Core Values
PREAMBLE
New Brunswick Theological Seminary seeks, by our work and worship,
to confess that God created all worlds, entered into covenant with
Israel, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, in Jesus Christ, makes
all things new—
forgiving sins;
transforming persons, institutions, societies;
liberating the oppressed;
reconciling our divided human family;
restoring nature;
and establishing justice, righteousness, and peace upon the earth;
for this process of renewal, God calls and preserves a faithful
fellowship, the Church, to whose ministry God calls men and women.
VALUES
1. New Brunswick values the Bible as the only rule for faith
and practice, the authoritative witness to God's self-revelation.
2. New Brunswick values being an institution of the Reformed
Church in America (RCA).
This relationship with the founding denomination connects the
Seminary to the greater church because the Reformed Church is
an ecumenical church.
This relationship provides the seminary with a specific history
and heritage. It places the school within an ethos of mission
and within the bi-national context of the whole RCA.
It makes the Seminary accountable, encouraging us to ask how
the Seminary's mission interfaces with the mission of the Reformed
Church.
3. New Brunswick values the privilege of serving a spectrum
of denominations and being trusted by them to provide theological
education for their candidates for ministry
New Brunswick engenders the trust of these denominations by our
piety, and offers professorial and administrative hospitality
to these denominations by our commitment to the oneness of Christ's
church. We are catholic, and therefore explore our common ground
before we explore our diversity.
Because we value being trusted with the theological education
of students from other denominations, New Brunswick provides for
those students to be educated in the history, doctrines and polity
of their denominations, taught by outstanding educators from within
their traditions.
The resultant theological and ethnic diversity contributes to
everyone's learning.
The presence of these other denominations broadens the selection
of adjunct faculty available to the Seminary.
New Brunswick is committed to nurturing these relationships into
full partnerships in which the Seminary can expect increasingly
to be shaped and held accountable by these other denominations,
and the denominations will be called to respond in mutual accountability.
These partnerships represent the best context in which to educate
persons for ministry in the RCA.
4. New Brunswick values education
Critical thinking and dialogue are essential to the life of faith
in the modern world.
New Brunswick believes education is most effective when it is
interactive.
Faculty and students are understood to be working together for
the success of both.
Interactive teaching/learning encourages the use of new technology
in the service of traditional values, and encourages reflection
upon each person's lived experiences.
5. New Brunswick values spiritual formation
New Brunswick understands ministerial preparation to include
the enrichment of personal, covenantal relationship with God.
Spiritual formation seeks to intensify individual spiritual life,
enable growth in personal faith, strengthen moral integrity, energize
passion for the Gospel, and effect public witness.
6. New Brunswick values the Reformed Church in America's ecclesiastical
office of "General Synod Professor of Theology"
The inclusion of the professorate among the other offices of
the Reformed Church (Minister of Word and Sacrament, Elder, and
Deacon) asserts that education for ministry is ministry.
The presence, within New Brunswick Seminary, of persons called
to the office of Professor of Theology reminds all of us that
education for ministry cannot occur apart from ministry. All who
teach within this Seminary, therefore, understand ourselves as
ministering.
As symbol, the office of General Synod Professor of Theology
reminds us that the teaching of the Seminary is intended to be
shaped by the treasury of the broad faith of the whole church
and always to be directed toward the welfare of the whole church.
7. New Brunswick values preparing persons for ministries that
are both pastoral and prophetic. We understand such ministries to:
Be evangelical — that is, ministries which are excited
about and committed to proclaiming the good news of God's grace
in Christ Jesus.
Be ecumenical — that is, ministries that work out
of the confession of the essential oneness of Christ's church, while,
at the same time, being thoroughly grounded in the particularities
of their own traditions.
Be both confessing and critical. Each answer — new
or old — raises new questions. We understand honest questions
to be an important component in the process of learning.
Students come with faith seeking understanding. As soon
as we say “I believe,” we are called to become both
evangelists for that faith and critics of the faith, simultaneously.
Be compassionate — that is, ministries that actually
touch persons.
Be collegial — that is, ministries which understand
that God has given us many co-laborers with whose calling and gifts
we are to unite our own calling and gifts.
Have a “this world” focus. Our prayer is “thy
kingdom come on earth.”
Be transformative of persons, of institutions, of life itself.
8. New Brunswick values community
It is our intention that all members of the faculty, student
body, administration, and staff know that they are welcome in
the Seminary’s centrifugal energy. It is our hope that persons
within New Brunswick will develop healthy relationships through
worship, work, and study jointly shared. At the same time, we
encourage self-differentiation and an atmosphere in which honest
disagreement is readily accepted and where all are mutually cared
for and accountable.
Within its community, New Brunswick seeks to involve all persons
in a single conversation. For this reason, we do not work within
different programs for different ethnic traditions, or different
denominational traditions, or any other separate cluster of persons.
We seek to do whatever is necessary to enable everyone to speak
with equal voice and opportunity, within one common discourse.
This allows New Brunswick to serve, with authenticity, as a center
for faith formation and theological development, especially for
the RCA, but also for the whole church. It is assumed that when
persons interact face-to-face something powerful is present, beyond
the simple total number of persons present.
9. New Brunswick values diversity: diversity of expression
of faith; diversity of context -- rural, suburban, urban; diversity
of origin — racial, ethnic, and cultural; diversity of sexual
identity; and economic/social diversity
10. New Brunswick values providing theological education for
persons to whom theological education may not otherwise be available
New Brunswick has, up to this point, dealt mainly with issues
of access that involve schedule and academic preparation difficulties
(for example, evening classes and openness to life-experience
learning). Issues of financial access have not yet been successfully
dealt with.
New Brunswick will strive to make its programs available to those
who have been underserved.
11. New Brunswick values theological research and publication
as a form of ministry that adds to the fund of knowledge that serves
the church, the academic community, and society at large
12. New Brunswick values its location in the northeastern
region of the United States and understands itself to be shaped primarily
by the resources and challenges of the regional church and community
The geographic locations of its two campuses are significant
assets. Both contexts provide extraordinary learning resources
and ministry opportunities. Both campuses are easily accessible.
Opportunities for supervised ministry are numerous throughout
our geographic locations. It is important for New Brunswick that
the locations of our campuses pull us into two great cities —
New York and Philadelphia — as well as into some of the
neediest cities — for example, Newark, Trenton, and Camden.
13. New Brunswick values partnerships with other institutions,
and collaborative approaches to education
14. New Brunswick values excellence in all facets of community
and corporate life
15. New Brunswick values stewardship — the wise and
responsible use of human, material, and financial resources
|
