By Deborah Lilly

In the early 1970s, the General Assembly of the Church of God expressed concern over the lack of ongoing education for Church of God pastors. The assembly charged the Anderson University School of Theology to develop a program to meet the needs of working pastors. The seminary has done that and more. Creating the Center for Pastoral Studies, now the Center for Christian Leadership, the seminary has furthered the church’s ability to equip pastors and laypeople to be disciples for kingdom work and created a network through which believers can come together and study.

Over the years, T. Franklin Miller, Jerry Grubbs, and Jim Bradley have guided the program. By 2000, the program was running virtually on its own, offering pastors the same sort of courses it had for the past 18 years. It was in 2000 that SOT Dean David Sebastian, Vice President and Dean Carl Caldwell, and Vice President Sena Landey discussed whether or not the program had run its course or if it could be revived. They decided to ask David Neidert to step up as center director and refresh the program.

Seeing a need to equip all church leaders, the first thing Neidert did was expand the program to include lay leaders in the church, hence the name change to the Center for Christian Leadership. But the idea remained the same. “The center is about God’s work in the world,” Neidert explains. “It exists for people who can never come to Anderson University or who can never do higher education but are hungry to be mature disciples of Christ.”

Neidert spent his first year editing and revising courses and asking SOT and undergraduate religion faculty to write new courses. He then created a Web site. What followed, Neidert says, was explosion in enrollees, new and returning. And the numbers of students inquiring about the center were not just from the United States but from all over the world.

Intended to be an independent-study program, participants have found ways to come and work together. In Shillong, India., for example, a group of 12 have been meeting for two years, connecting with the Center for Christian Leadership via Internet. Using what they have learned from center studies, the 12 are going out and teaching in rural churches. They are also trying to open up churches in other Asian countries. “Congregations are increasing in strength because of the wisdom and leadership skills that have developed in Shillong,” says Neidert.

By completing courses, participants are awarded Continuing Education Credits (CEU). With 50 CEUs, a participant receives certification in either Christian ministries or aging ministries, depending on the track followed.

Don Bergstrom is the senior pastor at Houston (Texas) First Church of God. He first enrolled in the CCL in 1981. At that time, he was relatively new to the Church of God. He had been asked to pastor a Church of God congregation in northern California. He and his wife were trying to discern if he should take the position or head to Gulf Coast Bible College to study. He felt led to accept the pastorate in California and chose to expand his knowledge through courses from the CCL.

Over the years, Bergstrom has earned 100 CEUs. His focus has been Church of God doctrine and history and church leadership and growth. “I have been able to apply, and then teach others, much of what I am learning,” he says. “About 10 years ago, I began teaching some of the CCL courses I was going through to a group of interested laypersons on Wednesday evenings. Today two of those people are ordained in the Church of God.”

For more information about the CCL and its programs, contact Neidert at (765) 641-4526 or dlneidert@anderson.edu. This story was originally published in the summer 2008 issue of Anderson University’s alumni magazine, Signatures.