April 14, 1999
Garland: Baylor's social work
program will help churches
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___WACO--Baptist churches and agencies statewide should benefit from the launch of a new graduate program in social work and a new Center for Family and Community Ministries at Baylor University, according to the director of those two programs.
___"We really want Texas Baptist life to be better because we're here and for community life to be stronger," said Diana Garland, professor of social work. "If Texas Baptist life is not more sensitive and more effective in ministry with families in five years, then we will have failed."
___Garland, who was dean of the Carver School of Church Social Work at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary before it closed, sees a great need for churches and Christians to be engaged in social work, although she admits Baptists sometimes shy away from that term.
___"We've tended to be allergic to the designation 'social work,'" she said, explaining many people immediately think of someone who doles out food stamps or administers welfare programs.
___Yet that's only one facet of what trained social workers do, Garland said, adding that as a social worker she wrote the popular "Parenting By Grace" curriculum used by many churches.
___Social workers lead ministries such as marriage and family counseling, inner-city ministries, prevention programs, family resource programs, 12-step recovery programs and support groups, prison ministry, chaplaincy, gerontology services, child welfare programs and youth ministry, she added.
___Those are all areas that touch the work of the church, Garland said, pointing out that an in-creasing number of youth ministers and urban missionaries are seeking training in social work.
___Baylor recently launched two new initiatives to help churches address these needs.
___The first is the addition of graduate studies in social work, building upon the existing undergraduate program in social work. Through this program, students will earn the master of social work degree.
___With the launch of its first class of perhaps 30 students next fall, the Baylor program will become the only graduate social work program in the nation with direct links to a major Protestant denomination, Garland said. "No other Baptist institutions offer master's-level education in social work, and only two other Protestant institutions have master's degree programs--one in Minnesota and one in New York."
___Several seminaries offer joint programs where students take theology courses at the seminary and social work programs at a nearby secular university, Garland explained. But the Baylor program will combine theology into the totality of the student's learning.
___The result, she said, will be "social workers who really understand what it means to work with a congregation or agency on mission."
___This new graduate program "will fill a very significant void for students, agencies, churches and the social work field," said Larry Mercer, executive director of Buckner Children and Family Services of North Texas.
___He anticipates Baylor social work graduates will create a much-needed pool of trained social workers who will be hired by both religious and secular institutions across the state.
___"The program will enhance the Christian witness to the world by training students to take Christ's ministry of compassion into the schools, hospitals and other organizations serving the community," Mercer said. "It will equip students to integrate their Christian values as they apply the latest principles and strategies of social work."
___The second new initiative at Baylor is the Center for Family and Community Ministry, jointly sponsored by the School of Social Work and Truett Theological Seminary.
___A grant from the Lilly Endowment has provided half the center's operating funds for the first three years.
___Through the center, Garland plans to offer seminars and workshops, produce training literature and serve as a resource to churches. The center will house the editorial offices for the journal Family Ministry, produce an audio-cassette magazine on family ministry issues geared to pastors and church leaders, sponsor a consultation for Hispanic church leaders and help facilitate a family ministry consultation project in conjunction with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
___The center also will provide technical consultations to any Texas Baptist church desiring to start a new social ministry program.
___"The needs of our world feel so overwhelming to congregations," Garland said. So a goal of the Center for Family and Community Ministry will be to help churches discover effective ways of meeting those needs, she explained.
___The center will hold its inaugural conference in Waco May 20-21, with keynote speakers such as Ken Hall, president of Buckner Baptist Benevolences; Brad Wigger, director of the Center for Congregations and Family Ministries at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary; and Gene Roehlkelpartain, president of the Search Institute. Workshop topics include Eldercare, marriage enrichment, ministry to Hispanic communities, the spiritual life of children, the pastor's role in launching community ministries and the rural congregation in family ministry.
___Before then, and before the first class of graduate social work students arrives on campus next fall, Garland is devoting much of her time to preparation and fund-raising.
___One of her priorities is raising scholarship money. "I'd like for every student who feels called into this type of ministry to be able to come," she said.
___The first such scholarship fund recently was given by Joe and Marguerite Van Devender Long of Waco. Joe Long is a longtime social worker in the Waco area.
___Garland also is seeking funds to endow three faculty chairs in the graduate social work program. A total of three full-time faculty positions will be created in the graduate program by this fall, with four more to be added the next year.
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