Course summary

*The DTh is a professional doctorate programme in practical theology. This programme offers a variety of bespoke outcomes to diverse students engaged with Christian practice including: strategic leadership training to senior level ministry personnel; the deeper integration of theological learning to contexts of practice; the honing of missiological and ecclesiological understandings as lived out in real-life situations. The programme focuses on using research to develop theological practice, to the mutual enrichment of both academic theology and faith practice. * There are two entry points for this programme. Stage 1A is for those with a good undergraduate degree and professional experience, who will initially take a selection of preparatory taught modules at Masters level. Stage 1B is for post-Masters applicants, and is an accelerated form of the course. Regardless of entry point this programme will help those already engaged in Christian Ministry and Service – diversely understood - to develop the advanced research, evaluative and reflective skills necessary to further their professional and career profile, and contribute form their practice to wider theological discourse. Students will prepare for more senior level, national or international roles, as leaders, advisers or consultants in faith-practice and ministry. As a practitioner of Practical Theology, this course will encourage you to reflect technically and theologically on your practice, and on the application of scholarship and research to a range of faith, ecclesial and missiological contexts. In order to develop your research skills, the programme will provide you with extensive knowledge and understanding of areas of Practical Theology and the critical methods practised at the forefront of the discipline. Students be enabled to reflect on these research methods in looking at their own practice, researching this both empirically (where appropriate) and from theological discourses, producing findings that satisfy peer scrutiny and are deemed to be of publishable quality, making an original contribution to knowledge. There is a wide range of areas in which students will develop their skills on this programme. You will enhance and apply your ability to handle written sources and empirical data, using appropriate advanced critical methods and controls. Your integrative understanding of theological sources and traditions will be built up as these sources are brought into dialogue with practice. A further key skill is your ability to marshal coherent and effective arguments and communicate conclusions in oral and written form. The programme will also enable you to demonstrate a competent grasp of a range of technical skills arising within the discipline, including a range of approaches to textual historical, hermeneutical and cultural issues. You will also look at quantitative and qualitative approaches to the investigation of individual and social experience and behaviour, and be able to respond critically to their use by others.