Uniqueness of the McCormick DMin

The McCormick DMin program addresses subjects relevant to ministry today — group dynamics, a changing religious landscape, cross-cultural competency, and organizational change – and provides opportunities for you to apply the course content to your local ministry.

• Culturally attentive: McCormick strives to provide cross-cultural education that equips religious leaders to serve an increasingly diverse U.S. landscape, and to attend to the cultural needs of students from a variety of racial or ethnic groups by providing theological education that meets their unique needs and the needs of their ministry.

• Contextual: One’s place of ministry is the focus of reflection and analysis, bringing academic inquiry to one’s professional setting. The thesis project is rooted in the student’s place of ministry, in partnership with the congregation or agency, and ordered toward the transformation of ministry in that setting. The program integrates theory and practice, values experiential knowledge, and provides theological education that addresses both the internal needs of congregations and the external needs of their broader communities.

• Peer-centered: Students enter the program in cohorts that continue to learn together throughout their time at McCormick, in a group-based educational environment that enables students to learn from one another’s experiences and backgrounds.
  
  Our current cohorts include:

  • Korean immigrant churches (Korean American cohorts)

  • Latinx ministries (Apostolic Assembly cohorts)

  • Professionals in ministries with a pastoral care emphasis (Pastoral Care cohorts)

  • Congregations that desire to take a more prophetic role in impacting positive change in their local neighborhoods and communities (Prophetic Leadership cohorts).

• Transformative: Students will naturally enter the program with different concerns for the development of their ministries. To answer those concerns, we offer electives with a range of focuses, including parish revitalization, pastoral care, building beloved communities, and public witness. Both core and non-core courses allow students to engage a critical challenge in their ministry through interdisciplinary research – sociological, organizational, psychological, political, economic, historical, theological, and biblical analyses. Through these focuses, we encourage adaptability to changing cultural contexts.

McCormick is accredited by the Association of Theological Schools of the United States and Canada.