Equipping church leaders for ministry in Southern California and beyond
NTSW joins with New York Theological Seminary to offer the Doctor of Ministry (DMin), an advanced professional degree appropriate for clergy and lay leaders with significant ministry experience who desire to deepen and improve their ministries through a disciplined and integrative process of action, reflection, and research. The primary objective is to develop professional competencies, critical skills for reflection on ministry, the capacity for focused advanced theological research and interpretation, and appropriate interpersonal skills for service in specific, constituency-based contexts. The program places considerable emphasis upon developing effective ministries of personal and social transformation in the context of a multicultural, globalizing, and urbanizing world.
The NTSW Master of Divinity (MDiv) is a 72-credit graduate degree designed for women and men who are already serving full-time in ministry, who are bi-vocational, or who are contemplating a shift from a secular to a religious vocation. The MDiv is the standard graduate degree for professional ministry in the United States and Canada. It is designed to provide exposure in considerable depth to the broader range of theological disciplines (biblical studies, history, theology, ethics, sociology of religion, and the arts of ministry) in a manner that integrates theory and practice, or reflection and action.
The M.A.C.P. offers the opportunity to enhance your gifts for ministry as you participate in your local faith community and in secular businesses or organizations. The strength of this 36-unit degree is our faculty who teach from their daily involvement as parish pastors, hospital chaplains, campus ministers, and other expressions of ministry. These faculty are therefore experienced in integrating theory and practice in the classroom. As you join fellow students in small interactive classes, personal attention is offered to each student both in advising and in the classroom.
We are pastors, church leaders, teachers, and theologians who are excited to be part of a new way of doing seminary – serving and building up the body of Christ by offering a theological educational resource in Southern California that can provide support for Master of Divinity students, lay leader education, continuing education to pastors, programming for churches, and independent study options.
We provide education at the heart of local congregations, where ministries are born.
What factors contribute to the growth of faith in persons? How do we nurture faith and discipleship in children, teens and adults? How is our theology lived out in our practices of nurture, education and discipleship? In what ways does cultural context affect faith formation? We will reflect on our own practices as we explore these questions, drawing on the fields of practical theology, psychology, educational methodology and sociology.
“Two of the great hungers in our world today are the hunger for spirituality and the hunger for social justice. The connection between the two is one the world is waiting for.” This class aims to address that very connection. Although a meaningful spiritual life and social justice are both significant topics for the church and society today, few explore the crucial link between the two. Yet this link is where lives can be transformed.
Paul’s Letter to the Romans is his most complete theological statement. He deals with the universality of sin, the necessity of salvation, the importance of faith, the role of the Holy Spirit, the relationship of Jew and Gentile and other practical issues.
We will study the letter in its cultural and socioeconomic context, and historical context. Our purpose will be to examine the text and consider how its message applies today.
