Northern’s DMin in Missional Leadership

For us at Northern and involved in the DMin program the good reasons to do a D. Min:

• Get trained to lead my church into the new challenges of ministry in context.
• Get trained to be a leader/change agent resource for the churches around me geographically.
• Get trained to become a capable practicing contextual theologian discerning what and how to be church in the contexts I am presented with in my ministry locale.

At Northern Seminary, we’ve been working on the D Min Missional program for several years now. We’ve brought in a plethora of scholar practicioners like Craig Van Gelder and Al Roxburgh (an esteemed graduate of Northern). Now I’m a part of the mix. We’ve made some adjustments and we have even more teachers coming in the years ahead adding diversity and gender. We are committed to bringing the top missional theorists/practicioners as well as missional theologians together to teach, dialogue, learn together in the program. Our first cohort that started in 2011 is well in mid-stream and excelling. It’s one of the few D.Min programs where the student is guided by a theologian (David Fitch) from the first course to the project/dissertation completion (although we have many thesis supervisors, David will sit on all final committees). The program’s imprint is firmly in place. Congragulations to every one who worked hard on making this happen including the outstanding pioneering students in the first cohort.

We have our second cohort beginning this June. I am not surprised by the interest shown. It appears we’re close to closing the class (we’ve had almost no advertising whatsoever! How did this happen?). We have 2 to 3 openings available before the class is maxed out.

If you’re interested you need to look at this post and learn more about the program. Check out the descriptions of the 7 seminars closely. If this excites you, then you need to ask yourself can I put in a regular rhythm of study (1 to 2 hours a day 4 or 5 days a week). Can I afford it? there’s an affordable plan that the admissions office can talk to you about. Then you need to get your application filed by April 1.Go on the website in that last post I linked. It’s going to be another rich rich time of working together. We at Northern are psyched to say the least.