Strengths
- Trains people for ministry while they are actually in ministry.
- Better context for testing gifts and character.
- Trains students in skills for ministry.
- Makes theological education more accessible.
- Take the local church seriously.
- Encourages multiplication.
- Cost efficient.
- Engages the gifts of those in the local situation.
- Very difficult for local leaders to provide a thorough education, both in time and expertise.
- Can produce narrow training, shaped by the strengths and weaknesses of the local pastor.
- Doesn't expose students to the wider church.
- Loss of rigour.
- Encourages independency.
