This course begins the Doctor of Ministry in Spiritual Formation and Leadership by rooting the field within the overarching metanarrative of the Bible.  As a result of this course, students will be able to articulate a biblical theology of spiritual formation from the Torah, the Historical Books, the Prophets, the Poetic Literature, the Gospels, the New Testament Letters, and the Apocalyptic Books, respectively.  The practical emphases of the course include preaching for personal and corporate transformation and programmatic discipleship / congregational formation. 

This course examines the dynamic intersections between culture and spiritual formation. Through interaction with key historical movements of the church, emphasis is given to the spectrum of Christian responses to culture and how those responses drive variegated approaches to spiritual formation. 

This course leads students into an exploration of the diverse thematics in Christian theology, varied theological perspectives across the contemporary church, and the intersections between theology and spiritual formation. Special focus will be given to the theological imagination as a resource for spiritual formation and how the doing of theology is itself a spiritually formational act.

A survey of Christian theology’s most basic truth-claims by an examination of Reformation primary source texts which explicate the gospel of grace. Special attention is given to the spiritually formative significance of the doctrines of trinity, incarnation, and atonement. Special attention is paid to Reformed, Lutheran, and Anglican catechisms as well as modern theological debates (such as the New Perspective on Paul) that highlight various approaches to gospel preaching. Application is made from the Reformation gospel of grace to a spiritually formative approach to perennial questions of suffering, evil, and theodicy. Psychological trauma is used as a special and urgent contemporary test-case to expedite this analysis. The problem and origin of evil is explored, and the merits of various approaches to theodicy are assessed according to basic criteria of the Reformation gospel, such as the goodness and power of God in Jesus Christ, the goodness and telos of the created order, and the person and work of Jesus Christ against the absurd forces of evil. Pastoral implications are drawn for spiritual formative dispositions toward the aftermath of violence in light of the gospel of the triune God of grace.

This course charts the history of spiritual formation expressing itself in the context of contemporary Western/American evangelicalism.  This course begins with a broad survey of pre-modern, to modern, to postmodern spirituality, focusing attention on the First Great Awakening until today.  Special emphasis will be on the twentieth century and the recent shift toward postmodern understandings of life.  Practical application will be focused on developing a personal and church Rule of Life, or Soul Health Plan, recognizing the tension between Catholic and Protestant paradigms of spiritual formation, modern discipleship vs. pre-modern apprenticeship, and exploring spiritual formation within a variety of contemporary evangelical frameworks.