Ministry in Church and Society

  • STH TC 872: Healing Relationships with Animals
    Explores various dimensions of divine/human/animal interactions, but with a focus upon healing relationships. The course ranges across the areas of theology, spirituality, liturgy, pastoral care, history, psychology, mind/body medicine (stress reduction), and public policy. While Christian theologies of creation and stewardship/ecology are central, the approaches of other religions and their practices will also be examined for purposes of comparison (and perhaps dialogue). (Clusters 2 and 3)
  • STH TC 899: Practicing Justice
    This course explores the nature of social justice and its place within the mission of the church by: a) surveying the varied conceptions, contexts, and practical contours of justice in contemporary societies; and b) investigating key theological and religio-critical perspectives on the historical, biblical, and theological foundations of social justice as a constitutive attribute of Christian community and Christian ministry. Upon this examination, the church's pursuit of social justice emerges as a multifaceted practice that disturbs traditional distinctions between the prophetic and priestly dimensions of the church's identity. Through careful attention to the required texts, as well as the conduct of student research and constructive reflection, course participants are encouraged to rediscover the practice of seeking justice as an art of ministry -- as a dance through which prophetic and priestly activities engage one another as partners. (MDiv Practicing Faith Section) (Clusters 2 and 3)
  • STH TC 906: Situational Preaching
    This course is designed with occasional and situational preaching in view. It presupposes the probability of both recurring and unique situations in which the gospel (the "good news," not the final lection in the ecumenical order) must be preached in a way both clear and arresting. To deal with this presupposition, the course will deal with preaching the gospel when some situational feature of congregational or organizational life demands attention. Indirectly, it is also an exploration of theological method. In whatever situation, the preaching task will be viewed as a theological one, i.e., as an opportunity for discerning the import of and articulating the gospel anew in a given situation. Thus students will be equipped to be "theologians of the Word" who can interpret situations from a variety of viewpoints, evaluate the usefulness of various tools for preaching in light of the gospel and then employ them fruitfully. In order to do this, we will work on the following tools: 1. Bringing to critical awareness our own understandings of the gospel, 2. Developing skills and resources as contextual theologians in residence, , and 3. Developing skills and resources as homiletical exegetes of situations. As a result students should develop greater pastoral sensitivity, rhetorical savvy and think-on-your-feet theological acumen while preparing for preaching in a context in which transformational theological leadership needs to be exercised.
  • STH TC 909: Spiritual Autobiographies
    Participants in this course will read selected spiritual autobiographies in order to gain an understanding of the varieties of religious experience and the interrelationship between spirituality, theology, and historical and cultural context. We will examine the nature of religious experience and the difficulties in translating this experience into language. Moreover, we will explore the important issue of how spirituality relates to the institutional churches, and the various shapes spirituality takes outside these institutions. Through close, empathetic, and critical examination of the texts, participants also will reflect on their own spiritual journeys and spiritual identities. They will prepare written analyses of course texts and, by the end of the course, will write a portion of their own spiritual autobiography.
  • STH TC 912: Classics in Christian Spirituality
    This course serves as an introduction to the study of Christian spirituality through in-depth reading of selected classics in Christian spirituality as well as secondary source scholarship in the discipline. We will delve into texts by early monastics and visionary medieval mystics; look anew at Protestant hymns and poetry; go deeper into Ignatian discernment; and engage the spiritualities of Latin American liberation theologians and African American women. This interdisciplinary seminar opens up reflection on spirituality and theology; spirituality and history; spirituality, gender, race, and ethnicity; spirituality, poetics, and autobiography; spirituality and ministry; and spiritual practice. Students are encouraged to integrate the material with an eye toward their own spiritual lives and vocations. The course will integrate music, art, and poetry to offer a fuller engagement with spiritual classics.
  • STH TC 913: Embodying the Kingdom
    Embodying the Kin(g)dom fosters transformational leadership by helping students to discern and interrogate habitual ways of mentally separating the physical body from spiritualized visions of what Jesus calls the "kingdom." This course assists students in appreciating the embodied nature of enacting and experiencing faith through personal, congregational, and social practices such as prayer, eating, and moral injury. The course is designed to prepare students to help those they serve to reflect critically and creatively on the connections between body, Spirit, and faith.
  • STH TC 914: Worship in Times of Change
    Birth, maturation, sickness, and death are life changes that are addressed ritually in most human societies and cultures. Christian communities, though initially slow to do so, have introduced worship events/liturgies that speak the Gospel in such times of crisis or change- -those human as well as institutional. Even so, new occasions or circumstances arise in each generation where Christian communities may be called upon to supply ritual interventions that both sustain and transform. This course will focus on contemporary rites addressing human and institutional "life-cycle passages," which will be examined and evaluated with attention to contextual, theological, liturgical, ritual, and pastoral criteria. After learning basic skills for ritual writing, students in pairs or triads will work collaboratively on a project to address a "gap" in the liturgical resources available to churches and other Christian communities and institutions.
  • STH TC 919: The Sacraments: Rites and Theologies
    Contemporary study of the sacraments brings together ritual studies, liturgical history, the history of dogma, and systematic reflection. This course examines the baptismal and eucharistic rites of the Church, both past and present, along with theological rationales of and commentaries on them offered by ecclesiastic writers of the patristic, medieval, Reformation, and modern periods.
  • STH TC 938: Church Renewal
    Literature on church renewal abounds, as theologians and practitioners respond to the declining attendance and cultural influence of the church in Western societies. This course engages a variety of approaches to church renewal, requiring students to compare and contrast the selected proposals with respect to their contextual analyses, theological foundations, and practical strategies. The course functions as an advanced workshop in which students explore the efficacy of "church renewal" as a conceptual framework for guiding contemporary ministry praxis. The aim of the course is to equip students with the tools to construct a theologically informed plan of action for transformational leadership in their own specific contexts of ministry.
  • STH TC 960: Theologies of Preaching
    This doctoral seminar course helps students become familiar with attempts across multiple traditions to understand what preaching is theologically. It aims to equip them to engage the theological task constructively as homiletical theologians in their own right.
  • STH TC 978: Sabbath: Theology and Practice
    This course explores Sabbath keeping as a central practice of faith and a core practice of transformative religious leadership. Drawing upon Jewish and Christian traditions, we will study theologies and practices of Sabbath keeping and reflect upon their meaning in contemporary contexts. As part of this work, we also will explore Christian theologies of the Lord's Day, including the meaning of Sabbath in light of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. The course will include attention to Jewish-Christian dialogue as well as consideration of debates internal to faith communities about Sabbath keeping. We also will focus attention on questions of Sabbath keeping and spiritual formation, Sabbath keeping as a dimension of pastoral excellence, Sabbath as countercultural practice, and implications of Sabbath for social justice. Students will be encouraged to cultivate a practice of Sabbath keeping throughout the semester and as the culmination of the course they will have the opportunity to design a practical theological project relevant to their own community and context of leadership.