Assuming one agrees with the premise of my last
article, and is committed to training ministers, the
next question to be answered is, what should that
look like? What is required of a minister? How are
those requirements to be met? And what type and
level of training must one receive in order to be
equipped to serve in a pastoral capacity? 

In his book, Why Johnny Can't Preach, T. David Gordon argues that the move from a typographic (book based) culture, to an electronic and image based one has had negative consequences for the art of preaching.
The move, according to Gordon, has meant that people in general, and
preachers in particular, no longer reap the benefits of reading and writing regularly, or practicing the 'close reading of texts' required by exposure to higher forms of literature, such as poetry. Accordingly, men do not possess the requisite skills necessary to read and interpret the Bible in deep, meaningful ways, nor are they able to organise their thoughts and communicate them articulately, or effectively. Consequently, we find ourselves in somewhat of a quandary. Today, before ministers can be taught to preach, they must be taught... to read and write:

The solution is to cultivate those pre-homiletical sensibilities that are necessary to preach well. If, by way of example, an illiterate but sincere Christian came to me and said he wanted to be a minister, and wanted
to preach God's Word to others, I wouldn't initially send him to seminary. I'd encourage him to learn to read. How can he preach the Word of God if he can't read the Word of God? Similarly, reading texts closely is a skill-a skill distinct from reading generally or reading for information. Thus, many people today are illiterate in a particular way (illiterate of how to read texts closely), and they must devote themselves to acquiring this sensibility before they can be taught how to expound ancient, inspired texts.¹

But what type of education eschews the modern tendency to 'scan for information, while failing to appreciate literary craftsmanship'? ² What type of training would help pastors become better orators by exposing them to the best oration and rhetoric the world has ever had to offer, and teaching them to analyse and scrutinise it? What type of education would elevate pastors' minds beyond a rudimentary approach to the task of preaching to something more? The answer is, the kind of education we used to give them. The kind the Puritans practiced once upon a time, in places like Harvard and Princeton: Classical, liberal arts education!

There are people who cannot wrap their minds around the idea of a Classical, Christian, liberal arts, biblical worldview university in the heart of Africa. "Why are you wasting your time with such high-minded pursuits
when what we really need is men who understand and preach the Bible? Unfortunately, this question goes straight to the heart of the issue Gordon is raising in  Why Johnny Can't Preach! The fact is, handling the Word of God accurately requires educating the whole man. It requires instilling sensibilities that go beyond Bible survey courses and preaching labs. In short, it requires "taking every thought captive." 

Ironically, the people who cannot fathom this approach to the education of ministers suffer from the same problems that render Johnny incapable of preaching. The desire for immediacy in all things, the availability of EVERYTHING online, and the ability to leverage technology to replace discipline and skill, has rendered many of us completely incapable of even imagining that there could be any benefit to a process that requires us to slow down, go back to basics, and build for the long haul.

Meanwhile, impatient people continue to throw up quick buildings, house them with narrow programmes, designed to turn out shallow pastors who preach shallow sermons, and produce shallow churches...where they quote Spurgeon and Edwards, but lack the patience, or the skill to actually read and understand them.