Degree Programs / Masters Certificates for both MAPM and MDiv Students
MASTERS CONCENTRATIONS
Each year ETS offers sequences of three-four interconnected courses. These courses can be taken individually, but students in the MDiv or MAPM program who complete all four will receive a concentration in the appropriate area of specialization. These concentrations allow students to explore particular topics more deeply, and also demonstrate a focused area of study and expertise to future congregations and potential employers.
MASTERS CONCENTRATIONS
Degree Programs
Master of Divinity
Master of Arts in Pastoral Ministry
Master of Arts (Academic)
Concentrations
Certificate in Theological Studies
Continuing Education
Urban Ministry Diploma
Program Information
The Masters Concentrations are designed to allow you as an ETS Masters student to focus your elective classes in a specific area of specialization. The intent is to give you the training you desire and to make you more marketable to an interviewing or calling congregation. The Masters Concentrations are also designed to reflect both traditional ministry needs (Traditional/Ecumenical track) and social justice ministry (Urban Transformation and Renewal track). Masters Concentration classes vary from year to year, but the intent is to offer two to four different Masters Concentration courses in any given academic year.
These Concentrations are also available to non-degree seeking individuals as Continuing Education Certificates (CEC). CECs are valuable to pastors and lay leaders in the church. CECs are also valuable for corporate and small businesses employees seeking professional development. CECs may be earned by audit or some other arrangement with ETS.
Traditional/Ecumenical Track Masters Concentration
Requirement: 3-4 Classes for Each Concentration
Concentration in Pastoral Care
The Concentration in Pastoral Care offers courses that provide the student with a specialized focus on the pastoral care of souls in settings that include, but are not limited to, the local congregation. This certificate offers a variety of courses in the theory and practice of pastoral care.​
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Pastoral Care
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The Pastor as Shepherd
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The Visiting Pastor / Ministry of Presence
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Ministry with Youth
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Ministry with the Aging
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Spiritual Care for the Soul
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Conflict Resolution Ministry
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Care for the Aging & the Dying
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Grief Ministry: Death, Dying & Bereavement
Concentration in Pre-Chaplaincy Studies
The Concentration in Pre-Chaplaincy Studies offers courses that introduce the student to the ministry of chaplaincy. These courses are designed to prepare the student to navigate the complex culture of chaplaincy education (CPE) in theory and in practice
​Classes:
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Introduction to Chaplaincy
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Ministry with the Sick and Dying
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Care for the Aging and the Dying
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Grief Ministry: Death, Dying & Bereavement
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Crisis Pastoral Care
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Concentration in Family Ministry
​Classes:
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Family Systems
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Human Development
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Marriage, Sexuality, & Family
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Models of Crisis Intervention
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Concentration in Community Worship
The Concentration in Community Worship offers the student a specialized focus on what is arguably the heart of the Christian community’s religious faith. The student will acquire critical understanding and awareness of the theology and practice of worship
​Classes:
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Community Worship
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Prophetic Preaching
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Lectionary Preaching
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Theology of Music
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Worship as Pastoral Care
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Liturgical Theology and Ecumenism
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Urban Transformation and Renewal Masters Concentration
Requirement: 4 Classes for Each Concentration
Concentration in Social Justice
The Concentration in Social Justice is achieved with any combination of four courses, including the seminary’s introductory ethics course, Ethics: Church & Society.
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Concentration in Environmental Justice
The Concentration in Environmental Justice is designed to interpret climate change as the most comprehensive crisis addressing humanity today, requiring reimagining our species’ place on the planet. The selection of courses will work from the widest horizon of awareness towards more place- and population-specific concerns, ranging from what we know about globalized indices of climate emergency and the attempt to perceive such (various theories of the apocalypse, Anthropocene geology, IPCC reports, etc.) to much more localized questions regarding food security and water accessibility in cities like Detroit and Flint. The classes will sharpen understandings of our collective history leading to the current emergency and analytical approaches to addressing/remedying such to more practical questions of the policy changes needed, indigenous approaches and creative models embodying alternative ways of engaging eco-systemic health, and the social movements and political challenges necessary to accomplish these.
​Classes:
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Ecological Crisis and Apocalyptic Theology
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Modern Cosmology and Indigenous Wisdom
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Environmental Racism and Front-Line Communities
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Gift Economy and Urban Food Security
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Concentration in African American Religion
​Classes:
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Introduction to African American Religion
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Womanist Theology
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Justice and Liberation through an African American Lens
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Theology and Ethics in the African American Church
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Concentration in Race, Racism, and Diversity
The Concentration in Race, Racism, and Diversity seeks to respond to the emergence of both BLM in the streets and COVID-19 in our bodies today as part of the five-century long crisis of settler colonialism and white supremacy that has shaped Southeast Michigan as well as the rest of the country and the globe in ways that continue to do grave damage to the planet and its varied peoples. Race will be traced out as the modern rationale for extractive plunder and differential access to life opportunities and collective “goods” such as employment, housing, education, health care, and freedom from interdiction (policing, incarceration, forced displacement, etc.) across the globe and with particular focus in the formation of “Detroit.
The courses for this Concentration will elaborate the complex ways that notions of skin color have been coercively embedded in our institutional life and social interaction with each other with grave ramifications especially for the health and resilience of POC and the humanity of white-identified folk, as well as profile the deep histories of BIPOC-led resistance to such.
​Classes:
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Racial Formation and the Big History of Supremacy
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Race, Colonialism, and Resistance
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Race Today: Economics, Sexuality, Technology
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The Racial History of Detroit: 1650 to the Present
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Concentration in Interfaith Dialogue & Cooperation
​Classes:
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World Religions
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Interfaith Dialogue
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Indigenous History & Wisdom
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Jusaism, Christianity, & Islam
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Admission Requirements
Registration Deadlines
James Waddell
Director of the Masters Programs
Professor of Biblical Studies