Risking Faithfully: Disruption as Revelation and Resurrection

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“You are made by the struggles you choose.” - C.T. Vivian

The world and the church will never be the same. What an exhilarating time to be a follower of Jesus Christ! Religiosity, white supremacy, and institutionalism leave us unprepared and struggling amid the challenges. Yet, God is at work within this disruption and deconstruction.

Disruptive pedagogy builds our capacity to boldly and courageously reimagine and join God’s new creation of Church and world.

JOIN THE NEXT RISKING FAITHFULLY COHORT

In partnership with The Ministry Collaborative, in the cohort:

  • whiteness will be decentralized;
  • capacity for risk will be nurtured;
  • assumed systems will be challenged;
  • paradigms will shift;
  • wisdom from the margins will be prized;
  • care of self and community will ground us; and
  • creative disillusionment will inspire us.

This is more than a degree program. Together, this cohort will form fugitive space, welcoming radical re-imagination of church and world.

LEARNING IN COMMUNITY

The purpose of the Risking Faithfully Focus in the Doctor of Ministry Program is to provide individuals engaged in ministry an opportunity to explore challenges and questions that they face in their contexts and to bring those questions into conversation with colleagues, professors, scholarly resources, and new questions and paradigms.

Offered in partnership with The Ministry Collaborative, this cohort will seek to form a deep learning community. In addition to the hybrid class format, a facilitator will lead students in group formation, spiritual practice, and honest conversation about the operations of whiteness and the false scripts and paradigms that result.

Risking Faithfully
DMin Risking Faithfully cohort student Steve Hong enjoys being a part of the program and taking time to reflect and learn more about himself and who he is called to be as a pastor.

The Risking Faithfully cohort brings together perspectives from those working directly with pastoral leaders through mentorship, coaching, and programming, and those working in contexts of formal theological education. This partnership has allowed us to create a program that focuses on adaptability and capacities for ministry in unique and exciting ways.

The Rev. Dr. Leanna Fuller, Joan Marshall Associate Professor of Pastoral Care, PTS

WHAT ARE THE COURSES LIKE?

Each course will:

  • Engage students in biblical and theological reflection.
  • Challenge students to be attentive to the material and embodied life of faith.
  • Attend to how the subject matter of the course is shaped by culture and context and takes diverse expressions.
  • Expect students to engage their theological imaginations to better understand ministry in their specific settings and risk imagining new possibilities in their ministries.
  • Provide opportunity for students to relate the subject matter of the course to their own ministry contexts.

During the program, students will take the following courses:

  • Rock Not Sand: Deconstructing the False Narratives that Bind Us While Welcoming Creative Disillusionment
  • Asking Questions Well: Method as a Means of Research, Imagination, and Vision
  • Apocalypse Now: Implosion as Gift
  • Death and Resurrection as Core Practices of the Church
  • Not Your White Jesus: De-centering Whiteness and Nurturing an Anti-racist Community as Christian Formation
  • Workshop Week: Innovation and Risk in Worship and Preaching
  • Humble Pie: Getting Real About Gifts and Systems
  • Wholehearted, Agile Leadership: What Does a Nimble, Accountable, Resilient Community Look and Feel Like?
  • Going Deep: Building Spiritual and Emotional Capacity in Self and Community, Parts I & II

Listen to Learn More

Doing it Different

In Episodes 8a and 8b of the Seminary's D.Min. Doing it Different podcast, Father Jemonde Taylor and students in the class he taught in the Parish Risking Faithfully cohort at PTS discuss the relationship between worship, liturgy, and justice, images of light and darkness, the projects they created for their class, and the ways liturgy may form and deform us. The Revs. Diane Knauf, John Callaway, and Karl Brower participate in the discussion with Father Taylor and the Rev. Porsha Williams Gates. Listen to Episode 8a and Episode 8b. 

In the next episode, Porsha Williams Gates discusses a grant to the Metro-Urban Institute by the Henry Luce Foundation to respond to the effects of COVID-19 on Black and Latinx communities. The Rev. Dr. Deirdre Hainsworth and the Rev. Dr. John Welch '02 discuss their work on the grant, what they have learned from the communities they have worked with, the value of this work to the seminary, and the documentary sharing stories of systemic racism and the resilience of communities that is being produced through the grant. Listen to Episode 9. 

aij Podcast

Additionally, listen in as Cohort Facilitator Jennifer Watley Maxell, instructor Ben Johnston-Krase, and Faculty Mentor Leanna Fuller discuss the Risking Faithfully D.Min. focus on this aij podcast, featuring conversations and performances at the intersection of art, inspiration, and justice.

Risking Faithfully: A Round Table Conversation, Part One

Risking Faithfully: A Round Table Conversation, Part Two

Porshanality Media

And in this Porshanality Media podcast, Cohort Facilitator Jennifer Watley Maxell and Faculty Mentor Dr. Leanna Fuller continue the conversation about Risking Faithfully. Listen in. 

LEARN MORE ABOUT PITTSBURGH SEMINARY’S D.MIN. PROGRAM

Connect with the Doctor of Ministry Office to learn more about our next Risking Faithfully cohort. We'd love to have you join us!  Apply now to reserve your space in a future focus. Financial aid and scholarships are available for those who qualify.

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