PSR Course Descriptions

The course is an excursion into various forms of organizational leadership in church and community. It includes prerequisites for leadership, defining leadership, and embodying leadership. The course lifts up the importance of the self and what leaders bring to leadership. It explores how people become leaders and the dynamics between leaders and the communities (organizations) they serve. Context is critical as well as theology or worldview. The course seeks to engage the soul of students. Why are they involved in leadership? What resolve attends to their visions, hopes, and paths? The course offers insights and strategies for an effective change of systems, structures, and self. It also holds forth alternative ways of organizing and being. Students will be introduced to ways of analyzing and implementing social change/transformation. Class pedagogy includes lectures, classroom discussions, small group discussions, and guest speakers from diverse social locations and ministry contexts who model leadership incarnating social change. An essential question is how do we create beloved community, a world that embraces all and works for all.

Transformational leadership entails a dynamic relationship between the leader and the community of which the leader is a part. It entails developing strategies that enhance the probability of achieving shared goals and visions. Essential to transformational leadership is the inspiration that lifts one from commonplace existence to living beyond the norm. In the quest for a more just and compassionate world, transformational leadership challenges dominant systems and other forms of oppression. This course will explore various expressions of transformational leadership, including those resulting from prophetic imagination and social entrepreneurship. Any student enrolled in a degree and/or certificate program at the Graduate Theological is eligible to enroll in this course.

Using interactive presentations, case studies, readings, thick descriptions, online tools, short writing assignments, and guest presentations from a variety of church leaders, this course surveys the history, polity, theological beliefs, and ethos of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), from its historical beginnings to its contemporary manifestations. Paying particular attention to the cultural context in which it emerged, we will examine the church’s roots. And focusing on the ongoing relationship between church and culture, we will examine how the church continues to develop and respond to social, ethical, and theological needs today. We will explore Disciples church governance and the ways congregational, regional, and general manifestations of the church function and relate to one another. And we will con-sider ways our Disciples history, polity, and theological commitments all contribute to the formation of a dynamic Disciples ethos that is expressed practically in the structure and development of church leadership, in the implementation of mission and service, and in performing important church rituals, including communion, baptism, baby dedications, weddings, and funerals.

*This course fulfills the Disciples history and polity requirement set forth by the Christian Church (DOC) Northern California-Nevada, Training & Care and Recognition & Standing committees.*
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We live in a world of day-to-day experience that is largely of our own making; technologies, buildings, products, institutions, services, brands, and experiences all clamor for our attention. Every one of them has been created by someone with intention, by design. The question we must ask is whether it was designed well, equitably, justly, beautifully, or not. Design thinking is a framework for skilled human-centered design practice that can be applied to any kind of artifact, including organizations, ventures, services, and products intended to drive positive social change. You will be introduced to design thinking, its origins and theoretical underpinnings, and the specific discipline known as design for social impact. You will learn by collaborating on a creative challenge drawn from your own experience. You will learn to see the world through a design lens and begin to explore a theological understanding of creative praxis as integral to spiritual formation. [Auditors excluded]

This course is a hands-on experiential learning journey designed to encourage, empower, and equip participants for congregational ministry and organizational leadership through the lens of social entrepreneurship. For congregational ministry, the course examines aspects of church administration. For organizational leadership, the course examines small non-profit management techniques. This course is intended for both emerging and established leaders and will help them to design, plan, and implement social business models as they advance their congregational and/or organizational mission and vision. The course has aspects of a startup incubator/accelerator, equipping students with the tools and frameworks to enable the adaptive strategic planning necessary for leading ventures. It follows the Design Thinking course, amplifies the social justice venture that students have talked about in that course, and brings in elements of the Field Praxis course. The final project of this course will contribute to the SAIL capstone to fulfill the requirements for the MAST degree. For United Methodist students, this course fulfills the requirements for the Evangelism course.

United Methodist History, Doctrine, and Polity I is the first of two courses intended to provide a broad overview of the theology, history, and governance structures of The United Methodist Church and its predecessor bodies. This course, in particular, focuses on the theological per-spectives of John Wesley and the 18th century Methodist Movement, which later came to be embodied in the Articles of Religion and the doctrinal standards of a global denomination. This course is required for M.Div. students seeking ordination in The United Methodist Church.

NOTE: All UMC Students MUST take this course in person on the PSR campus

United Methodist History, Doctrine, and Polity II is the second United Methodist Studies course and is intended to provide a broad overview of the theology, history, and governance structures of The United Methodist Church and its predecessor bodies. This course, in particular, focuses on the theological perspectives of the Methodist Movements that emerged in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which later came to be embodied in the Articles of Religion and the doctrinal standards of a multi-national denomination. This course is designed to fulfill one half of the credits required for United Methodist students seeking ordination in The United Methodist Church. The course will incorporate a mixture of lectures and small group discussions, and students will be evaluated through short papers, a presentation, and a notebook project.

This course offers an opportunity to deepen spiritual life in personal, interpersonal, communal, and cosmic dimensions. It will focus on engaging contemplative practices from across the inter-spiritual tradition as well as study the teachings of mystics, privileging those who lived engaged in the pursuit of collective justice. Participants will have a chance to explore the nature of spiritual formation while discerning which practices, resources, and attitudes are appropriate for sustaining vitality, rootedness, and creativity in their personal life, faith, leadership, academic, and social justice work.