For 9 days in September, I was at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, with 8 other Doctor of Ministry students beginning a journey together. The cohort of students was comprised of people from BC, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and even Tanzania. There are Lutherans, Anglicans, United Church and Evangelical folks. 

As I have been already talking and writing about the program, I still had a lot to learn and understand myself. For instance, what is a Doctor of Ministry in Contextual and Practical Theology all about?

Well, now I can say that I have a much better sense of what this program of study will actually entail. And that is to become a Practical Theologian. Practical Theology is a relatively new field of study – only 150 years old! Compared to Systematic Theology or Biblical Studies, which can trace their roots back to the early days of Christianity, Practical Theology is just coming onto the scene as a formal discipline.

And yet, it really isn’t new. Theologians, clergy and even ordinary people of faith have been taking insights from Scripture and the Tradition of the Church and bringing them into conversation with the lived practices of everyday faith. Reflection on how what we believe and confess to be true and how that impacts the things we do in faithful community – and vice versa – has always been something that is happening among congregations and faith communities. 

As Lutherans, we have a strong example of a practical and contextual theologian in Martin Luther. So much of what he wrote and did was about bringing his understanding of scripture and the theology of the church into conversations about how the church of his day practiced the sale of indulgences (tickets to heaven), how the mass or Holy Communion was celebrated and observed, who could read the bible, how faith was passed on and so much more. 

Modern Practical Theology goes a little further using the tools and methods of the social sciences to do research that provides qualitative data. Surveys, focus groups, interviews, asset mapping, appreciative inquiry, and more generate data about the practices of real-life communities. It is a way to bring theological reflection into the real and ordinary things that we do in our faith community. 

What does this mean for the research I will be doing? Well, Practical Theologians do their research not to or on, but with the community. So I will be doing aspects of my research together with my congregation and folks in our area, with the goal that reflection and new understandings will bring about real transformation. 

There is a part of me that is nervous about this. What might happen if we intentionally seek transformation through learning and reflecting together? I don’t know… and that is the point.

Because I am also very excited… for what we might discover and how that might change us along the way.