What is the STETS Course designed to do?

Our BA and MA programmes have three primary and interrelated aims:

1. To educate you to engage critically, constructively and confidently with:
• the resources of the Christian tradition and its relationship with other systems of belief;
• the norms of Christian belief and practice; and
• your own place in the worship, life and mission of the Church.
2. To train you to exercise an informed skilful, reflective and empowering ministry marked by spiritual wisdom, empathy and compassion and exemplified in a capacity for collaboration, co-responsibility and commitment to the growth, well-being and ministry of others.
3. To form you to participate responsibly in the mission of the Church by integrating your learning, ministry, and spiritual life within the particularities, complexities and adversities of your own life and the lives of your communities.

Knowing

After completing all or part of each programme, you will be better educated to:

• discern God's ways in the world;
• understand the dynamics of Christian faith (expressed in texts and interpretative practices; norms of thought and practice; ecclesial worship and polity) in the worship, teaching, life and mission of the Church, both in local situations and in global mission;
• understand your own denomination in its breadth and diversity;
• determine the place of Christian ministry in relation to particular contexts;
• analyse the personal, social, cultural and institutional practices by which people are formed in ordinary life.

Doing

After completing all or part of each programme, you will be better trained to:

• serve God's purposes in the world;
• think of, experience and form Church life and ministry in theological, missiological and ecumenical terms;
• discern the form of ministry which is yours (with an understanding of its appropriate roles and boundaries), consider its responsibilities, prepare to practise it and to reflect upon its performance;
• discover possibilities for Christian formation in and through the practices of ordinary life.

Being

After completing all or part of each programme, you will be better formed and equipped to

• embody and express the ways of God in the life of the Church in the world;
• draw on the resources of Church life, thought and worship for ministry and mission;
• exemplify trust in God and expectancy for the kingdom of God through prayerfulness and Christian service;
• order your life, working co-operatively for the fuller realisation of God's mission in the world;
• develop sound habits of reflective practice, contributing to growth in wisdom in Christian ministry and mission.

A note for MA students

While our MA programme shares the same primary aims and learning outcomes as the BA, it is designed to provide scope for more creative, flexible and self-directed study for people with significant prior theological education and experience.

The MA is designed to be followed by three categories of students:

• those who have been selected for ordained or nationally accredited lay ministry who are taking this course as part of their initial ministerial training (this group includes some Methodist students doing Foundation Training);
• those already in ordained or licensed lay ministry, taking this course as part of their continuing ministerial education;
• those taking the MA for educational reasons only, e.g. to work as lay theological educators.

The first category is referred to as 'initial ministerial education'. The whole suite of education, training and formation described in the Course Handbook relates to these students. MA students in the other two categories do not take part in the residential training events apart from Saturday morning seminars, nor do they participate in Study Days or formational work with training ministers.

Next >> What qualifications are offered?