BY BILL AMEND
BERRIEN SPRINGS—From its inception in Chicago in the late ‘50s to its multi-site span today, the North American Division Clerical Institute has successfully taught hundreds of potential clergy the church clerical skills necessary to support the presence of a famous evangelist. This year, Clerk School sessions will be held in several locations across the United States, including Indianapolis, Boise, South Bend, and Washington D.C. Dr. Reinhold Cuzzle, director of NADCI recently sat down with The Soy Dog to discuss the curriculum for Clerk School this Fall.
“The first week will be pretty standard. Many students haven’t been in elementary school for awhile, so we’ll reintroduce them to basic tasks like stacking cards in order and knowing the difference between rubber bands and paper clips.”
The program picks up in the second week as students are introduced to new material. After the first week, Cuzzle will teach students complex lessons like operating PowerPoint. Students will receive slides of Cuzzle’s evangelistic presentations to practice switching slides upon his command. They will also master appropriate font sizes and slide transitions for an evangelistic series. “Now, here’s their incentive,” says Cuzzle. “The student who develops some rapport with me and demonstrates reliability gets to operate the PowerPoint during my evening lectures to the general public.”
When asked if he had somehow mistaken “cleric” for “clergy”, Cuzzle responded, “Absolutely not. In the real world, if they don’t do this work, who will? Besides, you’ll be hard-pressed to find any prestigious graduate school offering this kind of intensive clerical program for their students.”
By the third week of Clerk School, the brightest students will be assigned more responsibility, and be put in charge of duplicating DVDs of the evangelistic series. Others will learn to make double-sided photocopies to the evangelist’s exact specifications. “I’m very particular about my photocopies—I want the reverse side facing the opposite way.”
In an effort to relieve students from the tedium of the classroom setting, a Shipping, Delivering and Packing course is offered. After they duplicate the DVDs, students will learn how to use the GPS or MapQuest and map their routes around the city before personally delivering them right to people’s doorstep. By the end of the five weeks, they’ll master a wide-range of skills that will equip them to provide optimum support for any famous evangelist who drops by their church. “In event that they don’t get called up as pastors, then at least they can fall back on their other skills and hopefully get hired by UPS, Kinko’s or even tech support. This way, their options are endless by the time they leave the Seminary,” says Cuzzle.
Clerk School also offers more than clerical skills, as students are taught customer service. Cuzzle announced that each student will learn people skills.
“We’re really proud and confident of the clerical program on offer, because it is unique to our graduate school. What better way to train servant leaders than to have them serve evangelists in this capacity?”
Cuzzle was also asked how he would market and advertise the program to draw students. “First of all, with a program as strong as this, I don’t think there’s much advertising that needs to get done. But to guarantee that the majority of our clergy will enroll in our clerical program, we will make this a graduation requirement for all North American Division MDiv students.”
