Theological Education by Extension (TEE) Training Model is Still Essential.

"Observations like these do not relate only to those vast cultural differences between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. They exist also within the same country. Leaders of rural churches in South Viet Nam, for example, were recently discussing the problems that sending their ministerial candidates to study in the city raised. They said, ‘When our men return to the country they are not the same. They want their salary in cash, not in rice and chickens; they won’t walk through the rice paddies because they will get their trousers wet; they are not even able to sit and talk with us because they have brought their city schedules back with them and no longer have any time.” ……… The extension seminary enables students to take full theological training while continuing to live within their own culture. This reduces the danger of deculturization, known in one of its international aspects as the “brain drain.” While it is true that many examples of dedicated people who have studied in a second culture and have returned successfully to the first can be found, most theological educators and church leaders will agree that the trend is in the opposite direction…………Thousands of leaders of third world churches have been able to attain only minimal levels of general education, and they find themselves in no position to return to school. Should these men be excluded from theological training on those grounds, when God himself has placed them in the ministry? The seminary must extend itself to such men…………”

(Crucial Dimensions on World Evangelisation, Arthur F. Glasser, Paul G. Hiebert C Peter Wagner, Ralph D. Winter. William Carey Library 1980 pg 408-409)