Centre for Rural Community Leadership and Ministry

Training Programs - Upcoming Courses

DMin Courses in Rural Ministry and Community Development:

1. Foundations of Rural Ministry and Community Development

Dr. Dittmar Muendel  
Date: TBA
Place: TBA

This graduate course is the first in our Dmin in Rural Ministry and Community Development. It introduces students to the cohort model of study, builds relationships and establishes protocols for the overall program. The course examines Canadian rural realities and looks at theological and theoretical models of rural ministry, particularly as it engages the surrounding community. Students will examine some of the challenges and possibilities inherent to interdisciplinary work. They will also engage in a collaborative project in their own context to map its demographic, social, economic and spiritual character. Finally, students will explore possibilities for their own research trajectory in the program.

Expected Outcomes:
As a result of this course students will be able to:

1. Identify the theological and sociological model(s) for relating rural churches to their communities that are most appropriate for their own context.
2. Map some of the social demographics of their church and communities.
3. Begin to choose appropriate tools for interdisciplinary work and research in their field setting.
4. Identify the core questions from their own context that will guide their study and research.
   
   For details contact one of the STU registrars:
   
   • College of St. Andrew’s Registrar  phone: 966-5244
   • Emmanuel & St. Chad Registrar  phone: 975-1550
   • Lutheran Theological Seminary Registrar  phone: 966-7856

OTHER COURSES

 

1. Agrarianism and the Bible

Date: TBA
Time:  TBA
Instructor: TBA

This course is an STM course. It can also be taken by Rural DMin students for credit.

Agrarianism stresses the need for us to structure our lives in order that we might live in healthful relationship with everything around us: humans, animals, plants, and the land. The purpose of this course will be to read biblical passages in light of the recent agrarian thinking of writers such as Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, and Norman Wirzba. How does the Bible portray humanity? In relationship to the earth and other living creatures? Can we find resources within scripture to help us live more peaceably and justly with all aspects of our world? The course will focus closely on questions such as these within a specifically prairie context.

For details contact one of the STU registrars:
Colleges of St. Andrews or Emmanuel & St. Chad Registrar: 975-1588; email: colleen.walker@usask.ca, or
Lutheran Theological Seminary Registrar: 966-7856; email: susan.avant@usask.ca

 

2. Peer Mentoring for Clergy New to Rural Settings

Date: Fall 2011

CiRCLe M is offering a Peer Mentoring program to help ministers make a gracious and informed entry into their new rural site by connecting them with a local guide to their community’s history and cultural dynamics.  This two-year program begins in Summer 2010.

Starting ministry in a rural parish can be daunting for someone who has never served a rural parish before.  But even those who have previously done so, quickly recognize that rural communities and congregations are highly unique with complex social networks that must be navigated with care. It takes considerable time to know a community and for them to get to know and trust you.  

In this program, ministers will be paired with a local mentor who can help them come to understand the history, key players and important customs of the community, including its strengths, formative stories and buried “landmines”.  The community guide will help the minister to see their ministry site from the outside and how it connects to other community institutions.   Each minister will be assisted to identify an insightful, long-time member of the community with whom they can form a mentoring team.  This person may be a professional—a teacher or doctor, for example—but will not be a member of the clergyperson’s congregation. This allows for some freedom and confidentiality in their conversations.

Once a mentor has been identified, clergy-mentor teams will come together for a one-day training event that will help them get to know each other in a structured way and provide some tools for intentionally exploring the life and culture of their community.  It will also help to set expectations for the mentoring relationship.  During the two years of the formal mentoring relationship, teams will be brought into contact with each other once a year face-to-face, and at other times by email, video conference, or other means.  They will celebrate their rural ministry experiences and share mentoring strategies.

Participants will be responsible for their transportation.  Accommodation can be arranged very inexpensively. The training itself will cost each team $450 per year.  In some cases subsidy for training and other costs is available from grants that support this program.

If you are new or about to move to a new ministry, give us a call and we will include you in a group. 

Contact Cam Harder, Executive Director of CiRCLe M: 306-966-7867 (Saskatoon); email:crharder@sasktel.net.

Sponsored by CiRCLe M.

 

3. Clnical Pastoral Education (CPE) in Rural Settings

TBA
Swan Valley, Manitoba

This program is available to anyone. It is a satellite program of the long-established CPE programs at the Saskatoon Institute for Pastoral Education. It consists of 200 hours of experience in a rural community ministry site as well as the opportunity for small group seminars and theological reflection with a trained CPE supervisor and ones' peers.

Seminars in the program focus on guided experiences in community-based care-giving together with group, individual and mentored reflection. Students learn skills related to crisis intervention, suicide prevention, mental health issues as well as working with intergenerational families and issues of loss and grief. The program includes contextual immersion and reflection opportunities including a guided wilderness walk, a tour of a farming operation, an opportunity to reflect on the interaction of aboriginal and non-aboriginal culture, attendance at a farm auction, and the opportunity to lead worship in a small village church.

Opportunities for placement include the 55 bed Swan Valley Health Centre, three long term care facilities, community health services such as Mental Health, Palliative Care and other community agencies such as the Crisis Centre (domestic abuse), the Justice System and the Food Bank.

Free billeting is available to out of town students.

For further information contact Supervisor Rev. Margaret McCallum at swanvalleycpe@gmail.com.