HDS - Admissions - Ministry Studies

Admissions

Ministry Studies

2005 Commencement Worship Service

Ministry at HDS

The education of ministers has been central to the mission of Harvard since its founding. We remain committed to educating students for a learned ministry, believing that our urban research university provides a rich environment for the cultivation of the imagination, creativity, and compassion that mark excellent ministry in all its forms. The Office of Ministry Studies is a valuable resource for information about field education, denominational counselors, and ministry training at HDS.

About half of our MDiv students come to HDS to prepare for pastoral ministry in a congregation. Other students are preparing for ministries of social service, teaching and scholarship, hospital and prison chaplaincy, and interfaith ministry on college campuses.

Our students come from a range of Christian backgrounds—mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, evangelical, and Pentecostal. We have a significant number of Unitarian Universalist students, and a growing number of students from Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim communities who are preparing, in the MDiv program, for religious leadership.

Indeed, the serious study of traditions other than Christianity is a hallmark of the MDiv program at Harvard Divinity School. We believe that the study of religious worlds distinct from our own challenges us to consider the family resemblances among human concerns, to see the rich diversity of responses to such human concerns as a resource for thinking anew within our own tradition.

A Unitarian Universalist worship service

We believe that a learned minister needs to possess the following capacities, skills, and intellectual virtues:

Rigorous education in the religious traditions that shape the scholarly, spiritual, and practical dimensions of a vocation to ministry.
The capacity to use the fundamental intellectual tools in the study of religion.
Genuine reading competence in a scriptural language and/or a language of theological scholarship that allows for the lifelong use of that language for ministerial leadership and scholarly inquiry.
Education in the arts of ministry, preparing students to use their intellectual gifts in ministerial praxis, leadership, and care.
Significant learning in a religious tradition other than one's own.
Intellectual, spiritual, and pastoral agility that will enable graduates to move with skill, confidence, generosity, and grace across the complex and plural religious, cultural, and moral spheres of modern society.

Field Education Program

Authentic exploration of and training for ministry includes both practical experience and reflection on that experience. The Office of Ministry Studies (OMS) offers nearly 200 accredited field education sites that provide supervision and the opportunity to develop ministerial arts for theological reflection. MDiv students at Harvard Divinity School choose at least two field education placements; a number of MTS students also pursue field education as a part of their programs. In weekly supervision with on-site supervisors and through a theological reflection course at HDS, students learn how to bring their theological perspective to bear upon their ministry.

Student speaking in a chapel

Available field education sites include parishes, educational institutions, community-based social justice and public policy agencies, business settings, hospitals, and other clinical institutions. The Office of Ministry Studies offers guidance for field education placement, as well as continuing support throughout the program. In the few cases where accredited sites do not meet students' particular educational or ministerial needs, students may seek out and propose their own placements.

For specific requirements and a complete list of placements, please see the Field Education Handbook.

Photographs: 2005 Commencement Worship Service in the Memorial Church; a Unitarian Universalist worship service; MDiv student Jonathan Wilkins speaking in the Divinity Hall chapel. Photographs by Steve Gilbert, Stephanie Mitchell, Kristie Welsh.