Denver Seminary

Academic Catalog 2016-2017

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140 PS 1201 Navigating the Minefields of Ministry In this course, students are encouraged to engage in self-examination through dialogue with peers and class instructors in order to help see themselves and their ministries more clearly. Problems and challenges that are common to ministry are examined, as well as strategies that might help make leadership and ministry more sustainable and satisfying in the future. Three hours. PS 1202 Growing Healthy Congregations In this seminar, students ask and answer questions such as, what does it take to move from disease to health? What do healthy growing churches look like? How are they grown? How do they grow? Also considered is what healthy church growth looks like that includes both numerical and spiritual growth. Three hours. PS 1203 Marriage and Family Enrichment The objective of this seminar is to help students develop strong marriage and family ministries that are consistent with developmental and systemic principles, while being fully integrated with a biblical theology of marriage and family. Students learn to evaluate the individuals, couples, and families they work with to understand their existing strengths and identify growth areas. A major thesis is completed in which students analyze the church, organization, or ministry they work with and develop a contextualized program to strengthen families and marriages and build healthy relationships. A significant assignment in this course is for the student (and spouse if married) to attend a marriage enrichment event and complete a report on the experience. Group dynamics that may be encountered in such programs will also be studied, as well as evaluation and program effectiveness methods. Three hours. SF 1201 Soul Care and Spiritual Discernment This course examines how leading authorities such as Ignatius of Loyola, Wesley and Edwards intuited God's will by evaluating the soul's impulses in order to ascertain which are of God and which are of evil spirits as well as how they discriminated between options that were best and those that were merely good. This is then applied to the believer's choices in both life and ministry. Since humans are capable of self- deception and rationalization, the importance of the believing community in matters of discernment will also be explored. Three hours. SF 1202 Leadership in Community Spiritual Formation Students learn how to follow God's unique path to move into the kind of community that leads to mission in the world. This seminar emphasizes leading entire ecclesial communities in spiritual formation out of the leader's own formation while respecting where everyone is in their spiritual journey. Students learn how spiritual formation can become the means to move God's people to accomplish the ministry to which he is calling them. Three hours. SF 1203 Wisdom from the Spiritual Classics This seminar engages a sampling of the great spiritual writings from the church fathers to the present. Students read, for both devotional and critical purposes, selected classic works from Anthony to Augustine, Cassian to Calvin, Lawrence to Luther and others. Wisdom for authentic Christian discipleship and for congregational life is gained in finding present-day application for what is read. Three hours.

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