by James Stewart, Director of Distance Education

Western Seminary wants you to succeed and reach your personal, educational, and ministry goals. The challenges of study by distance education are real and not to be minimized. Any thought that courses through WSCLL are somehow easier or less demanding will quickly vanish as you begin your studies.

But you will learn, too, as have millions of students across the United States, that distance education can be enormously effective and personally rewarding. You can study with the finest professors and ministry leaders while serving in the context to which God has called you.So how can you succeed? Here are seven lessons that our students have learned and shared with us as they have moved successfully through their WSCLL programs.

1. Keep Your Eye on the Goal
What is it that you want to achieve? Why are you investing your valuable time, money and effort to study with men and women you may not yet have met? Whatever your reason, whatever brought you to this point in your life, never lose sight of it. Remember that each step you take brings you closer to your goal. Yes, it will get tough and I can assure you that you will be tempted on occasion just to throw in the towel. But God is able, even when you feel you are not, and what He has called you to do you can accomplish.

2. Designate Your Time
When can a ten-letter word seem like a four-letter word? When that ten-letter word is “discipline.” And, in this instance, it is the worst type of discipline…self-discipline. Like it or not, it is simply not possible to complete a distance education course successfully – let alone a distance program – without disciplining your time.

In most instances you will not have a strict schedule to keep. No classes to hurry across town to attend. No one keeping track of whether or not you are there that day. You will be accountable largely to yourself, and unless you are consistently willing to hold yourself accountable, you may want to choose another educational track.

WSCLL will help you in every way possible to designate and manage your time. We will provide your with a recommended schedule to complete your course in a timely manner. Discipline yourself to maintain that schedule and you will be an enormous step closer to achieving your educational goals.

3. Take the Initiative
Adult learning is often used interchangeably with “self-directed” learning. In reality, they are not synonymous. Still, the distance student must be willing to take direction of his or her program, to take the lead and assume a significant measure of responsibility for their educational program.

WSCLL will stand along side you in the process. We are here to help in every way possible and we are dedicated to your success. Our commitment is to provide student services that are second to none. We are not here, however, to hold your hand. You will be expected to be self-motivated and self-directed, taking the initiative in communication, asking questions, seeking clarity, and wringing the most out of the educational experience.

4. Balance Your Priorities
Learning takes place within a context. Indeed, you, as a distance learner, have the unique opportunity to apply the lessons of your study in your home environment, among the people you know and care for. However nurturing and supportive the environment, you must not focus so intently upon your studies that you neglect family or ministry. Take care to keep God’s priorities as your priorities.

It may seem counter-intuitive that a seminary would encourage you not to focus on your studies. Indeed, we do want you to dedicate significant time to your courses and to your program, but not to the detriment of your family. That is a price too high to pay and God would not be honored.

5. Stay Connected
We recognize that it is more difficult to feel a part of a community when you are hundreds, even thousands of miles away. But this is a reality: You are a Western Seminary student equal in every way with our on-campus students. You are part of a caring, nurturing, faith community. This is a wonder opportunity for you to be a part of a legacy of literally thousands of leaders who have studied at Western and gone on to serve with distinction in every walk of life, in every role in ministry, in every corner of the globe.

WSCLL will make every effort to help you to feel a part of the Western community because you are a part of the Western community. Still, you will grow in this relationship only to the degree that you are willing to make the effort. So get connected to the Western family…and stay connected for a lifetime.

6. Build Your Network
Seminary is as much about relationships as it is about academics and classes. If you were to ask our graduates from the 1970’s and 80’s whether they still remember whether a certain Greek verb is in the aorist or imperfect tense, they might be challenged to answer. Some things fade with the passing years. More precious with time, however, the profound and enduring friendships that are born of a common calling and a shared experience.

Wherever you are in the world, WSCLL will encourage you to build relationships with others whose classroom may also be the living room and whose learning laboratory is the local church. We will provide the technologies and systems that bring people together and we will introduce you to a new generation of ministry leaders-in-training. Take the time, make the effort, and nurture a network of relationships that will be invaluable to you for many years to come.

7. Do the Work of the Ministry
Bottom line, Western Seminary is about the “equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry.” Your training will take you deeper into the Word of God than you have ever been before, and you will experience new insights into what it means to be a child of the Living God. But know this: Your training comes with strings attached. The enormous privilege you will have, and the profound responsibility you will bear as an alumnus of Western Seminary, will be to use what you have learned to advance God’s program in the world.

But don’t wait to know the joy of being used by God in new and dynamic ways. Begin now. As a distance education student you already have the context in which you can apply the lessons of your program, and the unique opportunity to be a rich resource to the people of your own community.

If we might share one last thought. What you will soon experience at Western was simply not possible a generation ago. Distance education typically meant correspondence study with long hours working alone through lifeless lesson plans. When one could persevere, the accomplishment of completing a program – which should always be a time of rejoicing – was frequently diminished by a sense that what had been achieved was second-rate, a poor alternative to a “real” education that unfortunate circumstances had made the only available option.

Those days are gone. Recent studies by the Sloan Consortium and others report that a majority of educators from America’s largest educational institutions consider today’s distance education to be equal to, and sometimes superior to, the traditional classroom experience in achieving learning outcomes. More than 1.6 million men and women took courses by distance education in the past year, and that number is expected
to grow to more than 1.9 million this year. The University of Phoenix, the largest private university in the United States has achieved the status in part because of its very successful and effective distance education program. New technologies, new communication systems, and new understandings of how students learn are changing the face of education in exciting and dynamic ways.

You have a wonderful opportunity. We hope that you will find this experience among the most fulfilling of your life. From all of us at the Western Seminary Center for Lifelong Learning, we look forward to serving you today as your teachers and with you tomorrow as your colleagues.