Partnering with Churches in the Urban Northeast

Host pastors of Bethel's Northeast Corridor teaching centers discuss their partnership with Bethel Seminary preparing whole and holy persons for ministry.

Winter 2008-2009 | Volume 22

“The kind of brokenness coming into the church right now is severe, and I think we as leaders have to figure out how we can bring health to these individuals who have been so beaten up.” This is how New England pastor Doug Geeze describes the challenges facing church leaders today – challenges that require fervent prayer, innovative training, and a commitment to reaching others. And that’s exactly what Bethel Seminary of the East is all about: equipping church leaders in the urban Northeast to meet those challenges with effective, kingdom-building ministry.

Geeze leads the congregation at Faith Baptist Church in Auburn, Mass., host site of the seminary’s New England Teaching Center. While Bethel Seminary of the East meets in four separate teaching centers along the Northeast Coast, the host churches are united in their partnership with Bethel to train effective ministry practitioners, build whole and holy 21st century leaders, and promote excellence for the glory of God.

United in goals

In addition to Faith Baptist Church in Auburn, Bethel Seminary of the East also partners with Chelten Baptist Church in Dresher, Pa. (Philadelphia Teaching Center); First Baptist Church of Glenarden in Landover, Md. (Washington, D.C. Teaching Center); and First Baptist Church of Flushing in Queens, New York City (New York Teaching Center). Each church has welcomed the seminary with open arms. This means not only sharing space, but also investing in the lives of students and the seminary community.

“There is a very positive and warm spirit toward the seminary,” says Andy Hudson, pastor of Chelten Baptist Church, just outside of Philadelphia. “The congregation loves having them here, investing in them, knowing that we’re really involved in kingdom work.”

John Jenkins Sr., pastor of First Baptist Church of Glenarden, believes that Bethel Seminary of the East “has provided a very significant component to the overall mission of our church in empowering and equipping people to do the work of ministry.” And Jenkins knows firsthand that it works. Having begun the partnership with the seminary in September 2003, Jenkins says that “most of our ministers who are on staff full time are in the program or have been in the program at one time or another.”

For First Baptist Church in Auburn, Mass., the partnership with Bethel has enabled the church body to expand its ministry beyond the church’s neighboring communities. “We’re able to minister not just to Auburn, Worcester, and some of the surrounding towns,” Geeze comments, “but now suddenly we have a much wider impact.”

And for Flushing’s First Baptist Church, the partnership is an enduring one, forged more than 20 years ago before Seminary of the East was affiliated with Bethel. Henry Kwan, senior pastor of the church in Queens, testifies, “Our support to the seminary has been consistently active and positive.”

Invested in hearts

A hallmark of Bethel Seminary of the East is its commitment to train the whole person, tending to both the student’s intellectual and pastoral sides. This is what makes it unique.

Hudson is encouraged to see the seminary share the same focus he sees at his church: “I think there are two tracks to training,” he offers. “There is the concrete, theological, doctrinal understanding of truth, but there is also very much a relational piece. I think it’s very biblical. So when that’s your ethos as a church, then it’s wonderful to partner with a seminary that shares the same ambition, the same heart to do both at once.”

Students benefit from this approach in that they are equipped to handle the opposition to truth so prevalent in the postmodern world, as well as to invest in the lives of others – to come alongside the hurting with the heart of Christ.

Key to the success of this whole-person approach is an emphasis on mentoring: the process of discipling, nurturing, teaching, training, equipping, and coming alongside a student in order to foster the abilities and relational skills requisite to effective leadership and ministry. This focus on mentoring is a primary reason why the pastors at each teaching center value so highly their church’s involvement with the seminary.

Chelten Baptist’s two youth pastors are also Bethel seminarians. Hudson, who serves as mentor to both, takes the time to walk with them through real-life ministry issues. “What does it look like when you have a student caught in sexual sin? What do you do when you’re struggling in your marriage? What do you do when your time management for the week is kind of out the window?” he cites as examples.

“Mentoring is one of the strong points of the Bethel program,” Jenkins states. The Washington, D.C., pastor sees this component as “giving feet” to what students learn in classes and in books, making knowledge practical by “in some cases providing the mentee an opportunity to actually observe or participate with the mentor in some aspect of ministry.”

Indeed, an intentional mentoring effort proved crucial to the vitality Faith Baptist Church in Auburn enjoys today. Years ago an influx of new believers recharged the church’s dwindling attendance, but it was like starting from scratch. “Our need to start our own mentoring program,” Geeze says, “was basically a matter of ‘if we don’t do this, we die.’”

Focused on the future

Bethel’s strong emphasis on mentoring reflects the seminary’s passion to prepare church leaders for the array of increasingly daunting challenges they face today.

For example, the New York Teaching Center is located in what may be one of the most religiously diverse neighborhoods in the world. The church is multi-cultural, multi-lingual, and multi-ethnic. Kwan recognizes the rapid process of cultural change in America and the occasional clashes with the Western world’s traditional Christian heritage as two major challenges that make life interesting for 21st century Christian leaders.

Cultural diversity aside, Jenkins sees a monumental challenge in being able to communicate with and influence the hearts of what he calls “The MTV Generation” in greater Washington, D.C. “If we think that we’re going to be able to capture the hearts of this new generation by old techniques, we’re going to lose out,” he predicts. “But Bethel Seminary of the East forces and challenges its students to look outside of the parameters of their own culture and their own practices to see what the best practices are,” Jenkins continues. “So many schools are just missing the mark by focusing on ‘here’s how we have always done it.’ Bethel is powerful in that regard.”

Geeze identifies yet another ministry challenge in the extreme brokenness he observes coming into the church. “The kind of pain I see in individuals is much more severe than it was two or three decades ago,” he says. With so many people hurting so deeply, leaders must be equipped with a full range of skills to address difficult issues. As the New England Teaching Center, Geeze’s church is located in the cloverleaf of the Mass Turnpike, drawing students from Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island to become so equipped.

Committed to excellence

A common theme among the four teaching centers and the pastors of their host churches is a commitment to excellence—excellence that extends to more than just top-notch academic rigor and performance. “Bethel Seminary of the East would define excellence as ‘we want to know our students’ hearts, and we want to know that the truth we’re teaching doesn’t just infiltrate their minds but permeates their hearts,’” Hudson declares. “And that kind of excellence you can’t just put on a flowchart and say ‘look at what we did.’ It’s a lifelong transformation process that has eternal results.”

“Our church is a church that focuses on excellence,” Jenkins adds. “That’s one of our core values. If we’re going to do anything, we have to do it with excellence.” And Jenkins sees those same values reflected at Bethel. “I sit on the Board of Trustees,” he says, “and the thing that I embrace and love about Bethel is that it is an organization of excellence, and that is highlighted throughout the entire culture of the school.”

Bonded in vision

Bethel Seminary of the East and its four host churches share the same vision for modeling how effective ministry is done, building whole and holy 21st century leaders, and pursuing excellence that points right back to the King of the universe. The result? Well-equipped kingdom builders who can take the gospel to a world that desperately needs the healing balm and saving grace of Jesus Christ.

Host Pastors of Bethel's Northeast Corridor Teaching Centers

Doug Geeze Doug Geeze came to Faith Baptist Church in Auburn, Mass., nearly 20 years ago when the church was home to just 30 people. Since then the church has grown to more than 400 weekly attendees representing 30 communities, diverse ethnic groups, and multiple generations. Geeze was educated at Houghton College in Houghton, N.Y., and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Mass. He and his wife Joanne have three children.

John Jenkins Sr. John Jenkins Sr. has served as senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Glenarden, Landover, Md., since 1989. Then a congregation of about 500, the church has since grown to more than 10,000 active members. Jenkins also ministers to the local community as chairman of Project Bridges, a coalition of churches devoted to family life, and is a Bethel University trustee. He and his wife Trina share an extensive preaching and teaching ministry both nationally and worldwide. Married 25 years, they have six children and one grandchild.

Henry Kwan Henry Kwan holds degrees from the University of Houston, Hofstra University, Dallas Theological Seminary, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He leads the team of pastors and ministers at First Baptist Church of Flushing, N.Y., serving a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural congregation where the gospel is preached in English, Spanish, and Chinese. Kwan and his wife of 25 years, Rosita, have three grown children.

Andy Hudson Andy Hudson received both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biblical studies from Philadelphia Biblical University. Today he serves as lead pastor of 100-year-old Chelten Baptist Church in Dresher, Pa. Before coming to Chelten, Hudson served at a church in Delaware and taught high school students in Kenya. He and his wife Erin have three children and are expecting their fourth in February.