This course aims to develop skills, tools, and theoretical/reflective capacity for engaging in neighborhood and community ministries from a holistic and theologically-grounded community organizing lens. The course will draw on case studies and center the role of theological reflection, spiritual practices and formation, and the Episcopal tradition as essential aspects of a faith-rooted community organizing approach to organizing in congregational and other ministerial contexts.
By the end of this class, students will begin to
- think about community-based ministry from an interdisciplinary perspective, combining theological, scriptural, and pastoral views with social analysis;
- begin exploring and practicing relational community organizing tools and approaches in a diversity of congregational and other ministerial contexts; and
- integrate course-based learning with the praxis of ministry and other experiences/contexts outside of the classroom, including ministerial identity in the Anglican/Episcopal tradition(s).
Instructor: Professor García is an Episcopal priest with more than ten years of parish ministry experience and more than twenty as an organizer, educator, and leader in community, labor, faith, and academic settings. He is a PhD candidate in theological studies with a minor in ethics and action at Vanderbilt University. His doctoral project involves the development of grassroots, social movement-oriented ecclesiologies outside of formal church structures, through an exploration of faith practices among Latine/immigrant workers organizing in their workplaces and communities. Professor García taught the Systematic Theology and Moral Theology courses for the M.Div. program this Fall and has taught the courses Theology and Ethics: Liberation Perspectives and Praxis as well as Theology and Justice at the Intersections: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality in our CALL program.