Why Pursue a Doctor of Ministry Degree?

Are you a seasoned pastor looking for additional training? Or perhaps you’re a chaplain or campus pastor and you’ve seen the need for innovation in your ministry context. Maybe you’re  a teacher and you’ve felt the need  to hone your pedagogical skills and expand your knowledge. At Calvin Theological Seminary, we’ve heard these thoughts, questions, and desires. Our Doctor of Ministry Program answers many of these real, practical questions and observations. Our DMin program is personalized, innovative, and focused on equipping each student for real, authentic service.

Personalized Approach

The DMin program has a personalized approach to education and praxis. The program’s courses, assignments, and requirements are tailored to equip students to understand, articulate and find tangible solutions for the challenges they encounter in their context. This carries into the dissertation stage of the program, where students are encouraged to pursue a topic relevant to their ministry context and experience.

This personalized approach of the DMin program is at the core of its format. Students remain in their ministry context, engage in remote coursework, and attend two in-person intensive weeks on Calvin Seminary’s campus each year. This format allows students to maintain employment and integrate their contextual experience with their coursework, seeing the theoretical applied in their practical setting.

Innovative Coursework

The DMin program emphasizes innovation. Students are encouraged to engage with the needs of their context and the global church, addressing its various needs for innovation and creative change. Students are not asked to read and regurgitate information, but integrate their readings, class discussions, and experiences into developing relevant solutions that meet needs. 

This focus on innovation carries into the dissertation writing stage, where students are encouraged to use their research to address a need relevant to their context. For example, a recent graduate focused their dissertation research on the experiences of African American individuals as pastors and leaders within a particular denomination. Other students are researching how to make a large, secular university campus ministry welcoming to students from diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds. The opportunities for innovation are limitless, and the DMin program equips students to meet the challenge of innovation with confidence.

Authentic Engagement

The DMin program values equipping each student to authentically engage with their ministry context as God has created them to do and be. The focus of the program is not on producing a singular type of leader. Rather, the program meets each student where they’re at in their vocation, and equips them to lean into who God has created them to be as they work. This preparation comes through coursework and the diversity of the cohort itself. Each cohort is composed of students from different backgrounds, experiences and cultures, pouring into and equipping one another for authentic ministry. We recognize that each DMin student has a unique, God-given calling, and are committed to equipping, training, and cultivating graduates who continue to pursue that calling as God has called and created them. The DMin program aspires to equip students to innovate and authentically minister in the contexts God calls them to.

How to Apply

If you’re interested in learning more about our Doctor of Ministry program, our Admissions Team is available to answer any questions you may have. To begin your application, visit our website. We’re excited to hear from you!