Christian religious education in Hong Kong: Professional ministry and ministerial preparation

This investigation examined through a survey questionnaire and an interview protocol whether the education training of in-service church education ministers in Hong Kong seminaries was in congruence with the actual needs of the field. The responses from the twenty-eight subjects indicated that few Christian education ministers had titles appropriate to their educational ministries. The minority of Christian education ministers who had Christian education titles was all female. Fifty percent of the male subjects were either pastor or senior pastor. Although most of these subjects had graduate degrees, few of them had professional Christian education degrees.; The career pattern of church education ministers in Hong Kong is similar to that of the West. The continuous expansion of educational ministry in Hong Kong has proportionally broadened their roles and responsibilities. There were over seventy educational ministries. Assisting the senior pastor in all administrative chores is part of their responsibilities. They were unable to commit exclusively to church educational ministries. Subjects with the role of Christian Education Director perceived that the training they received in the seminaries is not sufficient for them to achieve a leadership role. They think that their training is incongruent with their needs as a Christian education professional.; Their main reasons are, first, the training they had received in seminaries was primarily theoretical knowledge that could not be directly transformed into ministries. There was also insufficient supervision in field education. Second, training in leadership skills such as administration and management was lacking. Finally, Christian education training provided by the seminaries was too general and superficial. The graduates were inadequately prepared to deal with issues arising from the latest trends in Christian education.; The subjects proposed that the seminaries should put more emphasis on the role and importance of Christian education in theological training. They hoped this would result in more in-depth and thorough training in Christian education. They also suggested that the seminaries should find out the demands and needs of the church for education specialists and design professional Christian education training program around such findings.