STETS’ overall mandate is to meet the training needs of its sponsoring Churches in the changing social context in which they operate. It is committed to a programme of high quality contextual theological learning, through an integration of rigorous academic study and reflective practice in the ‘workplace’.

STETS is committed to:

• setting the highest standards in the development and provision of theological education and training;
• creating opportunities for all of God’s people to learn to think, speak and act with greater theological confidence;
• providing a shared experience of training which also recognises particular needs, drawing together people preparing for different ministries from different denominations and church traditions, and providing them with a common core of theological education;
• ensuring that the training and formational needs specific to each person’s own calling, denomination and traditions are properly met;
• working with providers of theological education and training in the church and in the further and higher education sectors.

The fundamental orientation of all our training is:

• Theological and doxological – rooted in God and in God’s praise, and therefore:
• Biblical – listening for and discerning God’s Word;
• Missiological – directed towards God’s world, and therefore:
• Contextual – focused on the particular situations in which you are called to serve; and
• Ecumenical and collaborative – committed to ever-widening shared participation in Christian mission and ministry.

As programmes designed for adults, our Foundation Degree (FdA) & BA top-up and MA courses take seriously what you already know about the Christian faith through your participation in the life of the church as well as through prior study.  They provide you with ways of relating what you already know to wider perspectives drawn from the whole Christian tradition.  They also give you a range of training and formational opportunities.  These enable you both to become a skilled ministerial practitioner and to ‘embody’ your skills and understanding within the Church of God.  Thus at STETS you will find that you do theology through taking part in Christian worship and engaging with specific aspects of society, as well as through rigorous critical study of the Christian tradition.

Our programmes are related to what Christians believe about God and how God relates to the world.  They are designed to train you for ministry and mission based on the conviction that the triune God loves the whole world, and that Christians are called to share in all that God wills and works for it.