Date: June 23, 2023
Today in our doctoral programs, students in their third and final summer residency present their project thesis proposals for approval by VTS faculty. For their theses, students envision and carry out an act of ministry in their context that seeks to transform that place, to make it holier. They then put the results of that action research in conversation with theological literature and with the social sciences, unearthing new insights about their context and God’s work therein.
There is a rich theology behind this approach to research. Every ministry context is a place of divine discovery, a place in which God, through the active agency of the Holy Spirit and the active agency of us, is revealing something about Jesus we’ve not necessarily noticed before. Each context of ministry shows some part of the body of Christ that no other place can express. These project theses enable students to name that work of the Holy Spirit, to attend to it, to nurture it, and to let it grow.
The Rev. Ross Kane, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Theology, Ethics, and Culture
Director of Doctoral Programs