This Spring, Westminster Magazine had the opportunity to sit down with several members of the seminary’s Global Ministries team to get a glimpse inside Westminster’s mission to the church abroad, including its Black Shield initiative. Due to the sensitive nature of the team’s work, some names and information have been redacted. The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and concision.
Westminster Magazine (WM): Can you tell us a little about global ministries? What is the purpose and mission of the global team at Westminster?
David B. Garner (DBG): If you go back to the history of Westminster from Old Princeton at its core, Princeton saw itself as preparing ordained men for gospel ministry, as well as being a nursery for missionaries with a view towards carrying out the great commission of being those in the church, well-trained theologically and biblically, not just for the edification of the church in North America, but for the advance of the gospel to the nations. And so that’s actually in the DNA of Old Princeton that comes with it to Westminster when we were founded almost a hundred years ago. . .[so] our little parcel here in northwest Philadelphia has had an impact, frankly, that is well beyond what it might look like just from that postage stamp little piece of property here in the suburbs of Philadelphia. And it’s remarkable. And now in the 21st century with the way technology has grown, communications have expanded, and really the best part of globalization has occurred, Westminster has an opportunity to reach the world in ways that it had never had.
Stafford Carson (SC): Global Ministries is really the outworking of the seminary mission statement to train specialists or experts in the Bible. To proclaim the whole counsel of God for Christ and his global church. So we’re taking that mission seriously and understanding that the whole movement and thrust of Christianity across the world today is one of expansion. And we’re seeking to follow that expansion of the church from the north and west into the south and east of the globe.
WM: And what is the hope behind that expansion?
SC: Our hope is simply that the understanding of Christianity within the whole field of Reformed Orthodoxy with a significant Christological focus, namely a focus on Christ and his glory, goes out unhindered, because we believe that is the hope of the world and the message the world needs to hear.
Hukmin Kwon (HK): There is a distinctive feature that Westminster has [theologically] to do global work, because the Reformed tradition is very distinctive from other theological perspectives. So I think its strength is that we can contribute heavily to the globe in these kinds of areas.
Aris Sanchez (AS): Our mission, in Spanish initiatives specifically, is to serve the Spanish-speaking church around the world, not only internationally but also communities within the US, by training leaders to proclaim and defend. So there’s a big component of apologetics embedded into what we’re doing—the whole counsel of God to shepherd the church in truth and love, and to bear faithful witness to Christ.
Black Shield (BS): I think what I would add is that one of the drivers of the global initiatives is that what we develop and implement in training leaders around the world is both fully Westminster, but also fully contextualized to the culture that we’re seeking to train those pastors to serve in. So what we offer isn’t anything less than what comes with being in a Westminster training program, but it is also a culturally sensitive leveraging of the best of whatever culture we’re going to. We’re also speaking to distinct areas of challenge or where the gospel needs to reach in order to bring redemption.
HK: In the Korean context, there has been a historical connection between Westminster and Korean churches since 1930s. . . and our target is not just the Korean peninsula, but also diaspora Koreans around the globe.
SC: Hukmin makes a very good point there. Global ministries and global mission is not a new thing for Westminster. Some of the first graduates were Korean and there was a big interest in China as well in terms of establishing theological education there.
WM: Who’s who in the global ministries family?
DBG: Well, one of my given titles by our president and affirmed by the board is Vice President of Global Ministries, which really means I’m kind of the vision caster, as it were, as well as the encourager and motivator for those who are doing the critical work on the ground. . . We have some amazing people that God has put into our orbit. Listening to them and hearing what they’re doing and being just a fly on the wall, as it were. Watching the vision and the commitment and the real zeal for execution with excellence for the people around the world, to know God’s word and to know it well, and to know it in a way that they trust in it and rely upon it and are equipped by it through the ministry of the word, and by his spirit. It’s just stunning, seeing what God is doing in and through these people.
SC: I’m the Senior Director in Global Ministries, and my task is simply to oversee and encourage the four initiatives that we have within the global space: Korean, Spanish, and Project A and Project M, which is Black Shield, Westminster’s global initiative of ministry to the persecuted church.
HK: I’m a Senior Director of Global Ministries Korean Initiatives. I’m overseeing all of the Korean initiatives, including the senior team’s relationship with the Korean partners and managing the Korean DMin program and Korean MATS program. Recently we launched a publication wing in South Korea, and we are doing events as well.
AS: I’m Director of Spanish Initiatives here, starting the new program for the Latin community. We’re hoping to launch a certificate program in the fall, then later the MATS.
WM: Can you share a little bit of your story? What drew you to the area of missions or global ministry and what continues to inspire you to do that work?
DBG: A few things that I’ll mention. So my parents came to faith in Christ when I was six years old, and I remember the changes in my home. I remember the changes in the rhythm of our lives as it related to church and its priority. After that our home was regularly filled with missionaries and those involved in international ministry. Those are vivid memories for me. . . So when I was pursuing theological education myself and sensing a call to ministry, it always has had a global component to it.
When my family was brought back to the United States [after serving as missionaries in Bulgaria], I actually came back kicking and screaming. I didn’t want to come back. And the Lord had other purposes, and it was clear we needed to come back. But what happened in all of that is that, as I was called to Westminster, the narrative of my youth and of my own experience on the mission field converged in this moment in the life and history of Westminster, which was possible because of globalization and the recent advent of online education.
Global Ministries is really the outworking of the seminary mission statement to train specialists or experts in the Bible.
SC: I’ve been intrigued and interested in the growth and development of Christianity globally for a number of years. And the opportunity to work within the Global Ministries Department of Westminster is really the fulfillment of a long-held aspiration of mine to contribute to the advancement of the kingdom across the world.
HK: I was born in South Korea and I came to study in the MDiv program here in 2005. And when I thought about global missions and a Reformed perspective for the Korean church worldwide, that inspired me. I had a passion for Christ and for the global church. The Korean church sent out a lot of missionaries around the globe. When an anonymous donor mentioned to me that Westminster could work together with the Korean church in global ministry. . . that motivated me.
AS: I am not bilingual by coincidence or by mistake. I think my entire life, from working in the corporate world to becoming a pastor, has set me up for understanding the great need in our community for sound biblical theological education. Because of that, in March 2011 I received my calling for the pastorate as well as the calling to start a Bible institute for the Spanish speaking world. And with the help of Dr. Garner and a lot and other people from different networks, we launched a theological seminary back in the Dominican Republic in 2018. Since 2016, upon graduating here with my MDiv, I have been embedded in this kind of theological mission for Latin America.
In terms of verses, we are definitely inspired by 2 Timothy 2:2, which says, “and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.” There’s an aspect of teaching for generations to come.
WM: How does the mission of Global Ministries translate to action in your respective fields in the Korean initiative, in the Spanish, and in Black Shield’s work? How do you balance the need to contextualize to so many different cultures?
DBG: Maybe I’ll illustrate it this way—some of the best children’s sermons (and I’ve heard a couple!) that I’ve ever heard have come from Dr. Vern Poythress. And I use that analogously or illustratively just to express the fact that one of the callings for us as faculty is to be able to deliver the complex and beautiful truths of scripture in a way that is simple and understandable. What that means then is yes, depending on the group with whom we’re engaged, we are going to need to strike at different levels. And we need to be discerning about where this group of students that we have, what is their understanding, what is their baseline, but then be able to communicate these rich truths in a way that is understandable. And we’ve already borne witness to that in this, an initiative in which these leaders of the fledgling church in a country in the Middle East, where they have had zero opportunity and zero training, and yet they know that the Bible is God’s word and they want to understand it.
SC: There’s a fundamental core to what we are doing, which is found in our commitment to a Westminster education and Reformed theology. So it’s a question of working that out in a number of different locations and at different stages of development. The oldest and most long term work has been in Korea, and the Spanish effort is comparatively recent. We’re just getting going on that. But in terms of our Black Shield work that has been going on for a number of years now, where we’ve sought to serve the particular church, but in each location, fundamentally trying to do the same thing, which is what Aris has just talked about in 2 Timothy 2:2—trying to pass on the faith so that others may in turn pass it on to the next generation.
“And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.”
WM: Westminster also has an online learning department that serves students around the world. What’s the relationship between Global Ministries and online learning?
SC: Well, I think in terms of the execution of its mission Westminster has really three key components. The residential program, the English online program, and then the Global Ministries program. And you could say that they’re all part of the same operation, sharing the same common commitments except they just have different iterations or different forms of delivery. What makes Global Ministries different is that we’re using a range of different language media in order to communicate the message and understanding the different cultures that we’re trying to reach. But fundamentally there is no difference. If you take, for example, the MATS program in English, that has provided the content for the Korean KMATS program. And now as we’re expanding into Spanish and into Black Shield we’re using that same basic structure. So there is a lot of shared and common material that we’re using across the various initiatives.
AS: So what we want to establish not only within global, but also within Online Learning (OL), is in the spirit of cooperation, collaboration, and mutual edification. Those three terms summarize what we want to establish, I think. And a shout out to Justin Rainey, Nicolette Choi, and John Kim in OL, who have been extremely helpful and very kind in providing materials. Zack Kim, who is helping us with video editing, is doing some stuff as well for us. So there’s been this cooperation. We’re using some of their materials and templates and different things. Where it is different, at least for the Spanish initiatives, is that they are doing this completely online, whereas our program is going to be introduced initially as a hybrid.
HK: But Korean Initiative offers a hundred percent online KMATS. There is no hybrid kind of format. So we pull all the content from the English MATS, but we upgrade the visuals and subtitles and other parts of the design.
SC: So there’s a core curriculum. . . But we we’re not fundamentally a degree factory. . . We’re seeking to train specialists in the Bible to proclaim Christ. . .
In as much as we are helping to train those leaders in a fledgling church in the Middle East, I am eager for their voice to return to us in terms of calling us to fidelity, calling us to courage.
WM: Can you talk about the ministry and educational needs of the persecuted church as opposed to the West?
DBG: There is a global ministry’s thrust in our residential program in that we are recruiting students literally from around the world, from Africa, from Europe, from Asia, from South and Central America. That is ongoing. And we want that to remain an ongoing component of our mission and the stewardship of it. That residential program and programs are a sine qua non of Westminster’s faithfulness in its stewardship. There will not be a day in which that residential component is not critical to what we do. And so even in our global initiatives there will be some of those students that will be in our online programs and in our global ministries programs that end up coming to Glenside. That’s just part of the inner workings of our strategy and the execution of that strategy.
BS: So [for context] in one of our areas, we have 130 students who represent 80 churches with an estimated impact of more than 10,000 congregation members.
DBG: It also depends on the state of the church when the persecution comes. So in a place like the Middle East, where it has been dominated by Islam and the church is fledgling, it is different than the persecution in a place in which Christianity has had a significant role in the society and now is increasingly marginalized.
And, frankly, we need each other. So one of my great desires in all of this is that in as much as we are helping to train those leaders in a fledgling church in the Middle East, I am eager for their voice to speak back into us in terms of calling us to fidelity, calling us to courage. And I’ve seen this already take place within Project M. We will be seeing the same thing within Project A. And so what this really begs for is fellowship, for communication, and for gathering around the word and stimulating one another to love and good deeds, as Hebrews puts it.
SC: That one particular area that you’re talking about is particularly complex because we’ve moved into an area where there has been very little progress made in terms of theological education. So it’s particularly difficult and particularly challenging, which means that we have to start very slow and we need to build it. But it’s at an early stage. We hope that we can eventually become more mature and more developed within that region. Our commitment is to the persecuted church and there are millions of Christians today across the world who are living in very constrained, very difficult, very hostile circumstances with regard to the faith. And Westminster has not backed off from that. But we believe that we have a very distinctive ministry to support and help the church in that region.
BS: Westminster is about relationships with the church where we are seeking to serve. And that might look different whether we’re on the ground or not, but our commitment is to longstanding relationships and not trying to do anything but fulfill that mission of making disciples.
SC: We’re committed to supporting Christians and the church who are embedded in their local area.
BS: Black Shield’s ministry is to train leaders who are serving in the persecuted church. And there is, from the institution’s side, a desire to not shrink back from difficult circumstances, but we also believe it is a mandate to go even to the hard places because Christ doesn’t pull back from the hard places. He goes and meets people where they are. And so it is a humble calling. We don’t presume upon ourselves that we have something to offer, but we only have something to offer to these believers because of what we have been given. To circle back to that 2 Timothy 2:2 passage.
We don’t presume upon ourselves that we have something to offer, but we only have something to offer to these believers because of what we have been given.
SC: What we’ve discovered is that amongst Christians who are living in very oppressed and hostile environments, there’s a huge hunger and a craving for authentic real robust theology. They don’t want anything that is lighthearted or anything that’s superficial. They’re asking hard and difficult questions. And it’s the Reformed theology of places like Westminster seminary that can begin to answer those difficult and hard questions in terms of our understanding of the scriptures, in terms of apologetics, and in terms of how we understand why the Christian faith holds together in a coherent way.
WM: What people or books or ideas have influenced and continue to influence your work in global ministries?
SC: Well, Westminster has this long tradition of punching above its weight in terms of global influence. You know, my own personal story is of somebody coming from Ireland to here in the 1970s, because we believed that Westminster offered the best theological education that was available on this planet.
If you’re tracing the Westminster trajectory then in our generation, we’re looking back to people like Harvie Conn, Manny Ortiz, and now Tim Keller, who have all been part of the Westminster family. Harvie had, you know, a great sense of the global nature of Christianity. He and Manny were particularly concerned about the growth of the church and the advance of the gospel in the city, particularly. And Keller has picked up on that and taken that to another level. So urban mission was always a feature in terms of our history and as part of our program here at Westminster.
BS: And of course we need to mention Dave Garner. You know, he’s really championed global mission in the present day. . . So there is this long organic thread through the whole.
WM: What sets Westminster’s approach to global missions apart?
SC: Westminster has always addressed the difficult contemporary issues that have arisen around Christianity. So that going back to, say, Christianity & Liberalism with Machen, and following on all the big controversies about the doctrine of Scripture, about the Doctrine of God, all of these big issues and even the apologetic issues have been addressed here at Westminster, which means that it has been a magnet in many ways in terms of attracting students who have wanted to reflect on those issues. And that has been part of the missional impact of Westminster over the years, that we, in the words of Robert Dick Wilson, haven’t shirked the difficult questions. People have been attracted to that and have come here and have gone back to their homelands and sought to spread the same theology. Westminster hasn’t always had 20/20 vision. We’ve had a blind spots in the past. That’s certainly true. But I think there’s always been an eye to what’s going on out there in the real world. And we have sought to relate the Reformed faith to that real difficult and challenging situation. And that makes a Westminster education so attractive to so many people.
BS: We have something to say to culture, but also evangelistically for us, we have, namely we have hope to offer to the world.
WM: What projects, events, or goals are you looking forward to most in the coming year and beyond?
DBG: In the one-year timeframe, I am looking for us to have a fully developed Project M ThM. I would also like to be pivoting from a certificate in Spanish to an MATS in Spanish. At least to be in the full swing of the development of that. In addition, to speak to maybe a little longer term vision, by year 100 in Westminster’s life, which we are nearing, I would like for our library to be a global library in which we actually are supporting all of the degrees and certificates that we’re offering in multiple languages, so that every single resource that we are using in those courses is available all around the world through our library and our digital library right here in Glenside.
WM: To wrap up, can you share with readers how we can pray for you as a team and the brothers and sisters abroad Westminster is ministering to?
DBG: Well, internally, I would ask prayer for efficiency and good decision making, teamwork, all those sorts of things. Pray also for good use of the funds that God’s people have given us, for wise and good stewardship. But I would also say that we are and will daily be faced with needs that we cannot meet. And so pray that we’ll be laser-focused on what it is that we are to be about and not be pulled from one opportunity to another, because the opportunities are endless.
How do we pray for the global church? Again, it really is context specific, but all of us need prayer just to know and love the Lord God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, wherever we are and whatever we’re doing.
There is a present-day reformation. We are joining what the Lord is already doing in those places, whereas here in the U.S. churches are going into decline.
HK: We can attract a lot of students from all around the globe, but the tuition level is higher than their local economy will support. So we provide scholarships to cover the difference. It is difficult to meet our financial expenses and their need. So we always pray for scholarship donations.
SC: Pray for us because precisely because we’re trained to take this high-quality theological education into areas which are not as rich or as well off as North America. We just need all kinds of financial support in order to do that. Many of the people that we’re trying to help through Black Shield are people with very limited financial and material resources. And so it costs us a considerable amount as we try to make that theological education accessible to them.
HK: And we are not just offering degrees. We also like to provide theological literature. So a lot of translation work needs to be done. We need a lot of manpower. So [pray for] bilingual translators or interpreters.
AS: There are 500 million native Spanish speakers in the world. . . [but] we haven’t had the opportunity to have seminaries. We have a fertile ground of people that are very communal. They are very passionate. . . There is a present-day reformation. We are already joining what the Lord is already doing in those places, whereas here in the U.S. churches are going in decline. We don’t have enough pastors to found more churches. People are extremely hungry. They want sound theology.
So this is the moment, this is the time. Can you help us so that we will be able to serve?
We don’t want perfect pharisees. We want transformed people that might serve humbly, every one of us, that we might represent him and glorify him even in the act of translation, in translating articles. So pray that we will be able to have qualified people that will join our mission, not for the sake of gaining a salary, but for the sake of a calling.
BS: If you ask somebody in the persecuted church how you can pray for them, will they ask for, say, deliverance from persecution? Sure. But they’d say more than that. They would ask too that people would pray that they would stay faithful, that they’d stay faithful to God’s word, faithful to Christ, and faithful to his church no matter what their circumstances might be. I know that’s what they would ask prayer for.
Please prayerfully consider supporting the global church through Westminster’s Global Ministries. If you are interested in learning more, please contact our stewardship department at stewardship@wts.edu.