Read More about It

On children’s ministry:

• Children’s Ministry That Works: The Basics and Beyond by Craig Jutila, et. al. (Group Publishing, Loveland, Colorado, 2002)
  
• Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation by Neil Howe and William Strauss (Vintage Publishing, New York, New York, 2000)
  
• Joining Children on the Spiritual Journey: Nurturing a Life of Faith by Catherine Stonehouse (Baker Books, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1998)

On family ministry:

• Family Ministry: A Comprehensive Guide by Diana Garland (Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois, 1999)
  
• The Family-Friendly Church by Ben Freudenberg and Rick Lawrence (Group Publishing, Loveland, Colorado, 1998)
  
• The Family Powered Church by Pamela Erwin (Group Publishing, Loveland, Colorado, 2000)
  

Why should children’s and family ministry staff attend seminary?

• To develop head, heart, and hands for children’s and family ministry, students will deepen their understanding of biblical and theological studies, build leadership skills and advance in the areas of personal and spiritual formation, and pursue focused study of children’s and family ministry.
  
• To be about the process of redefining children’s and family ministry; it is much more than glorified babysitting. Rather, it is a valid and crucial ministry in its own right.
  
• To become a peer on the pastoral team, allowing students to speak the same language as their pastoral colleagues from a theological and biblical perspective. The shared experience of seminary can enhance the pastoral staff’s sense of collegiality and foster greater mutual understanding.
  
• To enhance students’ advocacy for children and families by giving them a greater voice. Ministers to children and families are called upon to speak for children, those who often are without voice in the community of faith and in the world at large, and a seminary education bolsters their credibility in order to be heard in many sectors.
  
• To contribute to a burgeoning field, and to be influential in shaping the development of that field. Ministers to children and families are on the edge of something very exciting as more and more churches recognize the importance of children’s ministry and value those who have this special calling.
  
• Children deserve the best-trained and equipped leaders possible!

Why choose Bethel Seminary?

• Bethel Seminary offers the only program in the country that enables students to pursue a master’s degree with a focus on children’s and family ministry while remaining in their ministry contexts. People in active ministries don’t have to move to St. Paul to pursue this degree.
  
• We expend every effort to make the educational experience directly applicable to the student’s current ministry context; students do their course projects in the church or ministry in which they serve, so everybody wins—the students and their churches both.
  
• Bethel provides students a unique opportunity to connect with others who share a passion and calling to children’s and family ministry; networking opportunities abound.
  
• Bethel’s InMinistry team is second to none! We enjoy a well-developed infrastructure that facilitates the success of the degree program, and we benefit from the team’s years of experience administering Bethel’s other InMinistry degrees.

How does Bethel’s program address the needs of the suffering among an otherwise privileged “millennial generation”?

We examine the biblical calls to justice and caring for the orphans and widows in our midst. We utilize texts that expose students to various types of approaches working with diverse populations of children and families. We devote an entire course to the subject of advocacy for children and families who are in difficult life situations. God has blessed each cohort with a variety of students, coming from a variety of ministry contexts, and in each cohort there are students whose primary ministries are to children and families who are oppressed. These students regularly share their perspectives and balance the perspectives of those who minister among children who are treasured and protected.

How does Bethel’s program work?

• Students take 12 Children’s and Family Ministry courses and 12 Biblical and Theological courses; 14 of the courses include on-campus intensives, and 10 are fully distance.
  
• While taking the courses that incorporate on-campus intensives, students interact over the Internet three or four weeks, gather on Bethel’s St. Paul campus for a week (30 classroom hours) of intensives, and finish with six to seven additional weeks of learning together via the Web.
  
• Students experience the fully distance courses entirely online.
  
• Bethel’s online delivery system employs a variety of formats: discussion forums, audio and/or video lectures, telephone conference calls, e-mail contact, and a digital drop box system for submitting papers and projects, for example. But regular and consistent student interaction with the professor and among each other is a top goal.

What is an intensive?

Students come to campus twice a year for two weeks at a time to participate with each other in classroom coursework (30 hours). But intensives include much more than just time in the classroom. There also is time built in to focus on the “nonformal” and informal aspects of learning as well: chapel experiences, conversations at coffee breaks and meal times, study time with classmates in the seminary library, meetings with advisors to discuss program planning, and feedback sessions regarding assessments on everything from personality and leadership style to conflict resolution and personal strengths, to name a few. Students look forward to intensives as a time to learn and to further build relationships with their professors and peers while “up close and personal.” They are high-energy times of community building and learning.

What is a cohort?

At Bethel we believe people learn best in community. So students who enter the children’s and family ministry program together remain together through their entire educational journey. They get to “know and be known,” which is especially critical in distance delivery systems; the sense of camaraderie they develop during their first on-campus intensives helps carry them through the ups and downs of ministry life and seminary training. Students offer one another prayer support, encouragement, resource exchange, and much valued reminders that what they are doing is important! •