The Graduate Certificate in Adaptive and Innovative Ministry forms innovating leaders who listen to the Holy Spirit and to their communities, who convene and lead teams in discerning God’s work, and who maintain individual and community practices to renew their souls enabling deeper discernment in their own life and their community’s life and calling.
Accompanied by a cohort learning community and coached by experienced missional leaders, students in the Graduate Certificate in Adaptive and Innoative Minstry learn from both academics and practitioners. Through five hybrid courses, concurrent fieldwork, a coaching relationship, and an integrative capstone project, students complete 12 semester (18 term) hours of coursework for this certificate.
Classes begin in June and intensives take place over the course of 15 months, including completion and presentation of students’ final capstone project. Our hybrid online and intensive classes allow leaders to set apart time to grow in missional and intellectual formation while staying rooted in their context. Applications are now being accepted!
Please note: the Graduate Certificate in Adaptive and Innovative Ministry was previously known as the Graduate Certificate in Church Planting and Revitalization.
How Does the Certificate Program Work?
This adaptive and innovative ministry certificate program is designed for practitioners who are actively engaged in (or contemplating the launch of) a new worshiping community or serving a church undergoing transformation. The program forms and equips non-ordained leaders as well as ordained pastors who sense a calling to revitalizing community anchor churches or planting contextually-based church communities.
Because the work we are called to as the church is widely varied, this program is designed for leaders with a variety of educational backgrounds: Applicants with bachelor’s degrees will find the certificate provides specialized theological education and formation in an accessible format that will enrich their ministries and serve as an entry-point to a master’s degree program should they seek it. Pastors who already have master’s degrees in divinity, theology, or others will find that the certificate offers a distinctly integrative and missional approach to continued formation.
Through five hybrid courses, concurrent field work, a coaching relationship, and an integrative capstone project, students must complete 18 term hours of accredited, graduate level coursework for this certificate. The adaptive and innovative certificate program begins in June and on-campus intensives take place quarterly for 15 months, including completion and presentation of the students’ capstone projects.
Students who successfully complete the Adaptive and Innovative Certificate will be granted 12 semester hours of credits (equivalent to 18 term hours) that can be applied to the master of divinity, master of pastoral studies, or master of theological studies degrees. This advanced standing will count toward the required CS 110 Contextual Analysis and MI 210 Missional Leadership courses and two additional elective credits in the master’s program.
Application Instructions
For non-degree students, the admissions process for this graduate certificate follows normal admissions procedures, with the applicant’s personal statement taking the form of a brief essay describing the applicant’s current ministry context and articulating the applicant’s sense of call to participate in church revitalization or the formation of new Christian communities. Our next cohort will be launching in June 2023, and we are accepting applications now.