The Doctor of Ministry is for seasoned ministry and church leaders who want to deepen their faith, grow in wisdom, and develop as thought leaders and skilled practitioners for long-term fruitfulness in ministry. The D.Min. brings together biblical and theological scholarship, theological integration, reflective practice, ministry skills, and spiritual maturity.
The Wheaton D.Min. program is open to students with an M.Div. or a master’s degree in Bible, theology, or a ministry-related field.
The Doctor of Ministry at Wheaton College is an advanced ministry leadership degree that will equip students as a academically grounded, spiritually maturing, and practically skilled leaders who serve Jesus Christ and His Kingdom. This doctoral program is designed to be academically rigorous, focused on contextually relevant ministry praxis, and will continue MML’s ethos of developing spiritually formed leaders who will minister in multicultural environments.
Learning Objectives of the D.Min. degree include:
- Advanced Theological Integration: The D.Min. program gives graduates the ability to engage cultural context with advanced theological acumen and critical thinking.
- In-Depth Contextual Competency: The D.Min. program gives graduates the ability to identify and frame crucial ministry issues.
- Strategic Planning and Implementation: The D.Min. program equips graduates to enhance their impacts as ministerial leaders.
- Personal and Spiritual Maturity: The D.Min. program enables graduates to reinvigorate and deepen vocational call and extend tenure in ministry. D.Min. programs are integrative in that they are focused on spiritual, personal, moral, and ministerial formation.
As part of this D.Min. program, all students are required to complete a doctoral project, which serves as the capstone of the D.Min. program. It is an opportunity for students to connect knowledge gained from their coursework with the concrete realities of their ministries:
- Identifying a challenge they face in ministry and situating that challenge in their context
- Reflecting theologically on that challenge
- Designing a new ministry initiative to address that challenge which must then be implemented and assessed
Flexible Learning Format:
Most students will continue to serve in their current ministry roles while completing the program part-time. While most of the courses will be delivered as one-week intensives, some courses may be offered in an online format at the discretion of the Program Director. This is to provide students the opportunity to come to campus just two weeks in a year and be able to immediately apply their learning in their current context while earning this doctoral degree.
Students applying to the Doctor of Ministry degree program must possess an M.Div., a theological or ministry-related master's degree, or an equivalent master’s degree from a regionally accredited institution with a minimum GPA of 3.0; have a minimum of three years of experience in a ministry leadership role after earning the M.Div. or theological or ministry-related master’s degree or a total of five years in a ministry leadership; must be currently involved in an active ministry role; and possess proficiency in written and spoken English.