An advanced professional degree for experienced, spiritually rooted leaders and practitioners
Doctor of Ministry (DMin)
The Doctor of Ministry (DMin) is a 30-unit advanced professional degree designed for experienced leaders interested in the intersections of religion and progressive social change. Final project areas include but are not limited to: LGBTQ+ activism, prison chaplaincy, modern ministry practice and outreach, and areas where faith meets the public square.
The program offers an enriched cohort learning environment, where every student journeys with a mentoring community comprised of their advisor, faculty, and cohort colleagues.
This cohort model provides a structure where students can be in partnership with others in different contexts, hone their critical and creative skills, sharpen their communication and research skills and support each other academically and spiritually.
Students can finish within two years attending full time or take up to six years to complete the DMin degree which includes the completion of a final project. Students have the choice of writing a dissertation, completing a film, or producing a capstone portfolio as their final project.
The DMin is designed as a distance learning program that permits professionals to live and work anywhere while they study.
The Doctor of Ministry (DMin) is an advanced professional degree designed for experienced leaders interested in evolving their practice in progressive social change, LGBTQ+ issues, disciplines of performative practice, congregational leadership and chaplaincy.
The program offers an enriched cohort learning environment, where every student journeys with a mentoring community comprised of their advisor, faculty, and cohort colleagues.
The cohort model provides a structure where students can be in partnership with others in different contexts of professional praxis, hone their critical and creative skills, sharpen their communication and research skills and support each other academically and spiritually.
Students can finish as quickly as 25 months or take up to six years to complete the DMin degree which includes the completion of a thesis or final project.
The DMin is designed as a distance learning program that permits professionals to live and work anywhere while they study.
Designed for
Experienced church or spiritually rooted cultural leaders looking to make a real-world impact along with a cohort of peers and faculty mentors from diverse backgrounds.
Designed for
Experienced church or spiritually rooted cultural leaders looking to deepen their understanding of critical issues facing their leadership and make a real-world impact on issues that matter to them.
Learning Outcomes
- Demonstrate critical, creative, and constructive engagement with practical disciplines, texts, traditions, social systems, and political structures.
- Apply contextually based approaches to social issues and the development of self-reflective leadership skills that are effective in the student’s particular spiritual leadership context. The student can present some evidence of social change in that context as a result of the project.
- Demonstrate partnership with people in other professional leadership settings, such as: the knowledge of theological thinkers and schools of thought from contexts other than their own; work done ecumenically, in an inter-faith relationship; work across lines of culture; and/or work in partnership with community organizations to address systemic oppression and work for the common good.
- Communicate a sense of direction for a professional leadership setting, using appropriate media.
- Produce and communicate new knowledge about a selected issue and discipline in the context of praxis.
- Give evidence of a self-reflective and engaged spirituality that can critically engage social location and personal experience. These outcomes are demonstrated through clearly articulated projects that locates the student in their own social context and supplies concrete expressions of their spirituality foundations and leadership applications.
- Integrate new understanding and competencies into a spiritually coherent analysis of a specific praxis issue as evinced in well-formulated descriptions of new advances achieved and the actions required to manifest them in practice.
Learning Outcomes
- Demonstrate critical, creative, and constructive engagement with practical disciplines, texts, traditions, social systems, and political structures.
- Apply contextually based approaches to social issues and the development of self-reflective leadership skills that are effective in the student’s particular spiritual leadership context. The student can present some evidence of social change in that context as a result of the project.
- Demonstrate partnership with people in other professional leadership settings, such as: the knowledge of theological thinkers and schools of thought from contexts other than their own; work done ecumenically, in an inter-faith relationship; work across lines of culture; and/or work in partnership with community organizations to address systemic oppression and work for the common good.
- Communicate a sense of direction for a professional leadership setting, using appropriate media.
- Produce and communicate new knowledge about a selected issue and discipline in the context of praxis.
- Give evidence of a self-reflective and engaged spirituality that can critically engage social location and personal experience. These outcomes are demonstrated through clearly articulated projects that locates the student in their own social context and supplies concrete expressions of their spirituality foundations and leadership applications.
- Integrate new understanding and competencies into a spiritually coherent analysis of a specific praxis issue as evinced in well-formulated descriptions of new advances achieved and the actions required to manifest them in practice.
Professional Opportunities
The DMin prepares students for advanced leadership within their professional context, to launch new ventures, and to have a measurable impact on issues they care about.
Professional Opportunities
The DMin prepares students for advanced leadership within their professional context to launch new ventures and to have tangible impact on issues they care about.Next Steps
Financial Aid (FAFSA code: G01256)
Admissions Requirements
- Complete an application for Admission – for directions refer to our ‘How to Apply’ page
- Submit transcripts from an accredited Masters of Divinity degree with a 3.0 GPA
- Provide three references (academic, professional and spiritual)
- Show record of significant ministry experience (CV/resume & admissions interview)
Students without an accredited Master of Divinity degree may be admitted provided they are able to demonstrate the following:
- The ability to thoughtfully interpret scripture and the theological tradition of one’s ministry context
- The capacity to understand and adapt one’s ministry to the cultural context
- A basic self-understanding of one’s ministerial identity and vocational calling
- A readiness to engage in ongoing personal and spiritual formation for one’s ministry
- An accredited master’s degree (or its educational equivalent) in an area related to one’s ministry setting or vocational calling
- Significant ministerial experience that enables the applicant to engage as a ministry peer with other students in this advanced professional doctorate.
The requirements above are evaluated through our online application, personal statement, and interview with the director of the DMin program. Supplemental materials may be requested as needed.
For further program details, refer to the Academic Catalog.
Next Steps
Student’s without accredited Master of Divinity degrees may be admitted provided they are able to demonstrate the following:
- The ability to thoughtfully interpret scripture and the theological tradition of one’s ministry context
- The capacity to understand and adapt one’s ministry to the cultural context
- A basic self-understanding of one’s ministerial identity and vocational calling
- A readiness to engage in ongoing personal and spiritual formation for one’s ministry
- An accredited master’s degree (or its educational equivalent) in an area related to one’s ministry setting or vocational calling
- Significant ministerial experience that enables the applicant to engage as a ministry peer with other students in this advanced professional doctorate.
The requirements above are evaluated through our online application, personal statement, and interview with the director of the DMin program. Supplemental materials may be requested as needed.
For further program details, refer to the academic catalog.
Sample Course Progression
The following curriculum route is an example of the DMin course of study with a Fall semester entry date. Students can also enter in Intersession or Spring semesters but the course progression would be slightly different. Contact the admissions team with any questions: admissions@psr.edu.
Fall Semester 1
Elective 3 units
Cohort Conversations .5 units
Intersession 1
DMin Seminar 3 units
Spring Semester 1
Elective 3 units
Cohort Conversations .5 units
Fall Semester 2
Elective 3 units
Elective 3 units
Cohort Conversations .5 units
Intersession 2
DMin Continuing Seminar 1.5 units
Spring Semester 2
Final Project 3 units
Cohort Conversations .5 units
Fall Semester 3
Final Project 3 units
Cohort Conversations .5 units
Intersession 3
Dmin Continuing Seminar 1.5 units
Spring Semester 3
Final Project 3 units [Defend at end of term]
Cohort Conversations .5 units
2023 Doctor of Ministry Dissertations
- Patrisha Gill, Wade in the Water: A Theology of Radical Resistance in the Negro Spirituals
- Arielle C. Huettner, A New Role of Spirituality and Pastoral Counseling in Youth Suicide Prevention
- Elena Larssen, The Pandemic Pivot: Lessons We Learned that Will Lead Us Forward
- Elizabeth Smith Leavitt, Worship on the Threshold: Ministry with and for Religious Nones
- Safue Logo Ulufaleilupe, The Next Generation of the Samoan Church
2022 Doctor of Ministry Dissertations
- David Brown, Kairos and Attention Epistemology: Socioeconomics, Neuroscience, and Spirituality
- Darnell L. Ishmel, Salvo the Subterranean: Black Political Theology as Catalyst for Outreach, Missions, and Ministry to the Most Marginalized Men
- Lauren Jones Mayfield, Reclaiming Dignity, Accepting Love Finding Freedom: Highland Baptist Church (Louisville, KY) Discovering a Path Toward Reparations
- Evelyn Irene Vigil, Spiritual Care with Medical Aid in Dying: Theological, Ethical, and Pastoral Considerations
2021 Doctor of Ministry Dissertations
- Martin Todd Allen, The Ecotheological Network
- Monica Joy Cross, Radically Inclusive Hospitality in Transitional Care Programs
- Fepuari K. Logoleo, Le Atua Tautai E Laulau Sasa’a Lona Faiva: Theology of Blessing
- Simi Eselu Lagai Mauga, Tofā Felafoa’i: Pastoral Care and Counseling in the Samoan Context
- Ebrahim Shabudin, Leading with Conviction and Virtue – Introspect The Leader Within Us
- Rev. Megan Lee Osborn Snell, Mental Health and Christianity
2020 Doctor of Ministry Dissertations
- Ryan Campbell, Trying to Catch a Cloud and Pin It Down: Reframing Pediatric Spiritual Care Assessment in a Clinical Setting
- John Offor, Mmeko Omenala na Uka: Inculturation of Postcolonial Igbo Liturgy
2019 Doctor of Ministry Dissertations
- Daniel Schlorff, #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter, and Other Consequences of Toxic Masculinity: Activating the Archetypal Powers of a Mature Masculine
- Robin Tanner, Chattel Theology: Liberating Protestant American Ecclesiology from Chattel Slavery and Free-Market Capitalism
- Bilal Ansari, Shepherding as Islamic Pastoral Theology: Case Studies in American Muslim Chaplaincy
- Robert J. McGrath, Issues of Pastoral Compensation: Doing Good While Making Do
- Don Morrow, Resurrection People in a Crucifixion Economy: Proclaiming Biblical Economic Justice in the Shadow of the Walmart Empire
- Marcia Ledford, Christian Progressive Political Theology: An Example of Acting on the Word in Immigration Reform
2018 Doctor of Ministry Dissertations
- Julia Dowd, Gathering the Graces: Women, the Spiritual Exercises, and Jesuit Education
2017 Doctor of Ministry Dissertations
- Makoto Kondo, The New Possibility of Mission in Japan
- Shannon Spencer, The Asheville Poverty Project
- Roger Jones, From a Culture of Conflict to a Renewal of Covenant: A History of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento
2016 Doctor of Ministry Dissertations
- Andy Burnette, Unitarian Universalism and the Working Class: Widening the Welcome
- Fred Grewe, The Soul’s Legacy: Discerning Your Life’s Meaning and Passing It on to Your Loved Ones
- George R. Martzen, A Place for the Stranger: Worship as the Spiritual Practice of Hospitality
- Megan Rohrer, Solo Gratia: An Analysis of the Faith and Faith Experience of Central City Pastors and LGBTQ+ Homeless and Hungry Individuals Living in San Francisco
- Roland Stringfellow, Liberating Religious Liberty