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Bethel Seminary St. Paul

Community Ministry Leadership Certificate Program Details

Community Ministry Leadership

Gain practical skills with theological training while in ministry through convenient, intensive, and distance learning opportunities that include a group format to foster peer-learning and interaction.

Courses

The Community Ministry Leadership hybrid certificate program is offered in six courses.

Methods in Practical and Contextual Theology
Students learn how to think theologically about their work for personal and spiritual formation and to develop a theologically sound basis for Christian ministry. Benefits include:

  • a learning culture around faith and ministry issues;
  • practical and theological problem solving skills;
  • greater effectiveness implementing ministry projects; and
  • theologically sound leadership for spiritual growth.


Effective Ministry Planning and Development
Students learn protocols and tools to effectively address needs in Christian ministry and demonstrate impact. Benefits include:

  • skills in ministry development leadership;
  • effective ministry project planning;
  • ministries developed for impact;
  • identification of operational and ministry resource needs; and
  • improved stewardship of resources.


Compassionate Urban Ministry
Students learn how stressful life events and conditions lead to consequences and how to develop strategies for empowering those affected by such conditions. Benefits include:

  • strategies for family, youth, and children's ministry project development;
  • increased capacity to address basic human needs through ministry;
  • identification of age-appropriate ministry strategies for youth;
  • leadership skills for fostering a mission-focused pastoral response; and
  • greater skills developing community alliances and collaborations.


Street Culture, the Poor, and Urban Ministry
Students understand urban life and urban survival culture, and how to have greater impact working with the urban poor. Benefits include:

  • a theological perspective that informs urban ministry initiatives;
  • leadership readiness for urban ministry development;
  • identified strategies for developing successful ministries; and
  • increased ability to create a “culture of acceptance” for welcoming and nurturing the poor in a ministry context

Two-year Schedule

Two Year Structure

Faculty

Growing up in Detroit and later patrolling its streets as a law enforcement officer, Mark Harden, Ph.D., is intimately acquainted with the challenges of urban life. While serving as both an ordained pastor and policeman, Harden founded Streetwise and Detroit Love, Inc., two Christian outreach organizations dedicated to nurturing the potential of urban youth. Now on faculty at Bethel Seminary, he has developed the M.A. in Community Ministry Leadership program, which teaches a deep and proactive approach to ministry in the city. “It’s not just about feeding the poor. It’s about equipping seminary students to empower individuals and families through transformational ministry in the urban context,” Mark says. “Jesus met human needs as He traveled from city to city. Life experience ignited my passion for city ministry, but Jesus’ life and ministry are what fuel it.”