By Karissa Ryan
Staff writer

The Grand Rapids Theological Seminary is taking the Biblical mandate of “Go ye….” to heart and extending their “Urban Initiatives” program to Kalamazoo.

The program will offer both a certificate to non-degree seekers, as well as a Master of Arts in Ministry Leadership degree.

GRTS first saw the need to extend its services to those in Grand Rapids, and after four years of discussing with urban leaders, the “Urban Initiative” began in the fall of 2008. Soon after beginning the program, GRTS began receiving calls from all over Michigan, including Benton Harbor, Muskegon, Lansing and Kalamazoo.

“We realized that we needed to explore bringing theological education to these city leaders,” said Douglas Fagerstrom, president of the GRTS. “The most aggressive requests we received came from Kalamazoo, so we believed that was our first venue off site.” 

Students include pastors, church ministry leaders and any others who are currently involved in urban ministry.

The goal of the “Urban Initiative” program is to bring extended studies to those who are capable but who have also been limited in the past, whether that is due to financial problems, time restraints, or a location problem. This first class will consist of about 30 students, all from unique backgrounds and areas of ministry. Students will meet every Monday night for three hours at the Galilee Baptist church in Kalamazoo.

Unlike Cornerstone’s Professional and Graduate Studies Program (PGS), these classes are not condensed and will take a full semester to complete. The Master’s program will thus take six years, with each course lasting the full 14 weeks. For those not seeking a degree, the program is not quite as long.

Non-degree seekers and degree-seeking leaders alike will begin “Systematic Theology 1″ this fall. In the next few years, they will have completed “Systematic Theology 2 and 3,” “Biblical Theology,” “Biblical Hermeneutics” and “Social Ethics.” After these courses, only those wishing to obtain their master’s degree will continue.

While the program has only officially been around for one year, Fagerstrom has been involved with urban ministry leaders for the last five years while serving as president of the GRTS. He said he is “personally grateful to God that he has called us to serve those who serve the under-served in our urban population.”

He continued to share how successful the Grand Rapids initiative has been, measuring it by the colossal amount of positive feedback he receives from these leaders. Many have shared how it has already impacted their preaching.

Tara Kram, director of the Grand Rapids Theological Seminary admissions, has helped to facilitate the recruitment and the admissions of these students. She shares that in the year with the Grand Rapids cohort, it has been wonderful to see how God brings leaders from very “unique communities in and of themselves [who] normally might not have interaction with one another,” and that a benefit of the program already is the bringing together of leaders despite social or denominational class differences.

But they aren’t the only ones being impacted. “It’s important to see how urban leaders are influencing the Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and this is sometimes overlooked,” Kram said. “An even more important thing is what they are bringing to our community here.”

While the hopes are to extend the training into more communities, right now, according to Kram, it looks as though the program will simply be adding more cohorts in Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo. Muskegon is a possibility for January, and although Lansing and Benton Harbor have been looked into, they are on hold at the moment. But with interest expressed as far away as Detroit, this will continue to be one way that the GRTS fulfills the biblical mandate of “Go ye…”