by Patty Thomson

Bethel Seminary San Diego marks a milestone in 2003: 25 years of offering quality theological education in the San Diego County region of southern California. Conceived in 1977 when Bethel St. Paul offered extension classes to 39 students at College Avenue Baptist Church, the fledgling school soon was dubbed “Bethel West.” With San Diego’s large military population, significant ethnic diversity, proximity to Mexico, and great spiritual need, the city’s West Coast location held enormous potential for intercultural ministry.

A pedagogical success

Back in the 1970s Gordon Johnson, who was then dean of Bethel Seminary in St. Paul, remembers the great opportunity that establishing a West Coast presence represented for Bethel. Just a year earlier, classes taught by professors from another seminary had been well-received at College Avenue Baptist Church. Bethel responded to the demand for more by flying in faculty to teach weekend courses at the church’s facilities. “We flew in all of the faculty to teach the same courses there as we did here in St. Paul,” Johnson says, “and discovered that students did just as well in a concentrated way of doing things.”

Clifford Anderson, on the faculty of Bethel St. Paul since 1959, accepted the invitation to become the first dean of Bethel Seminary San Diego. “Clifford had such a grasp of the nuances that were a part of it,” Johnson remembers. “He was the right person.

Things went so well, in fact, that within two years the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada (ATS) awarded accreditation to Bethel Seminary San Diego courses as an extension of the courses taught in St. Paul, pointing to the exceptional quality of the education being offered to San Diego students. “It was an exciting period,” Johnson says. “President [George K.] Brushaber [president of Bethel University], Clifford Anderson, and I met with the whole board of the ATS.” The Bethel group responded with good answers to tough questions. Although other seminaries had offered extension classes, there had never been a full-blown extension of a seminary before. “We were pioneers,” Johnson explains, “and it was a pedagogical success.”

By 1988 construction began at 6116 Arosa Street in San Diego to accommodate a student body already exceeding 150 ethnically and culturally diverse students. Then in February 1990, the school moved into its new $2 million seminary building housing a chapel and lecture hall, library, classrooms, student body and lounge areas, administrative and faculty offices, and a communications center. “We didn’t expect it to be a big place, but the growth kept on,” Johnson reflects. “It’s been exciting to see. We never could have dreamed what it [the seminary] would be, couldn’t envision then the ultimate result.” And the growth continues. This year Bethel Seminary San Diego enrolled more than 200 students in four master’s degree programs: Master of Divinity, Master of Arts in Theological Studies, Master of Arts in Christian Education, and Master of Arts in Marital and Family Therapy.

One faculty, two locations

“One faculty in two locations” became a guiding principle under Clifford Anderson’s leadership from 1978 to 1995, and he faithfully carried out that vision. “I was involved in curriculum and based my planning on the home campus so that the degrees would not be watered down,” Anderson notes. His role also involved recruiting qualified faculty, including Bernard Ramm, author, theologian, and apologist; Clarence Bass, seminary professor of theology; and Millard Erickson, theologian and Bethel Seminary dean from 1984 to 1992. Anderson considers Walter Wessel’s 10-year stint as professor of Old Testament, New Testament, and Greek a “great impetus forward,” and Ronald Youngblood’s coming as full-time professor of Old Testament and Hebrew from 1982 to 2001 “a wonderful addition.”

A team effort

While Bethel Seminary San Diego enjoyed significant growth under his leadership, Anderson downplays his contributions and points to the work of others. “The credit goes to the Lord,” he declares, also voicing high praise for staff members, volunteers, and an advisory council of representatives from local churches. “For those who work at the school, it’s not been a job—it’s been a ministry,” Anderson says. “Our staff cared for the students in wonderful ways. Assistant to the dean Sally Kennedy and librarian Mary Lou Bradley, for example, went the extra mile and stayed extra hours many times. Faculty and staff wives met weekly for prayer.”

“The credit goes to the Lord. For those who work at the school, it’s not been a job—it’s been a ministry.” Clifford Anderson

“But we existed simply to extend the rule of Christ,” he continues. “A great school was not the goal. A great library was not the goal, nor was [hiring] a wonderful staff. The goal was extending Christ’s rule on earth. People studied and went out. At one time, we counted our graduates in 20 countries of the world, in many denominations, engaged in everything from working with children, to pastoring, counseling, serving as chaplains, and laboring in missions. All kinds of vocations.”

Anderson also remembers the nurturing role College Avenue Baptist Church played in the growth of Bethel Seminary San Diego. Before the school occupied its own building, the church provided space for classes and a library by remodeling an old fellowship hall, even paying for utilities and janitorial services. The church’s support and partnership continues to this day.

Growing into the ’90s

While College Avenue Baptist Church initiated the demand for seminary courses, other churches soon began sending their ministry personnel to Bethel Seminary San Diego for training as well. Further growth led to the formation in 1994 of the Bethel Seminary San Diego A.D. 2001 Task Group, whose mission was to develop a strategy for “preparing ministry persons for the rest of the decade and into the 21st century.” This excerpt from a Bethel Seminary accreditation report is revealing: “In the context of the ethnically rich and diverse population of the San Diego area, it became clear to the leadership at Bethel Seminary that what this region needed most was not a transplanted Upper Midwest version of itself, but one that was designed to address the needs of the emerging context in both the western sector of the United States and the Pacific Rim.”

Clifford Anderson’s successor as dean in 1996 was well suited to face that challenge. The son of Christian and Missionary Alliance missionaries, Steven (Esteban) Voth grew up in Argentina in a bilingual and bicultural environment. He and his wife, Mariel DeLuca Voth, said that Bethel’s desire to prepare students for an ethnically diverse world was key to their sense of call to come to Bethel Seminary San Diego.

Putting it into context

Among Voth’s first acts as dean was to initiate discussions among the faculty concerning the issue of contextualization, or the process of communicating God’s Word in terms that are maximally relevant to today’s world cultures, while at the same time not compromising biblical truth.
Indeed, contextualization became a major theme of “One Gospel, Many Voices,” Bethel Seminary San Diego’s response to Provost Leland Eliason’s mandate in 1997 to create a five-year strategic master plan for growth and change. “This document should not be mistaken for an eclectic wish list,” the faculty wrote. “It has a soul. And this soul is a shared commitment to one gospel and its expression in many different voices.”
Contextualization remains at the very core of Bethel Seminary San Diego’s vision for ministry preparation today.

Building on a solid foundation

Voth’s resignation in 2000 to work with the United Bible Societies in Latin America prompted a year-long quest for a leader to guide Bethel Seminary San Diego into the new century. John Lillis, accompanied by his wife Gail, accepted the call as dean and executive officer of Bethel Seminary San Diego in July 2001. Lillis’ 19 years of experience holding both faculty and administrative positions at Cornerstone University, Grand Rapids, Mich., as well as his eight years of mission work in Thailand and the Philippines, uniquely qualified him to take on the task. “I want to continue the emphasis that this particular campus has on providing a contextualized, diversified approach to theological education,” Lillis says. “By that I mean preparing people for ministry in such a way that they are not culture bound, but are able to go into a variety of cultural and socioeconomic settings and enact effective, biblically based ministry.”

Among Lillis’ goals are to offer additional degree programs and to establish additional class sites throughout Southern California so that more students can access Bethel resources. “But financial resources are always a challenge,” Lillis notes. “The reality of the situation is figuring out how to make the numbers work without setting tuition out of the reach of students who need the education.” To that end, he is committed to forming partnerships with people who will share Bethel’s vision and support it financially.

“Part of my vision for the future includes building on the fantastic foundation laid here by Clifford Anderson,” Lillis says. “He helped create a solid base here, a seminary that emphasizes good scholarship in the context of effective ministry. Steven Voth also built on that foundation and really developed the whole contextual diversity type of orientation. As I look to the future, I will certainly continue to build on that foundation of ministry preparation, biblical studies, and theology, with hopes to develop an ever greater sensitivity to and appreciation for the great diversity of the kingdom that will be so vital for ministry in tomorrow’s world.”

Lillis believes that Bethel Seminary San Diego is ideally located for ministry preparation, an asset that transcends the region’s reputation for wonderful weather. He notes that Bethel’s position on the edge of the Pacific Rim, coupled with the seminary’s distributed learning system and relationships with the many fine ethnic Christian organizations in the area, hold significant potential for Bethel’s next 25 years. “We’re poised to take off and greatly expand the outreach of the seminary and provide opportunities for others to enjoy the Bethel experience,” Lillis declares. “There is great ethnic and social diversity, as well as diversity of the local church here. Filipino, Vietnamese, and Chinese ethnic associations are nearby, and ministries range from new church plants to some of the best-known mega-churches in the nation.”

“Our students don’t have difficulty finding practical ministry experience,” Lillis concludes, “because these opportunities are tailor-made to whatever God has laid on their hearts.”

Patty Thomson is a development communications specialist for Bethel University. She and her husband Richard live in Blaine, Minn.

Happy Birthday Bethel San Diego!

Bethel Seminary San Diego celebrated 25 years of God’s goodness and blessing with three special events in April. On Thursday, April 24, Stanley Grenz, professor of theology at Baylor University and Truett Seminary, presented a lecture titled “Belonging to God: The Quest for Communal Spirituality in the Postmodern World” to a standing-room-only crowd in the seminary chapel. Grenz has authored or co-authored 23 books including The Social God and the Relational Self: A Trinitarian Theology of the Imago Dei (Westminster John Knox Press, 2001) and A Primer on Postmodernism (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1996).

On Friday, April 25, the seminary held a gala anniversary banquet featuring author and speaker Gordon MacDonald at the Hyatt Regency Islandia on Mission Bay in San Diego. In addition to serving as editor-at-large for Leadership Journal, a publication of Christianity Today International, MacDonald has written more than a dozen books and co-authored others with Gail, his wife. These include Ordering Your Private World (Thomas Nelson, 2003) and Secrets of a Generous Life (Tyndale, 2002). More than 325 guests heard MacDonald’s presentation “Do We Really Need Pastors?”

And on Saturday, April 26, the seminary hosted an Alumni and Friends Day featuring fellowship, food, and a few updates on the seminary and ministry-related topics.

“The continued growth and progress of the seminary is a testimony of the blessing of God upon that campus,” said Bethel Seminary Dean and Professor of Preaching Emeritus Gordon Johnson. “The multiethnic emphasis is so appropriate and significant for Bethel Seminary.”

Dean's Honored Roll - Bethel Seminary San Diego

Clifford Anderson 1978-1995 B.S., B.D., M.A., Ed.D. Recruited an outstanding faculty Developed a network of friends to support and pray for the school Formed an advisory council Helped achieve full accreditation Saw the completion of a new building Welcomed a racially diverse student body from across the U.S. and around the world Encouraged an interest in service and missions

Gordon Johnson 1990-1991 B.A., Th.M., Th.D. Stepped in as dean during Clifford Anderson’s sabbatical leave Instrumental in the 1977 startup of Bethel Seminary San Diego Taught as an adjunct professor in San Diego from 1984 to 1989 Served at Bethel Seminary St. Paul from 1959 to 1984, including 20 years as vice president and dean beginning in 1964