Our vision is to equip people who are Christ-centred, world-engaging, rooted in the service of their local communities and excited about sharing the Gospel faithfully, creatively and courageously. We aim to be a community shaped and led by God’s Spirit ever deeper into:
Adventurous faith
Our adventures of faith in church, work and world weave together with academic integrity. Growing together in the grace of God, we allow practical skills to interact with theology. Spiritual formation breathes life into our service.
Missional hope
Sharing God’s gift of living hope in Jesus Christ, we prepare people to be creative in all dimensions of mission and to serve others with joy.
Grounded love
Rooted in God’s love, we support and encourage one another. Pastoral care is at the heart of what we do. We celebrate our unity in diversity and try not to take ourselves too seriously as we learn together and inspire one another. We are proud to know and serve the South West, its villages, towns and cities, and to love its hills, moors and coastal communities.
Memory and Becoming
In January 2019 a Periodic Education Review was held for SWMTC and one of the recommendations of the PER report was that SWMTC explain its approach to adult education in a manner that enabled wide dissemination. Please take a look at our response to this recommendations, here kindly put together for us by the Rev Dr Tim Gibson. The full text is available here and summarised below:
At SWMTC, we are committed to providing theological learning that is deeply rooted in local contexts. Our training and formation prepares people for ministry in a variety of settings, and the discipline required to juggle many differing commitments.
We place great emphasis on enabling Christian people to serve God within their communities. We offer part-time training, so that students can continue working and maintain their other commitments of family, voluntary activity, and membership of a church community.
SWMTC provides the best of both worlds: a rich training experience firmly rooted in the local church, and membership of a community of formation, worship, prayer, and learning.
For students training for licensed ministry, their Home Minister is a key person in enabling the growth and development of vocation and skills. Being near at hand means the Home Minister can also continue to be an exemplar to the student and provide pastoral support to their family.
In providing part-time and local training, SWMTC is recognising the realities of modern life: family commitments to work and schooling; the need to maintain income; the importance of retaining support and links within the home community; rapid changes in the world and church, and focusing on many students’ need for flexibility and stability during the training years.
Being rooted in the local context means that SWMTC can provide students in Devon and Cornwall with a good balance of academic, liturgical, pastoral, and ministerial training on their doorstep. Because we attract students from a wide variety of backgrounds, it also means that our training is balanced over the whole spectrum of church traditions.
SWMTC employs a highly talented staff of academics, experienced practitioners and creative thinkers.
We have links to university theology departments in the U.K. with excellent international reputations. All of our academic awards are validated and accredited by Durham University under the ‘Common Awards’ scheme, which means that they are consistent with all other courses offered by theological colleges, dioceses and other theological education institutions (TEIs) in the Church of England.
We have in place a strong network of support for students and their families, covering vocation, formation, personal and theological development, and pastoral needs.
Our programmes were independently reviewed in January 2016 by the Quality Advisor appointed to SWMTC by the Church of England’s Ministry Division. Her report spoke of “…a highly qualified and committed staff team, a wide network of associate staff and tutors with whom relationships have been built up over many years and who constitute a dynamic group of reflective practitioners… Students spoke consistently highly of the quality of the teaching of the staff team, value greatly the mutual support and learning they experience… In all sessions there was evidence of sustained engagement by all students with excellent teaching which combined theological challenge with awareness of ministerial context.”
As our name would suggest, SWMTC understands the church in the South West, and so can offer training and formation that prepares people for the ministry needed here.
An independent review noted that “Staff members… are ‘hefted’; rooted in the local, as well as being resourced by wider national connections and this adds credibility to their teaching. There is no comparable body with the reach, depth and capacity to help deliver theological education and lay training across the south west.”
Residential training courses often emphasise the community-related benefits of their programmes. We think that being intentional about forming community while training is just as viable.
Because of our flexibility and rootedness in the South West, SWMTC welcomes students from a broad spectrum of backgrounds and traditions, helping us embody the diversity and unity that are hallmarks of these churches. See for example, statements from both Exeter and Truro dioceses.
We believe that learning should take place not just in the context of the church, but in ‘the public square’. Students training for licensed ministry will study alongside the students taking our ‘Encountering Theology’ courses, who can come from all faith backgrounds and none. It is very important to us that candidates for ministry hear the questions and learn from the thinking of other students, while these students hear in turn how the candidates for ministry are approaching their tasks.
