Master of Divinity Aims of the Program
• Integrate personal experience with the history
and theology of the Christian Church in a way that clarifies call. • Interpret particular ministry contexts. • Respond to the challenges and opportunities of the contemporary Church, the world, and creation by engaging biblical, historical, doctrinal, and practical theological resources. • Interpret God’s changing world and respond with imagination and resilience.
THE MASTER OF DIVINITY DEGREE IS OFFERED AS A FIRST-LEVEL MASTER'S THEOLOGICAL DEGREE FOR THOSE WHO SEEK TO SERVE AS PASTORS, PROPHETS, EVANGELISTS, TEACHERS, AND OTHER LEADERS OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST
The curriculum offered to MDiv students emerges from the seminary’s identity as a community of memory and hope.
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Claiming memory, the seminary finds its identity as part of the people of God stretching back thousands of years. Resting in that identity, it leads students to a fresh and critical appropriation of the Christian tradition for themselves and for the sake of those to and with whom they minister.
These are the student learning outcomes for the Master of Divinity degree program.
Length of Program
The MDiv curriculum is designed so that a full-time student can complete the requirements for the degree in three full years and is comprised of 90 Claiming hope, Columbia finds its identity in the semester hour credits. A student’s program may be promises of God, in the world that God will bring lengthened by a variety of factors, including about, and in the opportunities still ahead for the work of the Church in the midst of the work of God. participation in internships or taking a reduced load in any given semester. All students must complete their work within six years from the date of In all this, the MDiv curriculum draws upon the matriculation. rich resources of the Church’s memory to nurture students’ hope and engage their imaginations for mission in the Church and world. Advising In theological education, students integrate their The Christian ministry needs persons who are studies with their own lives. Faculty members aid possessed with a deep, informed, and personal faith this process of integration by serving as advisers, and who are equipped with skills and imagination to assisting students in their course selections each lead the people of God in acts of compassion, term. As a result of conversations with their proclamation, praise, confession, celebration, justice, advisers, students make course selections that take reconciliation, and healing. Teaching and learning at into account areas of past experience, identified Columbia equip and form the people who equip the interests and weaknesses, and the assessments saints to engage in the work of ministry. of teachers and ministry supervisors. Early in the first year of studies, students undergo an individual ONCE A STUDENT HAS COMPLETED THE DEGREE supervised ministry assessment with the director of PROGRAM, THE STUDENT IS EXPECTED TO BE ABLE TO: contextual education who makes a recommendation • Provide effective leadership in corporate worship to the student about ways to optimize the student’s contextual education experience while at CTS. and the public arena. 7
