The State of Higher Theological Education among the Assemblies of God Malaysia: Bible College of Malaysia’s Strategic Plan in Forging Ahead

Abstract

The Bible College of Malaysia (BCM) has existed for 63 years since its establishment as a Pentecostal Bible school. AG USA missionaries founded BCM to train local pastors, church planters, and evangelists, but the school’s mission has expanded in recent decades to train lay leaders and Christian professionals of various vocations. Programs and courses have also expanded to meet the needs of churches and society. In light of these changes, having the Scholar Leaders Vital Sustainability Initiative consultants help BCM build its strategic plan for the next five years has been valuable as the college forges ahead into the future.

Introduction

The Bible College of Malaysia (BCM) is the national Bible school of the Assemblies of God Malaysia (AGM). Assemblies of God USA (AG USA) missionaries first came to Malaya, as the Peninsula that is now part of Malaysia was then known, in the early 1930s. They led the Pentecostal movement in the early decades, during which they recognized the need to train local workers. Revd Delmer and Eleanor Guynes, missionaries to Malaya from 1952 to 1964 and the first General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God of Malaya and Singapore, founded the Bible Institute of Malaya (BIM), now the Bible College of Malaysia, at 99, Jalan Gasing, Petaling Jaya, on 3 January 1960. Revd Howard C. Osgood became the first principal and served with his wife, Edith, alongside other AG missionaries. (The change of name to the Bible College of Malaysia took place in 1982 with the introduction of the Bachelor of Theology programme.)

BIM started with a three-year diploma program and an enrolment of 12 youths from Malaya and Singapore. The first graduating class in 1962 had seven graduates. At that time, there were six faculty members and around 19 students. Many youths enrolled over the years. Many of the AG missionaries were church planters and educators in the Bible schools. In fact, the founding of BCM was a significant contributing factor to the expansion of the Pentecostal movement in Malaysia. BCM is the AGM’s own Pentecostal Bible college; today, it still trains locally credentialed ministers of a pioneering spirit who are engaged in local missions, church planting, and church ministry.

To date, BCM offers a wide range of programs from certificate to master level and has three language departments, namely English, Chinese, and Bahasa Malaysia. BCM also offers a doctoral program under the Asia Graduate School of Theology (AGST) Alliance. BCM has produced over 1,250 graduates in its six decades. Presently, the BCM president is Revd Dr. Victor Lee Tat Yan; there are 10 faculty members. In this twenty-first century, BCM has enrolled more laity, so BCM has been designing and offering new programs and courses to equip lay leaders, particularly counselling and leadership, which are needed in churches and the marketplace. BCM now has over 700 students; most of them are part-time.

After six decades, and especially because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many things have changed. BCM needs to examine its mission, vision, situation, financial sustainability, and plans. This essay discusses the significance of the Scholar Leaders Vital Sustainability Initiative meetings as they assisted BCM with its strategic planning. The VSI exercise offered the BCM community an opportunity to reflect and strategize. The process was crucial for BCM as we revise our curricula and other aspects of the institution to equip students for the true problems in Malaysian culture today, to address intergenerational gaps in church leadership, and to facilitate the integration of faith in society. As we consider these matters, the consultation challenged us in positive ways that do not produce institutional strife – especially through prayers for denominational change.

Forging Ahead with the Vital Sustainability Initiative

Given BCM’s recognition of its long history and of new contextual challenges, including the consequences of the COVID pandemic, BCM saw the engagement of the Scholar Leaders Vital Sustainability Initiative (VSI) as quite timely. BCM had the privilege of engaging VSI consultants led by Dr. Emmanuel Bellon. Other VSI consultants included Dr. Linzay Rinquest, Dr. Joshua Lorin, and Dr. David Tarus. They met with BCM leaders on September 21-23, 2022. The VSI consultants provided a list of eight focus areas that are vital for the sustainability of theological institutions:

1. Mission (students, vocation, programs, prophetic voices)
2. Faculty Development
3. Pedagogy, Distance, and Technology-Enabled Learning
4. Library
5. Advancement & Partnerships (alumni, donors)
6. Physical Facilities
7. Finance
8. Leadership

During their days at BCM, the VSI consultants met with the president, leaders, faculty, staff, board, and selected alumni and church leaders to study, evaluate, and reflect on the state of the college. After this time of research, BCM identified eight strategic initiatives that represent new ideas:

1. Renovating campus facilities to create a third financial revenue stream.
2. Involving alumni in the ministry and character formation of part-time students.
3. Building broad networks of donors to enhance BCM’s financial sustainability.
4. Aspiring to be a game changer by offering relevant courses that cater to the needs of local churches of the current generations.
5. Encouraging lecturers to engage in public issues through their writings.
6. Forming Christian professionals and entrepreneurs to live out Christian values effectively in the marketplace.
7. Developing a robust online platform that includes a library system and Learning Management System (LMS) to meet the needs of online education.
8. Establishing a counselling support system to help local churches.

The second VSI consultation was on March 8-10, 2023. Dr. Linzay Rinquest, Dr. Joshua Lorin, and Dr. Bennet Arren Lawrence, representing the Asia Theological Association, attended in person. Dr. Emmanuel Bellon joined key sessions via Zoom. Intensive meetings were held with the BCM president, leaders, alumni, faculty, staff, and board members to streamline the most crucial strategic initiatives, which included:

1. Mission clarification and prophetic voice
2. Faculty development and prophetic voice
3. Online learning, LMS, and library
4. Financial sustainability and fundraising
5. Alumni
6. Finanical integration

Mission Clarification and Prophetic Voice

The first topic of discussion was mission clarification and prophetic voice, which guides all the strategic initiatives. BCM’s mission is to form pastors, counsellors, and Christian professionals to effectively lead the church to perform Christian education and to address local crises in the church and society. Foci for this mission include the intergenerational leadership gap, mental health issues, and inadequate integration of faith in the marketplace.

Forming a Young Generation of Pastors and Leaders for Church Ministry

One pressing need is to train the younger generation because of the crisis of spiritual leadership in the AGM denomination. Senior leaders are not making space for younger individuals in local churches, so younger people are leaving churches because they have no opportunities for growth. Our working group identified empowering younger leaders as a focus for BCM, which will seek to nurture churches to address this intergenerational leadership gap. This issue carries a sense of urgency, for, if BCM does not address it, the AGM denomination will lose the whole new generation in the next five years. In Malaysia, only one or two churches have escorted senior and younger leaders through good intergenerational transitions. BCM can develop a framework to convene stakeholders (pastors, alumni, etc.) to address this intergenerational gap in the church.

Forming Counsellors

Forming counsellors is vital to assist local congregations in providing mental health care. Lay people express needs having to do with depression, anxiety, stress, burnout, gender identity, and sexual assault. Local churches seem to be unaware of these issues and have not taken preventative measures.

Thus, BCM needs a counselling department that can raise awareness and guide churches to start addressing these issues. To this end, BCM needs both to enhance our teaching on topics such as depression and burnout to equip students to help others with these issues and to establish a campus-based support system to aid students themselves who may face these challenges. BCM has done a few seminars on counselling and can embark on awareness campaigns, short courses, and even a whole month of activities focused on mental wellness, depression, and burnout.

Furthermore, in the near future, BCM may even consider setting up informal counselling services on campus that could be called “Spiritual Mental Wellness,” a name that might help counteract stigmas having to do with mental health. Churches could send their members for sessions. On this topic, the VSI consultants stimulated more ideas through their advice that counselling can help individuals integrate their behavior at church and in the workplace. BCM could add theology of work to current courses. Ethics courses might be adapted to touch on life principles, worldview, and identity and sexuality.

Forming Christian Professionals

Following from the topic noted immediately above, society needs Christian professionals who can enact Christian values in their vocations. However, at this moment, “marketplace ministry” is a grey area in the AGM denomination. During our conversations, we redefined the initial term “business entrepreneurs” as “Christian professionals” to include all vocations, to help guide our plans in this area.

Formulating Strategic Initiatives and Objectives

BCM is a denominational school but feels restrained in addressing the seemingly perpetual problems discussed above. The VSI consultants advised BCM to seek to bring change in the denomination and society even with only a handful of influencers. Sociology studies reveal that two percent of influencers are needed to effect change. Therefore, BCM should not underestimate its ability to work for good. As the VSI team encouraged us to see, BCM has a strategic role to play in the expansion of the Church in Malaysia because BCM can train young entrepreneurs and professionals who can then sustain themselves in ministry. In addition, BCM can help churches understand the breadth of opportunities open to them in their communities. Finally, BCM can disseminate its knowledge at the academic level through books, journals, and theological consultations.

As we learned from the VSI consultants, in order to capitalize on its strengths, BCM needs a theme that becomes emphasized in different areas across the institution. VSI helped BCM to think about how to choose and incorporate such a theme. For example, BCM can incorporate its desire for radical new engagements between the Church and society by revising and updating its current opportunities in chapel, coaching, and courses. BCM can revise curricula and meta-curricula to equip students to address intergenerational gaps and the integration of faith in society. BCM can enhance existing programs and seminars to focus on depression and burnout, and it can establish a campus-based system to support those struggling.

BCM also needs to strengthen the faculty as pastor-scholars to implement the mission of the college. One way to do this could be to enable the faculty to do research, write, and publish on topics that address the current issues in society. Other new opportunities can be explored through the development of a framework to bring together key stakeholders to address the abovementioned issues – for example, through research and teaching assignments, open forums, or dialogues for solutions with students and graduates. BCM could also guide young ministers to plant churches.

As BCM considers these themes, faculty will need to be repurposed internally and externally. Faculty will need to consider how they might contribute off-campus to help churches teach on these issues. An important realization from the VSI process is that the faculty are the key players in achieving BCM’s core mission. This fact naturally brought us to deliberate on the faculty as the second strategic initiative.

Faculty Development & Prophetic Voice

Faculty are BCM’s primary resource. As pastor-scholars, they implement the mission of the college. However, younger faculty are not easy to get. BCM desperately needs to recruit and maintain new faculty because BCM has ten faculty members, one of whom is of retirement age, and two of whom are near retirement. So one-third of the faculty will leave soon. BCM needs to recruit four more lecturers to make a team of twelve in the near future. Part of BCM’s challenge here is that younger graduates prefer to be pastors because pastors earn more than lecturers. (Indeed, BCM lacks funding for salaries and has no funds for research grants.) In addition, most senior pastors do not put any importance on academics when they mentor younger leaders. Within this context, BCM’s community has been frustrated by young faculty-in-training who have entered and then left abruptly.

The VSI consultants advised that identifying the right people to be future faculty is key and that BCM needs to establish a recruitment team. More broadly, BCM needs to develop an internal culture of theological reflection. To that end, the college should take several steps. First, it should revise the policy on working conditions to include an expectation for faculty to write an article per year. Second, it should explore how to facilitate faculty placing articles with journals for publication, writing monographs, and writing popular books. Third, it should consider how Faculty Enrichment Initiatives (FEI), coaching, and online training might be useful for faculty. Fourth, BCM has already launched the inaugural Pentecostal Conference in 2023, organized and hosted by the new Malaysia Pentecostal Research Center. From next year, the college will start a colloquium during which faculty will present their research. Finally, BCM will enhance its sabbatical policy so that faculty can have extended time to research and write.

Simultaneously, BCM needs to revise faculty salaries and to pursue new donors to support this research culture. The college will increase the funding of the Faculty Development Plan to RM400,000 for training new faculty members for PhD studies. It will take five to seven years to establish this new faculty culture.

Online Learning and Library

Since the COVID pandemic began in March 2020, BCM has offered online learning. So the third strategic initiative is BCM’s NeoLMS and the library system. BCM now has three learning modes. In-person learning includes around 4% of the student body (estimated 30 students). Online learning includes around 96% (estimated 700 students). We also have a hybrid mode. Right now, in-person and hybrid courses are live and synchronous. Online courses are asynchronous. As we reflected on our experiences during the pandemic, we saw challenges and opportunities in online learning and in BCM’s use of technology.

One of the greatest challenges is that old classroom teaching methods are not effective in hybrid modes. BCM has adopted a new classroom management technique, the NeoLMS, which is free. Older faculty need to learn this system; some are already using it. Another major challenge is that BCM has insufficient materials online for distance students.

Furthermore, although the Asia Theological Association has changed its guidelines to allow more online learning, BCM still faces the following challenges with online courses. First, BCM’s existing ethos is to provide holistic learning that does not happen fully online; at least three courses must be in person. Yet not all programs are suited to online education. The BTh, MDiv, and Counselling programs do not function as well online. In addition, changes in assessment methods have pushed some faculty to drop exams from their courses, so we are challenged to find ways to confirm that students have learned material. Third, BCM’s faculty struggle to give pastoral care to students because of the lack of contact.Yet we recognized that, in the future, students will prefer fully online modes. So, in the post-pandemic era, BCM’s mission needs to focus on online learning and emphasize spiritual formation, library research, and LMS tools. While some theological institutions expect local churches to provide spiritual formation for distance students, for BCM, spiritual formation is so important that we seek to oversee it ourselves through Field Education and weekend ministry programs

(Field Education is a practical ministry course.) As for library resources, BCM currently subscribes to the Global Digital Theological Library (GDTL) and ATLASerials for online resources for students. Although the library compiles a list of online resources and sends it to all members every trimester, we are concerned that students do not always check their emails. We see evidence of low engagement with resources and some incidents of plagiarism. The final factor, the ideal LMS, should cover data exposure, library access, administrative details, grading, and reporting. But exporting data from the cloud to a server requires an expensive subscription.

Considerations for online learning and library systems include the following elements:

The major shift in learning modes from in-person to online
Changes in curricula
The need to build holistic learning for the 700+ online students
Improve the effectiveness of online learning
Delivering essential content
Enhancing teaching methodologies to promote student-centered
learning
Fostering and facilitating discussions
Involving alumni in spiritual formation in Field Education, coaching, and mentoring small groups

Partly, the VSI team advised BCM to formulate ways to adapt traditional outlines for online learning. But again, faculty are key players in thinking about and using online learning methods. In light of BCM’s need to enhance its faculty and its technology, the next focus area is financial sustainability and fundraising.

Financial Sustainability and Fundraising

Financial sustainability is a crucial foundation for advancing BCM’s goals. Although the optimal level of income varies depending on what students are paying and how much BCM is subsidizing them, we need to consider in what areas the college is spending the most. Healthy expenditures should be divided among salaries, maintenance, operational costs, library, etc. When the college is under pressure and needs to pay salaries, the area that suffers first is often maintenance, followed by the library. At its lowest points, the institution would cut salaries because it would still be forced to pay utilities, internet, etc.

BCM’s current financial sources and expenses are as follows:

Financial sources (sources of income):
Tuition (student income) – (28%) – the ideal is 40% – 45%
Donations – some donors are still sympathetic to the college’s cause (55%)
Third-Stream – (17%) – not high enough yet
BCM is subsidizing its students’ fees quite substantially, at about 70%.

Expenses:
Salaries (80%) – optimal is 60%
Utilities (10%)
Security (4%)
Maintenance – BCM’s facilities have significant deferred maintenance
Library/Learning resources

Good stewardship means seeking a balance between income streams and expenses. However, BCM has been subsidizing 70% of students’ fees by charging very low tuition. As noted above, BCM’s income from tuition fees is only about 28% of total income. Ideally, tuition ought to be 40-45% of income. But the fact is that in the Global South, many institutions keep student fees artificially low, which creates a culture of perceiving theological education as cheap. From VSI, we learned that some institutions try to deal with this common situation by attracting more students. But that is not the primary objective of theological education. Enrolling many students who have specialized interests and creating classes for them will mean that the college needs to hire more lecturers to teach those classes – but some may be too small to cover the lecturer’s salary. This situation will create cross-subsidization and have a negative impact. Therefore, BCM needs to evaluate whether any of its programs are creating financial loss and to consider streamlining its programs for optimal student tuition / faculty salary balance. In addition, we need to examine staff salaries to see whether we are over-staffed. The college is using 80% of its income for salaries, whereas the optimal level would be 60%. Because of this overly high percentage, facilities maintenance is often deferred, and library/learning resources have insufficient budget. Delayed or deferred maintenance becomes more expensive in the long run as assets deteriorate beyond repair, which could require the institution to build new ones.

At this time, BCM struggles to increase its sources of income to balance its finances. It is surviving by streamlining expenses to cover salaries, utilities, and security, but it has done so in ways that are not sustainable long-term. (Of course, other factors impact sources of income, including the economic downturn.) Right now, donations and third-stream income are insufficient sources of income. BCM’s ongoing fundraising efforts depend on the president, who spends 90% of his time on fundraising and is not required to teach. BCM is embarking on a new building project which will be completed in 18 months and may expand the third-stream income. Currently, the president focuses on fundraising for the new building.

However, fundraising faces challenges because churches prioritize fundraising for their own needs; BCM right now only relates to churches as entities, not to individual members. To address this, BCM could consider increasing the number of donors overall instead of relying on a few major donors who may experience fatigue long term. BCM certainly needs a broader donor network, but we note that the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed donors to become insular, wanting to address only their own local needs.

Another opportunity is third-stream income, especially from facilities rentals. However, effective third-stream income requires a business-minded person, not BCM’s president, to be in charge. BCM would need to evaluate its third-stream income source consistently to consider whether its profits are worth the expense of running it. As one example of third-stream income, BCM is considering renting its student accommodation as holiday housing. Third-stream income could bring balance to income and expenditure, but BCM needs to do significant work if this is to be the case.

Overall, the VSI consultants advised BCM to strategize to create a financial surplus that can serve as a buffer for the institution. Ultimately, the college’s finances could become a black hole if not balanced; if that occurs, good faculty and staff will suffer as they are not paid what they should be. So the VSI exercise helped BCM to see the overall state of its finances and how it could become a better steward. Now that we have clarity about our unique challenges and opportunities, we can strategize about how to reach longer-term financial health.

Alumni

The fifth strategic initiative that supports BCM’s goals is engaging alumni. Relationships with alumni are a missed opportunity at this time. BCM needs to engage alumni more effectively. The annual graduation lunch serves as one potential fundraising event.

Yet BCM faces a challenge in that the annual alumni homecoming event is not as popular. Alumni are also unwilling to serve on the Alumni Fellowship Committee. In the past, a group called Friends of BCM served the college, but the members were not primarily alumni. Rather, they were donors and used to run seminars for the public. This group is now defunct. Perhaps the most severe challenge is that the alumni database is around 60 years old especially for the graduates in BIM’s formative years (1960s and 1970s), and needs to be updated to track alumni’s current contact information and whereabouts.

Thinking ahead, the VSI consultants suggested that alumni could adopt individual students and support their fees. BCM could emphasize to alumni that students are only paying 30% of tuition fees, as they are subsidized 70%. This subsidy could be renamed a “scholarship,” with a set application and approval process; these scholarships could make the subsidy visible to students and to the public – especially to alumni, who could then donate to specific scholarships.

Furthermore, BCM plans to engage alumni in character formation of part-time students via small group sessions, mentoring, coaching, etc. BCM could even explore creating an “adopt a student” program between alumni and current students. In return, the college can encourage alumni by offering them life-long learning and upskilling opportunities at a discount. Alumni could have chapters in different countries, and alumni retreats could engage alumni by hosting faculty speakers from BCM. Such privileges can enrich the relationships between BCM and its alumni, because the key on this topic is relationship. BCM needs to mobilise alumni, not just for what it gets from them, but to give back to them as well.

BCM’s Strategic Plan, 2023-2027

The VSI consultations were fruitful in identifying the main strategic initiatives and in formulating BCM’s strategic plan for the next five years, from 2023 to 2027. BCM’s strategic plan prioritized five initiatives, guided by the mission and marked by measurable objectives:

Initiative 1: Form pastors, counsellors, and Christian professionals to address the problems of intergenerational leadership gaps, mental health issues, and inadequate integration of faith in society.

Objectives:

1. Revise curricula and meta-curricula to equip the students to address intergenerational gaps and the integration of faith in society.
2. Develop a framework to bring together key stakeholders to address intergenerational gaps in the church.
3. Enhance existing programs and seminars to focus on issues of depression and burnout and establish a campus-based system to support those struggling.

Initiative 2: Strengthen our faculty as pastor-scholars to implement the mission of the college.

Objectives:

1. Formulate a new approach to recruit, maintain, and upgrade faculty. (Form a task force; discuss processes and policies, funding, and sabbaticals.)
2. Train the faculty as effective educators, especially in online education through Faculty Enrichment Initiatives and other initiatives.
3. Enable the faculty to research, write, and publish to effectuate excellence in scholarship and relevance in society.

Initiative 3: Enhance the use of technology in an intentional formative process to effectively serve the church and society.

Objectives:

1. Optimize the use of the LMS to better serve teaching and learning.
2. Integrate library access, resources, and other tools alongside the LMS.
3. Identify and implement effective means of holistic formation.

Initiative 4: Optimize financial structures to mobilize resources for the mission of the college.

Objectives:

1. Build a broad network of donors for the financial sustainability of the college.
2. Develop and promote campus and facilities to expand third-stream income.
3. Reorganize the budget to strengthen online education.

Initiative 5: Revitalize alumni as essential partners in advancing the mission of the college.

Objectives:

1. Offer opportunities for life-long learning for effective contextual engagement.
2. Involve alumni in the formation process as part of broader ministry life and exposure.
3. Develop alumni as partners in the advancement of the college’s ministry.

These strategic initiatives were formulated in specific, concise language with measurable objectives. For each initiative, we have three objectives. Then each objective has roughly three activities to facilitate the achievement of that objective over the next five years.

Conclusion

Over the past six decades, BCM has produced over 1,250 graduates, of whom 83% are still serving in ministries as full-time workers and as lay leaders in various professions. The VSI consultation helped BCM strategize effectively amidst many challenges and opportunities. These timely conversations led to our new strategic five-year plan, which will be beneficial in terms of reprioritizing, redefining, and sharpening BCM’s core mission. We seek to focus on measurable objectives that will help us engage stakeholders and direct resources wisely so that we can pursue our goals. BCM is now ready to forge ahead with greater strength.

References

Bible College of Malaysia. “Strategic Plan 2023 – 2027.”
Wong, Eva S. K. “Contextual Pentecostalism from a Classical Pentecostal Movement to a Contemporary Pentecostal Church Movement: A Study of the Assemblies of God of Malaysia with Special Reference to Joel 2:28-32.” PhD Thesis, 2022, Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, Middlesex University, UK.
–. Meeting notes on “ScholarLeaders VSI 3.0 Second Visit: Strategy Planning,” March 8-10, 2023, Bible College of Malaysia.