Contemporary Ecclesiology

The MA in Contemporary Ecclesiology is part of a new modular degree programme at King's (co-taught with the Department of Theology & Religious Studies http://www.kcl.ac.uk/trs). It seeks to provide intellectual frameworks and practical insights for Christian mission and ministry. The new programmes offer unrivalled diversity of course content and teaching expertise. Designed in a unique cooperation between theologians and ministers, they combine intellectual depth with a wide range of practical issues - from contemporary worship to Fair Trade. They will challenge, inspire and refresh anyone engaged in Christian ministry, from ministers and ordinands, to laity and members of faith-based organisations.

The MA in Contemporary Ecclesiology is delivered in collaboration with the Department of Theology & Religious Studies and the Centre for Theology, Religion & Culture in the Department of Education & Professional Studies.

The MA in Contemporary Ecclesiology connects cutting-edge academic research with contemporary issues of Christian life and ministry. There are purely historical and theological MAs available in other universities, and there are vocational courses in seminaries and training colleges, but this programme presents a significant alternative. It will do justice to the complexity of academic debates but it will always relate them to the practical and the present. Drawing on the expertise of the Department of Theology & Religious Studies and the Department of Education & Professional Studies, this programme exemplifies the strengths of King's as both a leading research university and a centre for professional training. It promises a level of interdisciplinary excitement and pastoral engagement that would be hard to match elsewhere.

The MA in Contemporary Ecclesiology is designed to help those pioneering new forms of Church to reflect critically and theologically on their ministerial practice.

Students take a compulsory module, Patterns in Contemporary Ecclesiology. The module aims to explore developments in contemporary ecclesiology and relate these to changes in society and culture. It enables students to explore different patterns of church life within the context of wider social and cultural change. Changing forms of church are described and examined as different ecclesial responses to the Christian calling to engage in mission within the particular context of later modern/postmodern culture.

Students take one other compulsory module, which is Theology in Practice. This core module links all the programmes on the King's Theology & Ministry MA programme. It aims to equip students with theological tools that will help them to analyse the styles and the purposes of Christian ministry. With these tools (including disciplines of social science with their empirical research methodologies, historical enquiry, and scriptural interpretation) students will be in a position to articulate a theology of ministry, and to formulate methodologies for understanding and interpreting their contexts and their actions as ministers.

In addition to the dissertation, students will then take two further modules from the following:

• Ministry and the Bible;
• Church, Mission & Society;
• Contemporary Ministry and Apologetics;
• Educational Issues in Christian Ministry;
• Pastoral Use of the Bible;
• Patterns in Youth Ministry;
• Reformation, Revival and Revolution: Models of Ministry 1547 - 2000;
• Theology, Church & Worship;
• Theology, Politics & Faith-Based Organisations.