Emerging Curriculum

Greetings all, I am the "new kid" on the Emergent Nazarenes block and wanted to gather your thoughts on a current project if you are interested. Most of you know Nazarene Theological Seminary has been involved in conversations over Emergent/Missional ministry in the last couple of years. We began in conversations with people both involved at the national level and with local leaders around Kansas City (Nazarene and non-Nazarene). Some of the "fruits" of the preliminary conversations you are probably aware of through our school's conferences last year and an offshoot conference scheduled next fall on PostModern Youth Ministry co-sponsored by NYI, MNU, NTS and Youthfront. This summer's efforts included two classes on Missional Leadership & Discipleship (taught by myself and Mike King of Youthfront/Jacob's Well) and Readings in Emergent Theology (taught by Ron Benefiel) In the future efforts will include serving as a co-sponsor to Brian McClaren's new venture on Deep Change as well as future events of our own. I offer this in part just to say that ongoing work is continuing that seeks to take seriously your efforts and the efforts of others in this movement, not to "market" our classes (besides, they are already wrapping up).

Part of our strategy has included a new "concentration" on Missional Leadership & Discipleship (which we see as a part of the Emerging Movement). This concentration is 15 hours and collaboratively overseen by the MA in Christian Education and the MA in Intercultural Studies. As a concentration, the course of study still exists "within" degree programs, not as a separate certificate or diploma program... but we might change that. One reason for keeping it a concentration was to allow flexibility of coursework so we can permit the best set of coursework to surface (rather than coming up with requirements in advance). To date we have some pretty good resources locally helping us (Tim Keel from Jacob's Well will teach a class on preaching next spring; Mike King is involved with a number of conversations that involve people like Tony Jones, Doug Padgit, etc.) and we are now part of a larger theological education project hosted by Allelon that includes over twenty seminaries reconceptualizing theological education for missional ministry a postmodern world. http://www.allelon.org/projects/schools.cfm

I would also appreciate your input. Right now I am looking for suggestions on coursework for the new concentration. As I said, we have no required classes in the 15-hour (five-course) concentration to allow for flexibility and to allow the concentration to develop. What I hope we will have are probably two "tiers" of classes. Some classes will be helpful but not central to the concentration (more than elective courses but more supplemental in helping a student nuance what they want to do in an emerging/missional ministry). A class in Postmodern youth ministry might be an example. Other classes will be "exemplar" classes, (not a required or "foundation" class but a course closer to the center to the overall task of missional ministry in an emerging/postmodern culture). The class on Missional Leadership & Discipleship might become an example. Eventually I hope to advise students that six of the fifteen hours should be exemplar courses, hopefully from a list of such courses, while the other nine hours should also be classes that are helpful in postmodern ministry. I hope this allows maximum creativity and yet preserves the task of keeping the concentration dedicated to emerging/missional ministry.

Enough of sounding like an educator (yeah, that is what I am). I would like your recommendations of specific courses or general coursework you think might be helpful in the concentration. You can describe the class and, if you feel like it, recommend it as either a helpful or exemplar course from your perspective. I would like input on what you think the concentration should include. Right now we have identified about ten classes (some regular courses and others offered as electives here at NTS) that fit the concentration but I do not want to limit this to what we have in place. What would you recommend?



Dean Blevins