SFRM Course Descriptions

This course is facilitated by a Formation Guide and is designed to provide students an opportunity to develop awareness of self-in-connection as a pathway to explore the triune God’s presence in their preparation for vocational flourishing. Students will reflect critically and constructively on their identity, spiritual histories, sociocultural contexts of formation, and sites of (un)belonging. Reflective practices and discernment skills will help students sift through their interior and exterior experiences to explore their origin and the movement of the Spirit for an increased awareness of shared humanity as a sacred site of God’s transforming work in the world. Additional course fees may be required.

A Formation Guide facilitates this course and invites students to deepen their awareness of God and self through the prayer practices of the Great Tradition of the Church. Students will explore the Christian faith’s contemplative, liturgical, and sacramental dimensions as pathways for experiencing the sacred in the ordinary. Recognizing that spiritual practices hold meaning in varied ways, this course will be an opportunity to assess how prayer originates from the context of the one who prays. Finally, students will engage with the rich heritage of historic Christian spirituality, drawing insights from Scripture and the mystics from around the world and across the centuries to consider how their images of God can expand and enrich a life of prayer.

This course is facilitated by a Formation Guide and invites students to explore God’s transformative action and desire for restorative justice and Shalom through ancient and contemporary voices. Students will broaden their awareness of unjust systems while considering their personal participation in oppressive structures. Theological and reflective discussion will invite students to recognize formational postures and narratives as an invitation to actively join with God in truth-telling and compassion that seeks to extend God’s hospitality and restore the imago dei within all. Additional course fees may be required.

A Formation Guide facilitates this course and invites students to explore Christian ministry as the giving of an integrated self. Reflecting on the polarities of woundedness and healing, presence and absence, self-owning and self-giving, students will grow in awareness of healthy and unhealthy behaviors and mindsets. By owning and naming this process, students will explore how to cultivate healing for spiritual meaning-making within the life stories of the persons and communities they are called to serve.

This course examines how stories are uniquely sacred and formational. Drawing from the social sciences, students will learn about and engage in a narrative approach to identity formation and communal awareness. In tandem with this work, students will also explore how bible stories shape embedded theologies and the promise that lies in re-authoring life events within the broader framework of transformation in God’s story.

Examines movements and key individuals within Christianity, both East and West who have brought spiritual renewal to the church, including monasticism, the mystics, the reformers, Pietism, the Wesleyan/evangelical revival, and certain present-day examples. Focuses not only on history but also on themes within spiritual renewal and on insights that can be drawn for the contemporary believer and church.

Death is inevitable. How we navigate that inevitability varies, but it is often impacted by our societal norms and culture. This course invites students to move proximate to death through meaningful spiritual practices, fresh theological perspectives, physiological understanding, and community-transforming applications. By implementing a narrative style of engagement, personal grief is increasingly integrated, and a student's ability to companion the bereaved in their ministry context expands. Students meet with a spiritual director as a part of the course. Additional course fees may be required.

Introduces students to the concept of three-way listening: listening to another, listening to themselves, and listening to the Spirit with hospitality to all. Quaker, Wesleyan, and Ignatian spiritualities help shape this understanding of listening and discernment. Part of this journey is to begin to notice the barriers that arise in listening this way. Growth will occur as students learn to sift through interior and exterior experiences to determine their origin and the movement of the Spirit in themselves, their community, and the world. Students meet with a spiritual director as a part of the course. Additional course fees may be required.

Explores topics of spiritual formation that support the deep work of transformation of students, communities, or cultures.

A specially designed and individually tailored course of research involving in-depth study of a particular question, problem, or issue presented by the student. The student must make application for the study prior to registration for the semester in which the study will be carried out. The application must be approved by the faculty member overseeing the study and the departmental chair. Special arrangements for regular courses of study must be approved by the dean.