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The updated Master of Arts in Public Ministry connects with those interested in non-profit work, religious educational leadership, community organizing and advocacy, as well as fulfilling the requirements for ordination as a deacon in the United Methodist Church.

Rev. Dr. Jennifer Harvey, our Academic Dean and Professor of Christian Ethics, will be present to share about this new curriculum. Register for to receive the Zoom link for the event.

The post Ministry beyond the Pulpit: The Master of Arts in Public Ministry appeared first on Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary.

Simbarashe (Simba) Ndowa’s childhood village on the border of Zimbabwe and Mozambique didn’t have a church. His mother was a certified traditional healer, a profession into which Simba might well have followed. When Simba was only four or five years old, however, he began to experience vivid dreams. “In one particular dream, a large book would open, and I would receive some instructions,” he recalls. Animated in his speech, Simba’s conviction is so contagious that regardless of your feelings about prophetic dreams, you find yourself believing. Leaning forward in his chair, he exclaims, “I remember, when I was six or seven and able to read, I came across those same instructions in biblical verses and thought, ‘This is what I dream about!’” From those early moments, Simba and his family discerned that his calling would lead him to serve God beyond his home, but it was not an easy path between those youthful visions and admission into Garrett’s Masters of Arts in Public Ministry program.

Even pursuing the higher education that could lead to graduate study was far from guaranteed. “I would pray, ‘God, if it is you who I see in my dreams, I want to go to school,’” he remembers. “I would plead, ‘I don’t want to follow the rituals to become a traditional leader. I have heard you and read my Bible, I know you are there. Help me serve you.” These pleas did not go unanswered—he was able to attend school locally, where he began participating in a student Bible study and officially became a Christian. After graduation, Simba moved with his brother to Harare—Zimbabwe’s capital city—where he worked as a bus conductor and a gardener as he applied to universities.

The journey to his undergraduate degree from Africa University was likewise filled with moments of divine assistance. From a pastor who took him in after he lost his housing to the minister who encountered Simba on the road and offered to pay his AU application fees when he could not afford them, prayer always seemed to be one step ahead. So he began coursework in Environmental Studies, without enough money to pay the next semester’s tuition. By chance or providence, however, an international student from the United States took a personal interest in his story and connected Simba with his father—a Methodist pastor in Chico, California. The pastor’s family and congregation in Chico was so moved, they helped Simba finish his degree. “One exceptional lady whose son had died in a car accident sold everything that belonged to him and put that money toward my scholarship,” he says with gratitude. That connection with the United Methodist Church endured, and when Simba finally decided to pursue his theological training, a colleague from the Democratic Republic of Congo recommended Garrett. “I saw the Masters of Arts in Public Ministry program and knew I had to apply,” he says. “It’s so unique in the way it’s structured because it integrates a person into community and emphasizes the ways you can influence that community’s life.”

Now, Simba is studying to pursue his call as a youth minister. “In my home community and all over the world, children are vulnerable. I know God is calling me to help,” he says. “When I was a youth, I saw potential dying in my colleagues. Talent is being destroyed because they have no exposure to a better kind of life.” While the particularities of Zimbabwe are central to his call, he finds Garrett’s diversity essential in helping him follow it. “It is critical to meet different people and understand, ‘Who is God to that culture, to that person?’” he says with potent fervor. “All of us are coming from different perspectives, different life experiences. But we believe in one God, and that God wants us to save one another.”

The post Following a Dream appeared first on Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary.

Climate change is too often discussed as an existential crisis instead of a particular threat, until the moment it becomes acutely personal. Growing up in Kerala, a state in South India, Praveen Raj reports that he used to think about ecological disaster in more general terms. “Kerala is a beautiful place,” he tells me. “Whenever people talked about global warming, I always thought about it as something happening somewhere else, not connected with us and our land.” Without warning, notions of a formless danger dramatically ended. “In 2017, ’18, and ’19, Kerala was hit by heavy floods from Monsoon change,” Raj says. “My parents’ house is in a rural area surrounded by hills, and was damaged by a landslide.” Suddenly, what was once theoretical caused profound and concrete harm. “On the other side of the house, they were constructing unapproved real estate, which contributed to the landslide,” he explains. “In that moment I realized, it’s not happening somewhere else, it’s here, and my theology must respond to the ongoing ecological disaster.”

When he matriculated in the Masters of Arts in Public Ministry program—from which he graduates this year—he had a different relationship to climate catastrophe, but he didn’t yet possess the analytical tools to make full sense of what he and his family suffered. “I had heard about systems of domination and capitalism, but I was not able to name those issues in particular,” Raj confesses. “Dr. Eberhart and his mentorship helped me identify structurally what is happening, and discover hope in theology. It gave me a lens to look at these issues, how they manifest in the U.S., and connect them to what is happening in India.” He became especially focused on the way climate change disproportionately affects the people who are already most vulnerable. “The courses helped connect theory and theologies of public social justice to methods and models for social change,” he says. “Once I better understood environmental racism, I was able to ask, ‘Where are they developing and at whose cost? How does this harm poor people? Who is in pain?”

By way of example, he offers a story that reveals intersecting injustices. “In one of the largest landslides, 30 to 40 people died,” Raj shares. “It was people who cannot afford housing in the city area, so poor people live on hilly terrain, working agricultural jobs, essentially bound to the land.” Because of economic desperation and precarity, the answer to this crisis cannot simply be to move somewhere else. “They have to be there,” he says. “But this is where the landslides are happening.”

In response, Raj is working with a coalition of churches to ameliorate harm, while pushing for more systemic change. The project attempts to envision a climate-resilient community-building project in Amboori, Kerala, India to facilitate an anticipatory community in the context of natural disasters, especially landslides “Even if we can’t prevent landslides on a larger scale, at least we can create a network of churches to try to stop these kinds of environmental disasters through bioengineering, vegetable gardening and permaculture,” he explains. “And when landslides do happen, the churches can give honorarium to help people survive for the time being, and to rebuild in a more sustainable way.”

The project draws inspiration from a theological framework, primarily emphasizing the theme of being ‘born-again,’ which advocates for the transformative rebirth and renewal of the community towards environmental sustainability and resilience. Central to this effort is the role of the local Church, envisioned as a pivotal agent in nurturing an anticipatory community mindset and facilitating sustainable living practices. Through this project, the Pantha community is expected to transform into a vibrant, resilient, and anticipatory community, capable of facing environmental challenges with innovative and sustainable strategies.

While the project is quite practical in nature, Raj also connects this pragmatic approach to a deeper theological need to reorient relationship with nature. “My people were introduced to Eurocentric Christianity around 200 and years ago, eliminating and classifying my ancestors’ indigenous earth-based spirituality as ‘profane.’ Before that, we were Hindus and nature was so close,” he mourns. “For them natural worship was part of that tradition. But once we were introduced to Western Christianity we were told to forget that.” Redressing ecological harm is essentially tied to work that cultivates a different spiritual life. “The present generation is now looking back to our ancestors’ worship and Earthbound spiritual practices. We need to go back to those practices to an understanding that plants and animals were part of them, given spiritual value,” Raj says. “To tackle the current ecological crisis, we need to reorient congregations and local communities toward that spiritual reconnection.”

This is where political theories of decolonization meet theologies that fuel change. “We are healing the land and, in a way, healing from what colonial people tried to teach us: that nature is not part of you, that—if you want to be Christian—you must tear yourself away from the Earth and connect with the other rituals,” Raj laments. “I have an ecomemory because my ancestors lived a life with the land. Now we need to cultivate that ecomemory which connects us to the soil in the same way that Christ called the fisher folk.”

This calling, and the way Raj’s work has flourished at Garrett, has led him to stay here and begin a Ph.D. program, so he can deepen his understanding and develop more tools to bring back to his work in India. “My stories of ancestral struggles and liberation tales are tied to ecomemory.  In my doctoral work, I plan to connect my ecomemory with the ecomemory of Christ,” Raj concludes. “Jesus’ deep incarnation united him with the entire biological world, revealing his symbiotic life with the land and the whole creation. Through this work, my research seeks to envision an intersectional eco-Christology, to place my ancestors and their earth-based struggles and religious practices in continuity with Christian tradition.” Garrett is equally elated to retain the brilliance he brings our community, as he begins this holy work.

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Meet Demetrius L. Davis (G-ETS 2022)

Degree Program

Master of Arts in Public Ministry with a concentration in racial justice

What is your hometown and educational background?

I was born and raised in Chicago and the Chicago suburbs. I completed my undergraduate degree at Northeastern Illinois University, where I double majored in secondary education and history.

How has your time at Garrett-Evangelical shaped your ministry and calling?

My time at Garrett-Evangelical has been wonderful! I entered with tremendous curiosity about how to connect my passion for justice with Christian theology. I was in search of a theological lens that not only created permission to pursue justice, but also centered it as crucial to being a follower of Jesus Christ. I found that at Garrett-Evangelical. Nearly all the courses I took connected matters of race, gender identity, creation, class, and/or sexuality with theology, dismantling the bifurcation between social and sacred matters. As a result, I was able to better connect justice-seeking with Christian praxis through preaching and teaching in my role as lead pastor.

What is your most transformative experience at Garrett-Evangelical?

The most transformative experience that I had at Garrett-Evangelical was the public ministry project. This project created the space for me to bring together all I learned over the past two years. It consisted of nearly forty pages of writing, expressing the theory and theology for social change that undergirded a church-led cooperative economics initiative to address low Black homeownership rates. The work stretched me as a scholar and minister, but throughout the process, I began subconsciously synthesizing many things I had learned across courses. Through this experience, I came to appreciate the intentionality of the MAPM curriculum, as well as the construction of the supporting courses within the degree grid. I also left the project with an exciting, transformational initiative that our church is currently engaged in implementing.

What’s next? What are your plans or your hopes for your future?

The immediate next thing for me is rest. I hope to use the summer and early fall to find moments of happiness, which will involve traveling, spending time with my family, and hopefully, spending some beautiful days on the lake. I’m also looking forward to being more present with the church, as pastoring during the pandemic while attending seminary has been tough and has often caused me to only be partially available to the congregation. Over the next year, we will implement the cooperative economics project at our church, which is a product of my degree program. I look forward to the many new homeowners we will be able to create through it. Lastly, I plan to apply to several doctor of ministry programs next year with the goal of enrolling in fall 2023.

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91PORN is launching hybrid tracks and a refined curriculum for four of our leading master’s degree programs, beginning Fall 2022. Guided by the Seminary’s strategic visioning process, the faculty have worked diligently to create a curriculum and modality plan that reflects enhanced hybrid options for better accessibility, affordability, and flexibility for all students. These curricular developments remove barriers for individuals facing economic and material precarity, and the realities of health, life, and family, while at the same time, creating avenues for students to remain deeply located in their particular place or ministry context as they complete their studies. Through this process and the changes implemented, the primary commitment of the curriculum has remained: to equip leaders for prophetic inquiry and ministry within diverse communities and contexts for today’s ever-shifting global realities.

Beginning Fall 2022, the following Garrett-Evangelical programs will be offered in hybrid and/or residential models:

• Master of Divinity (Hybrid and Residential)
• Master of Arts in Christian Education, reconceived and relaunched as the Master of Arts in Faith, Culture, and Educational Leadership (Hybrid and Residential)
• Master of Arts in Pastoral Care and Counseling: Chaplaincy and Spiritual Care Track (Hybrid Only)
• Master of Arts in Public Ministry (Hybrid and Residential) 

“We are thrilled to be able to make Garrett-Evangelical’s world-class education more broadly accessible and affordable,” said President Javier A. Viera. “Our commitment is to provide programs for the thriving of the church and the healing of the world, and these hybrid offerings will expand our ability to do that and to walk alongside those who are called to this work regardless of where they live out that calling. Garrett-Evangelical’s spiritually dynamic and intellectually vibrant ethos will now be available to all who can benefit from it, and that is the core of our mission.”

At the center of the hybrid model for these programs will be a combination of in-person, online, and hybrid courses offered consistently throughout the four terms of the academic year—Fall, Spring, January and Summer intensives. Residential and distance learners will have the same opportunity to learn directly with Garrett-Evangelical’s renowned faculty. Toward that goal, every faculty member is committed to retooling their pedagogical approaches for teaching and learning in different modalities and with students in multiple settings near and far, domestic and international. The curricular requirements are refined to reflect important lessons gained from the last two years of pandemic teaching. The faculty are amplifying their commitment to cultivating leadership for multiple settings and vocations, holistic formation and care for students, and the importance of a global perspective that accentuates multiple centers of knowledge and networks of learning and partnerships.

“We know that the cumulative impact of the global pandemic on theological education is unprecedented,” said Rev. Dr. Mai-Anh Le Tran, vice president of academic affairs and academic dean. “It has not only exposed the ever-widening gaps of resources and support structures that would enable student access and success to seminary education, but it has also revealed the inadequacies of our prevailing assumptions about the what, where, when, how, and why of theological teaching and learning. Our reach toward purposeful, affordable, sustainable hybrid experiences for learners is rooted not only in the realization that we are in a digital and virtual age; it is grounded in the understanding that theological inquiry and practice is necessarily based in the ‘material’ struggles of specific settings and contexts, be they virtual or physical, local or transnational. This is the understanding that guides our curricular imagination for a 21st-century theological education.”

Whether hybrid or residential, all admitted students qualify for scholarships at Garrett-Evangelical. With a long-standing commitment to addressing the financial needs of students seeking a theological education, the Seminary awards over $2.5 million in financial aid annually.

“Garrett-Evangelical is committed to decreasing the financial burden on our students in two ways: first, by continuing to offer generous scholarships for all degree programs, and second, by finding new opportunities to lower cost of attendance more broadly,” said Rev. Scott Ostlund, vice president for enrollment management. “These hybrid degree options accomplish both of those goals, and I am confident that they will open up previously closed doors for many students to pursue their call to ministry and theological study.”

Garrett-Evangelical’s residential and hybrid degree programs are accredited by two agencies, each with rigorous standards that challenge the Seminary to assess its work in light of its mission and of common standards for excellence in graduate education: The Association of Theological Schools and The Higher Learning Commission. In addition, Garrett-Evangelical is approved by and regularly evaluated by the Commission on Theological Education of the University Senate of The United Methodist Church.

The Master of Divinity

The revised master of divinity curriculum will contain fewer credit hours, from 80 to 76, and allow for greater flexibility and customization. The degree is designed to prepare students to confidently pursue their calls, whether through ordination to the church’s ministries or in lay ministry in the public square or non-profit work. Both the hybrid and residential program can be completed within three years on a full-time basis. Ordination requirements and the maximum courses one can take online vary by denomination. Garrett-Evangelical is prepared to support students in the master of divinity program to ensure that specific guidelines are met. The flexibility of this degree program also allows for busy, working adults to pursue rigorous study in a way and at a time that works best for them.

The Master of Arts in Faith, Culture, and Educational Leadership
(Formerly known as the Master of Arts in Christian Education)

Anchored by the principles of project-based learning and participatory research and practice, the master of arts in faith, culture, and educational leadership is a 45 credit hour degree—originally 54 credit hours—that can be completed via hybrid or residential coursework in as little as two years. This degree emphasizes methods, model, and approaches that ground contemporary educational and leadership practices in traditions of critical pedagogies, emancipatory education, social justice advocacy, U.S. civil rights, and global liberation movements. A two-semester practicum component (or supervised learning, formerly understood as field education) will help students to engage in conversation and reflection with peers, faculty, local practitioners, and vocational mentors on educational praxis in specific settings and contexts. This framework of participatory, reflective, consciousness-raising learning will be based on the Freirean “culture circle” model.

The Master of Arts in Pastoral Care and Counseling: Chaplaincy and Spiritual Care Track

Announced in October 2021, the chaplaincy and spiritual care track in the master of arts in pastoral care and counseling is the newest degree initiative of the seminary. Best for those discerning ministry outside of professional counseling settings, the chaplaincy and spiritual care track will equip students for hospital, military, movement, prison, hospice, first responder, campus, and urban ministry. This track, a 48 credit hour program, will only be available in a hybrid modality (primarily online with some required residential coursework) and can be completed in as little as two years.

The Master of Arts in Public Ministry

Originally a 56 credit hour degree program, the master of arts in public ministry degree program now consists of 50 credit hours, enabling students greater flexibility with additional real-world application and formational accompaniment. Two cohort retreats have been incorporated into the requirements for all students, whether hybrid or residential. Held every August and January, these in-person retreats will focus on continuous communal orientation and formation. In addition, the field education requirement has been expanded to six credit hours from three, anchored by clear community-based pedagogies, encouraging students to further discern, test, and refine the practices of public ministry.

To learn more about the Seminary’s hybrid programs and any of our seven degree programs, go to Garrett.edu/Degrees.

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Hometown: Chicago, Illinois

I grew up in Chicago and the northwest and west suburbs. I graduated from Northeastern Illinois University with a bachelor’s in secondary education and history. I taught high school for five years while serving as lead pastor of a church plant, CityPoint Community Church in Chicago. Currently, I pastor full time and run our family’s real estate investment company while attending seminary.

Why did you decide to attend seminary and Garrett-Evangelical in particular?

I decided to attend seminary because I wanted to learn about liberative and socially responsive interpretations of the gospel. I am called to minister to millennials and have noticed that many are bewildered by the American church’s oppressive doctrine and collusion with patriarchy, sexism, racism, exploitative capitalism, and heterosexism. I’m at Garrett-Evangelical to become equipped to preach a better gospel to our mostly millennial congregation and help change the national narrative regarding what it means to live the gospel of Jesus Christ.

What challenges and opportunities have you found with the fall semester being online?

The online semester has worked well for me due to the many responsibilities that I have. Rather than commuting to campus, I am able to spend the extra time preparing for classes. However, I have found that I miss the in-person interaction and relationship building that typically happens organically with peers on campus.

How has your scholarship enabled you to pursue your theological education?

The scholarship has been huge in that it made seminary fit much better into our family’s budget. As a household managing daycare costs for a toddler, we needed seminary to not add another major education expense to our finances. I’m extremely grateful to the seminary and donors for their generosity!

Where do you see Christ leading you after seminary?

After seminary, I will continue to serve as lead pastor at CityPoint Community Church. I am also exploring applying to a PhD program in social policy or public policy. I’m interested in considering how liberative or social gospel theology can inform public policy decisions related to housing at the local and national level.

The post To Preach a Better Gospel: Meet MAPM Student Demetrius Davis appeared first on Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary.

It is “for such a time as this” that Let Your Light Shine: Mobilizing for Justice and Children, a new book edited by 91PORN professors, Rev. Dr. Reginald Blount and Rev. Dr. Virginia A. Lee, has emerged. From broken immigration policies, hunger, school shootings, mass incarceration, human trafficking, failing schools, and child soldiers in wars worldwide, the harsh realities our children are living in cannot be ignored. Blount and Lee, together with contributors like Marian Wright Edelman, Rev. Dr. Janet Wolf, Rev. Dr. Gregory C. Ellison II, Ched Myers, and more, believe there is still hope and present ways to engage in works of justice that offer life, meaning, and hope to our children and youth.

“Let Your Light Shine is a wake-up call to see, learn, and respond to injustice,” said President Lallene J. Rector, “It’s a wake-up to see the plights of so many children and youth. It’s a wake-up to learn from these young persons. And, it’s a wake-up to respond by educating and advocating for all of them. Let Your Light Shine is an inspiring must-read for anyone who truly cares about children and youth – right NOW!”

Rev. Dr. Reginald Blount is assistant professor of formation, youth, and culture at Garrett-Evangelical, an ordained elder in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, and pastor of Arnett Chapel AME. Rev. Dr. Virginia A. Lee is associate professor of Christian education and director of Deacon Studies at Garrett-Evangelical, and an ordained deacon in the Virginia Conference of The United Methodist Church. Blount and Lee are co-executive directors of the Garrett-Evanston Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools Program. They are also on the faculty of the Dale Andrews Freedom Seminary, part of the Children Defense Fund Proctor Institute for Child Advocacy held each summer at Haley Farm in Clinton, TN.

Let Your Light Shine: Mobilizing for Justice and Children is published by Friendship Press and is available at the publisher’s website, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon. To learn more about this exciting new book, we reached out to Blount and Lee.

What inspired you to write this book? What was, or where did you find, your motivation?

We are a part of a group of faculty and theological educators who are committed to working for justice for children and youth in a variety of ways. One way is through our leadership at the Dale Andrews Freedom Seminary during the annual Children’s Defense Fund’s (CDF) Proctor Institute for Child Advocacy Ministry held each July at Haley Farm in Tennessee. For the last five years, approximately 60 seminary students from about 30 seminaries have participated in the Proctor Institute. The Dale Andrews Freedom Seminary faculty wanted a text that would introduce students to the work of CDF, the Proctor Institute, and its work of mobilizing for justice with children and youth. We were asked to edit the book and we enthusiastically agreed. So, we were motivated by this group of theological educators who have become friends and collaborators.

The dedication in the book notes other inspirations for our work and for the book.

• First there is Marian Wright Edelman, the founder and president emerita. She had been a tireless advocate for children for more than fifty years, and she is just as passionate and motivated today as she was 50 years ago – maybe more so! At the Proctor Institute each summer, she challenges, motivates and inspires us.
• Shannon Daley-Harris has been planning and leading the Proctor Institute since it began 25 years ago. It is an enormous responsibility to plan and coordinate a week-long event for 500 participants, but she does it with such grace and hospitality. She welcomes us home to Haley Farm where we can rest and re-charge for the next year.
• Janet Wolf was the collaborator who brought all of the theological educators together to create what is now the Dale Andrews Freedom Seminary. She had the vision to bring seminary students to the Proctor Institute so that they might go back to their seminaries with an understanding of what justice for children might really mean.
• I (Virginia) am inspired by my great-nieces and nephew who continually remind me what a gift children are to us. I (Reggie) am inspired by all of the children and youth with whom I have worked who help me remember that their voices matter.
• And last, but certainly not least, the scholars of the Garrett-Evanston CDF Freedom Schools Program and the Morgan Park CDF Freedom Schools Program inspire and remind us that children can make a difference!

Who do you hope reads this book? How do you hope it can be used?

We hope EVERYONE reads the book, but especially seminary students, clergy leaders, teachers (or anyone who is interested in education), and child advocates…really anyone who is interested in justice related to children and youth.

We hope it will be used as a textbook in seminaries, as a resource for churches that want to engage with their communities, and as a book club possibility for churches and communities.

What makes your book unique, and how is your perspective important?

We think it brings together a unique combination of scholars and practitioners who are committed to the thriving and flourishing of children and youth. This book also offers the voices, insight, and wisdom of both elders and contemporaries who continue to be engaged in justice-seeking work.

What are the common threads throughout the essays in the book regarding children, justice, and religious education?

The main thread is the centering of children and youth. All of the authors believe that ALL children are sacred, and that we are called to stand up with and for them.

Some of the other threads include:

• Knowing the history of the movement is important
• The importance of adult mentors
• Alternative theological education that graduates persons who will not be complicit with empire
• The need for the formation of justice-seeking leaders

What are some of the ways your work with the Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools Program have impacted your own practices as religious educators?

Through our work with CDF, the Proctor Institute, and with the Freedom Schools program, we seek to redefine theological education and faith leadership through the lens of the sacrality, the sacredness, of every child. With this lens, the ways we teach are different in terms of both content and pedagogy. Every year, Freedom Schools remind us of the giftedness of the scholars and it also keeps us keenly aware of the challenges and obstacles many children and their families face that often hinder children from living their fullest potential. We cannot not see what we’ve seen, heard and experienced from our engagement with Freedom School. So, it informs our liberative practice in the classroom and prioritizes our commitment to encourage our students to become justice-seeking leaders.

What role can Garrett-Evangelical play in preparing ministers, theologians, and theological educators for public theology and child advocacy?

We believe that we are already doing many things to prepare our students for public theology and child advocacy. In fact, several of our Proctor Institute colleagues have told us that they consider Garett-Evangelical to be a forerunner and leader in public theology.

We prepare persons through our courses including the travel course to the Proctor Institute; our degree programs, especially the new Master or Arts in Public Ministry (MAPM) with a track in Child Advocacy; and through our partnerships in the community including the Garrett-Evanston CDF Freedom Schools Program.

The post Blount and Lee Co-Edit New Book on Justice for Children and Youth appeared first on Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary.

Interview with Rev. Dr. Timothy Eberhart

There seems to be a lot happening at the seminary around ecological sustainability and justice. Why has Garrett-Evangelical made a commitment to the environment a priority?

At the most basic level, I’d say that a commitment to caring for creation is intimately connected to the central mark of Christian discipleship, which is loving God with one’s whole life and loving one’s neighbor as oneself. I don’t believe you can say you truly love God while neglecting God’s creation, while ignoring the mystery, beauty, and rich diversity of creaturely life and all that sustains life. To affirm with the scriptures that God is Creator necessarily calls for a basic reverence and respect for all that God has brought into being and called good. Similarly, we know that human life is sustained in and through intricate webs of soil, water, air, minerals, plants, animals, and more, and that to do harm to these interconnected webs is to do harm to human beings as well. And so, it also doesn’t make sense to say you love your neighbor, near or far, while undermining the very conditions upon which your neighbor’s life depends.

Of course, the hard truth is that we are living in an age of immense ecological degradation and injustice. Whether one looks at the realities of climate change, biodiversity loss, or environmental pollution in any number of forms, it’s clear that the capacity of the good earth to sustain life, human or otherwise, is profoundly threatened. And at the moment, it is those already suffering under the burdens of injustice and inequity who have been and are suffering the worst effects — the world’s poor from so-called under-developed nations and rural communities and those whose skin colors are darker hued, including indigenous peoples, women, children, and the elderly.

All of this has enormous implications for the shape of religious education and formation. What does it look like to lead worship and preach about divine will in communities impacted by unprecedented flooding, wildfires, or other disasters? How do you offer pastoral care and counseling to climate refugees? What is the meaning of hope, of repentance, of conversion, of doing justice amidst what some scientists are calling the sixth great extinction event? We think it would be irresponsible as a seminary not to be wrestling with such questions and not to be responding faithfully with resources from the Christian tradition.

Could you say more about the role of religious communities in relation to the broader environmental movement?

What’s interesting here is the growing number of those in the scientific community who are looking to the world’s religious traditions for moral leadership on issues of global environmental concern. It’s one thing to gather and interpret information about the state of the biosphere. It’s another to inspire people around a vision of the common good, to tap into deep motivations for personal and social change, and to mobilize communities for widespread collective action. And just to be clear — that is what we need to do, as quickly and effectively and on as large a scale as possible.

At the same time, those of us who are stewards of a particular religious tradition bear the responsibility of examining how we’ve contributed to the ecological crises we’re facing. For Christians, that means interrogating our most basic beliefs about God’s relationship to the world, about the meaning of salvation, about what it means to be created in the image of God, and about the nature of following Jesus and walking in the Spirit. There are many ways in which Christian beliefs have led people to turn away from the earth and to disregard the sacredness of this earthly life. But we’re also responsible for helping to emphasize the earth- affirming nature of the scriptures and Christian faith — for example, the divine pronouncement of the goodness of creation, the incarnation of God with us in the earthly body of Jesus, and the resurrection of Jesus as the first fruits of a new creation. This is the kind of theological work we’re doing in our new concentration in ecological regeneration.

Tell me about the concentration. What’s involved?

The concentration in ecological regeneration is available to students in several of our degree programs, including the new master of arts in public ministry. The curriculum is organized around a set of core courses in theology, ethics, and the practice of ministry. These courses include everything from engaging in the critical and constructive doctrinal work I was just describing to learning about regenerative practices like permaculture design to practicing methods of community organizing for environmental justice. Throughout the concentration, students are also making connections between addressing ecological degradation and confronting other forms of injustice like racism, poverty, and sexism. I believe this intersectional and integrative approach makes what we’re doing in the concentration unique in theological education today.

I also want to say something about the word “regeneration,” which is a term growing in significance in the environmental movement to describe concepts like regenerative agriculture, regenerative cultures, or regenerative economics. What’s being affirmed here is the need to move beyond the category of sustainability, and even resilience, to claim the importance of actively participating in the restorative healing of landscapes and watersheds and natural systems. Regeneration is also a theological term. In fact, it’s central to the Wesleyan-Methodist tradition and communicates the assurance that God is capable of bringing about new life and new possibilities even amidst the very worst of our sins that lead to death. We very much need that kind of radical hope today.

Finally, tell me about the Hope for Creation Fund.

The aim of the Hope for Creation Fund is to support the institutional structures needed to amplify the work we’ve begun in doing our part to heal God’s threatened creation, to raise up wise and effective leaders for regenerative ministry, and to ensure that Garrett- Evangelical continues to be a leader in the Chicago area, Midwest region, and around the world in faithfully responding to the fullness of the Gospel. We believe in the importance of this work, but we’re going to need everyone’s support. I would encourage everyone to go the seminary’s website — Garrett.edu/GoGreen — to learn more about the Hope for Creation Fund. In addition, I would welcome the opportunity to engage further with our readers about the seminary’s commitment to ecological sustainability and justice.

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How would you define public ministry?

I hesitate to respond with too narrow a definition. And I say that because I believe that public ministry, on the broadest level, is nothing more and nothing less than the common ministry of everyone who seeks to follow Jesus in the Spirit for the sake of the world God so loves. The scope of God’s loving-justice witnessed to in the scriptures isn’t confined to some set-apart private sphere, or just to the interior lives of individuals, or to religious practices narrowly understood. The redemptive work of God is ultimately universal in scope. In that sense, every Christian is called to ministry. All of the baptized are called and equipped by the Spirit to seek God’s justice—at home, in gathering together at church, in the marketplace, in civic life, in neighborhoods and communities, and as global citizens of our common planetary home.

We were very intentional in naming this a degree in public ministry and not one in social justice or public advocacy. We are a seminary of The United Methodist Church rooted in the ecumenical Christian faith. We are equipped to train and to form Christian leaders, and we have long done so in ways that have prepared ordained ministers to serve faithfully and with excellence for the sake of the public good. What we have not done as well, at the curricular level at least, is train and form lay leaders who feel called to live out their vocations in the public realm as a living expression of their Christian faith. So we were clear that this is a ministerial degree, but one that claims and affirms an expansive understanding of ministry for all Christians.

That leads me to my next question, which you’ve begun to answer. Why did Garrett-Evangelical decide to offer a master of arts in public ministry? What was the thinking behind creating this degree?

There are an increasing number of students applying to seminary who are clear they desire a theological education but who do not see themselves fitting into traditional forms of congregational ministry. They’re compelled by Jesus. They care deeply about the state of the world. Many have been shaped by their experiences in the church—some of those experiences being rich and meaningful, others more painful. But they desire to study the Bible more critically, to learn about Christian history in greater depth, to explore questions of spirituality in a community of learning, and to examine the pressing moral issues of our time—even if they’re still discerning where they will end up after graduation.

So how can we extend the many goods of a theological education to the whole church, so that all members of the church body and not just clergy have the opportunity to engage their faith through sustained refection and be equipped for the work of ministry in whatever form that might take? We very much hope that a large number of those who enroll in and graduate from this degree will be laity. And I think the implications of that are pretty exciting—for our churches, our seminary classrooms, and ultimately for the kind of impact they are going to have in the world.

Garrett-Evangelical has also been a leader for a long time in educating United Methodist deacons, those called to ordained ministries that connect the church with the needs of the world. We’ve structured this MA to meet the requirements for deacons, and I’m confident there will be many preparing for diaconal ministries who will find this a compelling degree program.

I also believe there will be some clergy, those who already have a theological education, who will be well served by this degree. Those already engaged in various forms of public ministry will also benefit those who would like to strengthen their capacities to make a difference in their communities. In that case, it’s possible they would be able to transfer in a set number of credit hours.

Why does Garrett-Evangelical think this degree is important and relevant in today’s world?

Public life today is marked by a host of very troubling trends. Some of these are more recent, and others have deep, even ancient, roots. We can name the more visible rise of white supremacist ideologies and racist groups. We can point to the mass incarceration of black, brown, and red peoples in this country. We can identify the obscene gap between the most wealthy and the very poor, the bottoming out of middle class wealth and middle class institutions oriented toward the common good, and the increasing number of those threatened by extreme poverty. Related to this are the growing threats to a democratic society and what the scientific community is telling us about the implications of climate change is terribly disconcerting. So how do we understand these trends, these dynamics that are impacting public life and that are being expressed in the public sphere? Are we able to make connections between them, identify patterns, and see how they reinforce one another? Mental health professions are tracking a rise in
depression and anxiety in the United States, as well as an increase in drug addictions, especially in impoverished communities. Surely, among the many factors involved, there’s a connection here to the feelings of vulnerability that so many are experiencing on so many different levels.

So, what does it mean to believe in the God of Jesus Christ at such a time as this? What is the meaning of Good News today, not just for individuals but for the world? And what role do people of faith have in understanding and addressing these issues in redemptive and transformative ways?

At the same time, there are many signs of hopeful resistance and creative responses emerging all around us. I very much believe that the various crises we are seeing present opportunities for transformative, and even radical, changes to our public institutions and our common life. Again, what role might Christians play in joining together with other faith traditions and with people of goodwill in building and wielding power through movements and organizing and direct service? Do Christians have unique resources and perspectives we might offer at this just time in our history? I believe we do. I know we do.

So one of the things I am most excited about in directing and teaching in this degree is bringing together students for whom racial justice is a primary moral concern with students oriented primarily around issues of climate change, and then others who bring expertise from their experiences in public health professions or the field of education, and then others committed to issues of economic justice who want to bring about change through public policy advocacy. And then exploring, together, the relevance and implications of our shared Christian faith in addressing these overlapping crises. The opportunities for mutual learning and transformation in and out of the classroom are going to make for a very rich educational experience. That is my hope, at least!

What does a degree in public ministry entail exactly? What are the requirements?

To earn the degree, students will be required to complete 56 credit hours, which they can finish in four full semesters over two years. Twenty-four of those hours will be in foundational courses alongside students in the master of divinity program and students from other MA degrees. Those courses are crucial in grounding students at a master’s level in the basics of theological refection, biblical interpretation, historical understanding, personal and contextual awareness, and the spiritual life. That also includes a required field education placement under the direction of a site supervisor and alongside peer group refection. From there, starting from their first semester in the degree, students will be taking 20 of those credit hours in a set of specific public ministry courses: eight of those hours spread out in three courses that all MAPM students will take together, and then 12 hours across four courses for an area concentration. The remaining 12 semester hours are elective hours that students can use to fill in with additional coursework in their area of concentration, to fulfill ordination requirements for deacons, or to take other courses of interest.

Why is the field education component so important?

One of the commitments of the program as a whole is to take seriously the contexts our students will be coming from as they enter the degree and the contexts they will be heading to upon graduation. We know our students bring experiences and expertise that can contribute to the classroom environment, and at the same time, we want to help facilitate critical refection upon where they come from, how they have been formed, and what they believe. The field education experience is crucial in this process because it provides an opportunity for students to be engaged in a form of public ministry while they are earning their degree. That allows for a certain level of experimentation. We want them to ask questions like: Do I like this kind of work? Am I good at it? What are others reflecting back to me? What do I need to learn to be a more effective leader in this environment? What are the challenges and the goods internal to this setting? By being paired with a site supervisor and a peer group for facilitated refection, our students are allowed to think through practical and career-oriented questions at the same time they are engaging at the level of critical theory, ethical analysis, and theological exploration. The great thing about being located in Chicagoland is just how many organizations, initiatives, centers, and movements there are in the region oriented toward social systems, social justice, and the public good. Our field education office works hard to find the right ft for students based upon their prior experiences and vocational interests.

You mentioned the concentrations – tell me about the available concentrations and what students need to do to earn one.

The concentration provides an opportunity for students to engage in a more sustained study of a certain set of public concerns and to be equipped for public ministry in a more specialized way. Right now, we are beginning with three concentration tracks: one in child advocacy, another in racial justice, and a third in ecological regeneration. We are launching with these three because of the growing interest of our students in these areas and our understanding of the importance of all three in the public realm today, but also because we have excellent faculty equipped to teach within and oversee these three tracks. It is also likely we will be adding new concentrations in time as we identify emerging interests and can organize the resources to support additional tracks.

I understand students can propose their own concentrations? How does that work?

Yes. A student can propose a concentration different than those three. It is conceivable that a student might want to focus a concentration around issues of immigration, for example, or homelessness, or economic justice. In that case, we would need to see if we could identify at least four appropriate course offerings either at the seminary, through another seminary or divinity school in the area, or perhaps through courses offered at Northwestern University. A student interested in exploring that option would meet with me, as the director of the program, and we would work together to see what might be possible. I cannot make any guarantees that we would always be successful, but I would hope we could be more often than not.

What kinds of careers would these students pursue?

We anticipate our graduates will pursue a variety of different career paths, and there will be many who continue on in their existing careers but desire the theological grounding to support and better equip them in what they’re already doing. Many may be people who lead nonprofit organizations, community organizers, and child or family service workers. We may have alums who are politicians or who work in government offices as staff members writing public policy. Others might contribute through think tanks. I could imagine there will be socially minded entrepreneurs who find ways to live out their faith through business models that benefit the common good. Still others might work at a more general level for the church, working on public advocacy and justice issues for their particular denomination or through ecumenical work. And I’m sure there will be careers that we haven’t even though of that our alums will pursue—or maybe even create!

One of the commitments I have in directing this degree is to find ways of staying connected with our alums in ways that support them in their public ministries but also in ways that impact the degree program in terms of what we teach, how we teach, what we can learn from their experiences, how we can build power together through their networks, and how current students can connect with their work.

Who will benefit from this degree?

Ultimately, I hope those who benefit from this degree will be the people and the places our graduates end up serving in public ministry. I hope vulnerable children benefit. I hope incarcerated populations benefit. I hope black neighborhoods and communities and individuals and institutions benefit. I hope poor rural communities struggling amidst drug addictions and high cancer rates benefit. I hope degraded landscapes and threatened wildlife and polluted waterways benefit. If we can look back in 20 years at the impacts our graduates of this degree have had in the public realm, and if we can point to specific lives and particular organizations and particular places that are flourishing because of their work, then we’ll know we’ve succeeded as a school through this degree program.

And that gets back to who we understand God to be and what God is doing in the world. This is a theological matter. Christians affirm that God so loves the world—the whole of it and every part. So to follow a call to serve in public ministry is to participate in God’s aim to heal the world— the whole of it and every part. And in that sense, I am very much looking forward to being wonderfully surprised at the unexpected benefits that might come about as a result of this degree.

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