In this overview of the structure of St Peter’s Hall as the Home of Training for the Anglican Diocese of Singapore, we will highlight WHOM we are seeking to train, WHAT areas of training we will focus on, and HOW we intend to deliver the training.

These are the fruit of a 2-year process of sense-making and discernment. We are grateful that the Lord has enabled SPH to find clarity in the midst of complexity, so that we may fulfil our daunting mandate with clear direction and focus.

As mentioned in OUR JOURNEY, the following diagram depicts the current scope of St Peter’s Hall’s training ministry.

The scale of the Diocese is immense (exceeding 30,000) and therefore requires the sub-division of the large numbers of potential trainees into meaningful categories. The following categorisation was agreed on by the Board:

The Seminarians refer to the Anglicans enrolled in Trinity Theological College, who are automatically part of the St Peter’s Hall community in TTC, and are affectionately known as Petereans. Most of them will obtain a theological diploma or degree and go on to serve in full-time pastoral ministry in the Diocese or Deaneries. There are approximately 30 of them at any given time.

The In-Service Staff refer to all hired or salaried staff serving in the Diocese, i.e. those who are paid for their services to the Diocese. They may be employed by the Diocese, or by the parishes, or by Diocese-related entities (e.g. St Andrew’s Mission Hospital, Singapore Anglican Community Services, Anglican Preschool Services). There are an estimated 300-400 of them.

The Lay Members (or Laity) are the members of our Anglican parishes, who are regular worshippers. Some may be serving in ministries and holding leadership roles within their churches, but these roles are voluntary and not salaried. There is typically a partnership and cooperation between the In-Service Staff and the Lay Members in carrying out the various ministries of the church.

The training needs of each of these 3 groups are somewhat distinct, which makes them meaningful categories for segmenting the trainee population.

Even within the In-Service or the Lay Members categories, there is a substantial diversity of training needs. For further segmentation and subdivision, we need to identify “Levels” which denote seniority of leadership. The following diagram seeks to illustrate how both the Lay Members and
In-Service Staff can be stratified into 3 layers:

(The numbers 100-600 are code numbers for the levels, not to be confused with the actual quantity of people in each sub-category.)

The green layers are the ‘entry level’, meaning this is the first level a person is at before being given higher leadership responsibilities. For Lay Members, the majority of church members are at this level (labelled 100 level). For In-Service Staff, the majority of pastoral, chaplaincy and administrative staff are this entry level (labelled 400 level). Within this framework, the Seminarians or Petereans are at the 400 level.

The purple layers are the ‘intermediate leadership level’, meaning this is the next level of leadership and service that a person moves to after ‘entry level’. For Lay Members, this level includes the Cell Group leaders, Ministry leaders, etc (labelled 200 level). For In-Service Staff, this level refers to all Clergy and Deaconesses (labelled 500 level).

The red layers are the ‘senior leadership level’, meaning this is the level above the ‘intermediate leadership level’ that helps provide high-level supervision and direction. For Lay Members, this level includes the PCC (Parochial Church Council) members, Cell Zone / Cluster Leaders, Lay Readers etc (labelled 300 level). For In-Service Staff, this level includes Vicars, Priests-in-charge, and all Senior Clergy, e.g. Canons, Archdeacons, Bishops (labelled 600 level).

These layers can be stacked on top of each other to give a 6-level pyramid that represents all the people in the Diocese:

The ‘kueh lapis’ (layer cake) type arrangement is a meaningful way of stratifying the two broad demographic groups for training delivery, and encapsulates whom we are seeking to train.

As the Board considered the various priorities for training content in the Diocese, 6 broad areas were agreed upon as being most needful. Each of them has been structured as a School within St Peter’s Hall, denoting an area or domain of instruction and training that is relevant to the needs of our Diocese. These schools are conceptual rather than physical schools. The following are the 6 Schools within SPH:

All the training we provide will be through one or more of these Schools. Some training courses fall neatly under one School, (eg Anglicanism Training course falls under SOA, and Alpha Host Training course falls under SME). However some training courses may include content that straddles more than one School (eg Responding Theologically and Pastorally to Mental Health Struggles would relate directly to both SBT and SPM).

See the OUR SCHOOLS page for more information about each.

Putting together the ‘kueh lapis’ model with the 6 Schools, we arrive at a matrix structure, and this 6 x 6 matrix defines the boundary of what we train and whom we train, and any training course SPH offers has to fit within one or more of these 36 boxes:

There are 2 main modes of training employed by SPH: On-site and Online. For the Seminarians, by virtue of their physical presence in TTC where SPH is based, most of their training is On-site and in-person. However when it comes to Lay Members and In-Service Staff, they are spread out over a much larger area geographically, even beyond the shores of Singapore if you include our Deaneries. Therefore there is no feasible way to offer the Lay Members and In-Service Staff regular and accessible training unless it goes online (hence the development of this Learning Management Website).

Online training can be sub-divided into 2 forms: synchronous (meaning everyone in the course shows up at the same time online) or asynchronous (meaning people consume the training content at a time that suits them, and not in a way that is synchronised with the other trainees).

Synchronous training will basically mean Zoom Calls, where everyone logs in to the same Zoom call at the same time from wherever they are.

Asynchronous training refers to the training happening “own time own target”, primarily through recorded video trainings that are watched by trainees on their own time.

Occasionally, for our on-site training, we will employ what’s called the FLIP CLASS model, where students are expected to come together physically for lessons, but they will consume the lesson content through videos outside of class and before the day of the class. Then at the on-site class session, the time together is spent on clarification and problem-solving instead of content download.

In conclusion, our Structure serves our Mission and Mandate to be the Home of Training for the Anglican Diocese of Singapore. We are called primarily to train 3 target groups: Seminarians, In-Service Staff and Lay Members. We deliver training at 6 levels. And we focus our content through 6 Schools. Our training modalities will encompass On-Site, On- Line (Synchronous and Asynchronous) and hybrids of the above.