral climate that increasingly conflict with traditional Christian beliefs and values. In slightly over a year, Canada passed Bill C-7, expanding euthanasia law1, Bill C-4, criminalizing conversion therapy without clearly defining what "conversion therapy" means,2 and increased spending on abortion in response to the US Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.3 Canada's 2018 Supreme Court decision to rule against Trinity Western University's appeal to have a law school [...]