What are the Benefits to a DMin Program?

The difference is that when a church pays the pastor's salary at the doctoral level, the church paying the salary is receiving the benefit of the ministry training.

When a church pays a minister's tuition, then the minister leaves, the next church reaps the benefits.

It's a horrible system, but whenever the doctorate is seen as a ticket to a bigger church, you aren't going to see smaller and mid-sized churches lining up to reimburse tuition expenses.

 

Coming back to the OPer... Sib, do you have a specialization you wanted to get? For instance, SEBTS has some cool DMin classes and programs. The applied theology has many different concentrations like preaching and leadership. Did you want a specific focus or just a general ministerial degree?

 

A couple of thoughts after reading the responses from my former post...

First, a D.Min. degree ALWAYS ends up being what the student puts into it. The core requirements are the same for a cheesy degree as they are for a stout degree, and both can be had at the same institution, whether accredited or not. Do a smallish project on improving your preaching, with the minimum required resources, a bunch of Internet citations, and 3 good old boys as your peer-review committee and you end up no better than when you started, save for the alphabet behind your name. Do a project where you advance the cause of Sunday school in general for any or all who are interested in bolstering attendance, evangelistic efforts, and ultimate effectiveness of Sunday school in general, and you have written a D.Min. project that makes a difference!

Second, the institution DOES make a difference -- not just the granting institution, but the place where the undergrad and graduate work is done. The majority of D.Min. students that I see coming through SBTS come from other M.Div. programs around the country. Very few are former SBTS grads. The deficiencies I see in their work is astounding, from basic English grammar skills to lack of proficiency handling the Word, some of these men (who are at times "famous" pastors leading large churches) are simply not doctoral level scholars, but if one pays the money, passes the requirements, and gets into the program, somehow they press ahead and make the course. That is often where I come in -- they need someone who can turn their ramblings into a finished product worthy of doctoral-level approval. Someone above mentioned that his undergrad work was more rigorous than his later work. That is (or should be) typical. It is not that master's level work is more difficult -- it just swims deeper into more focused areas. But, that being said, it can be more difficult, if only for the pace required.

Third, on the issue of teaching with a D.Min., I'm not sure where one can do that, but I'm sure it is possible. At SBTS, no one with less than a D.Miss or Ed.D. (and of course Ph.D.) can be a prof, unless for specialized adjunct coursework that is typically extra-catalog stuff.

SACS, the accrediting board with which I am most familiar has these standards:

Undergrad:

Grad:

 

The problem with the SACS wording, is that the D.Min. may well qualify as the "highest" earned degree in terms of training pastors (M.Div.). It is at least a little subjective, since the Ph.D. is not considered "pastoral" but "academic."

 

Notwithstanding your above credentials a DMin simply isn't a terminal academic degree.

While you, Rhet, stand above and beyond the vast majority of DMin grads I've encountered, the degree isn't accorded the same respect as other terminal academic degrees.

I'm not saying a guy with a DMin can't teach undergrad. I've never said that. In fact two of my best profs in undergrad had DMins and they taught some of the best, most practical courses. If I were leading a school and needed a couple of profs for pastoral ministry, preaching, missiology, church leadership, etc courses I'd definitely hire a DMin way before I hire a PhD to teach those courses.

When I was in seminary our faculty hired a new prof for a pastoral ministries area. He was great, but his final degree was a DMin. So they had him, as a condition of his employment, go to a local university and get a PhD to ensure he could teach a full load and the school be properly situated. This was a pretty big evangelical seminary too.

I like DMins and my friends who have them. The OP has expressly stated he doesn't desire to teach. Well I'm all for getting a DMin...so long as my questions, from above, are answered properly.

 

The U.S. Dept of Ed apparently lists the D.Min. as an intermediate graduate degree.

http://find.ed.gov/search?q=cache:v...t=default_frontend&ie=UTF-8&access=p&oe=UTF-8

 

I like that, too. This or the Expository Preaching DMin focus area may be the best they have. I'd love to read some of the projects once they are done. I still like the meatier D.Mins at Gordon-Conwell, Beeson, Reformed, etc., basically just due to the projects being more than just a tad fluffy than at the Big Six counterparts.

This is unfortunately true. But I've seen some D.Mins who were...well...theological and ministerial lightweights, too. But it all depends on the person. For the most part, the quality of the minister is determined by the rigor and application of their Master's program (MA or M.Div). The doctorate builds on this.

With every right. The D.Min is a terminal professional degree, simlilar to the DBA in business, the Ed.D in education, and the Psy.D. in psychology. The PhD is a terminal research degree. These are very real distinctions to be sure, but the D.Min is no less a doctorate than a PhD.

This is a listing of qualifications. I fail to see how this is so, especially of the Psy.D. To equate these to EdS and graduate certificates is a head-scratcher for me.

By the way, one thing I've pointed out before. A recent Baptist association I know just called a new DOM a while back. All applicants with a terminal research doctorate had their resumes tossed immediately. This was infuriating. People assume that I, holding a research doctorate, want to teach. This is equally as fallacious as assuming a D.Min couldn't be a professor.

 

I would agree with the description as a terminal professional degree, but I would not equate it to the Ed.D or the DBA. Ed.D. and DBA candidates generally are required to complete a full dissertation, and the number of doctoral-level credits is usually around 60, compared to about 30 for the DMin. Granted, the DMin requires a three-year MDiv for admission, but these MDiv credits are not at the doctoral level.

 

Most of the terminal professional "project" requirements I"m familiar with are similar to the D.Min. And most of the professional doctoral programs I know are 30-36 hours. (I have a friend who earned the MA and PhD) from the Univ of Louisville with 64 hours combined in both degrees, and her doctoral dissertation was less than 70 pages.

Even if the D.Min is less than a DBA/PsyD, the total number of hours is something worth noting. I still think it's pretty hefty that a seminarian will have 150-160 hours in the M.Div/PhD, and some will have close to 200 graduate hours if they do the ThM as well.

 

Um, I have to disagree with this. Not only do you only have to have a 30 to 45 credit degree to enter a DBA program, as compared to 90 for a D.Min., most DBA programs are not 60 hours. They are only 60 hours if you do not have a MA in business. For instance, of the 60 hours required for one accredited DBA...

I also disagree with you statement concerning the level of courses. Many upper level M.Div. courses are indeed equivalent to doctoral courses...in fact, some schools allow you to take a number of post grad classes, to fill M.Div. requirements (particularly in advance track, and pre- Ph.D. M.Div.s), or even have cross-over.

 

The DBA you listed was from Louisiana Tech....consider the whole entry...

Not counting the hours you are excluding, 18 hours for the major + 18 hours (9 hours each for two minors) + 3 hour orientation class + 15 hours dissertation. That's 54 credit hours. That's pretty close to sixty.


Furthermore, you are making an invalid comparison with upper-level MDiv courses. Even if a school allows an MDiv student the ability to take doctoral or ThM level classes to apply to the MDiv, that does not mean that the MDiv courses are equivalent to doctoral courses. A similar situation exists when undergraduates can take graduate-level courses in the senior year. You will see that seminaries don't take the approach of equivalence, either. It is very common that ThM students enrolling in upper-level MDiv courses must complete additional assignments in order to receive ThM level credit.

Another issue is in the required study of research methods. In an EdD or DBA program, usually at least 2 courses in research methods (quantitative and/or qualitative) are required and often more are required. In a PhD program in theology, usually two foreign languages are required other than Greek and Hebrew. In a DMin program, such requirements are relatively rare.

 

I was blessed by my work place to be sent to Beeson. Great small seminary, big time teachers, all classroom-no-online programor plans for one, 2 week seminars in January, 2 weeks in summer, 6 sessions and a project to be approved and published.

Dean Timothy George for Theology, Preaching Robert Smith, James Earl Jones and Calvin Miller, Frank Thielman, Kenneth Matthews for Bible and Theology. I feel like I am bragging just having known and had these great teachers.

I just got back from the 2011 Preaching conference in Spartanburg. I was thrilled to hear many great preachers who were Beeson alumni or teachers. I finished Beeson in 2008. As teachers I had men of great academic standing with a passionate faith. They sought interaction and mentoring.

I was blessed and grew in faith and knowledge. Yes it was worth it for me for growth.

 

That is overlap. If you notice, brother, the total for class requirements, including the 24 hours, is only sixty. If one has an MBA, they are only required to take 36 hours...roughly the same as many D.Min. programs. So in total, about HALF the credits are required for the DBA.

The degree of rigor between Doctoral level Seminary classes, and M. Div. classes, is negligible. In fact, looking at some of them, the M.Div classes require MORE coursework, and certainly more work than some DBA classes!

And yet a D.Min. requires proficiency in two non-English languages (at least the decent ones) i.e. Greek and Hebrew, while several other professional docs (such as a DBA), do not. Yet one more "leveler."

 

BTW Bro, these are fellowship forums...we can't keep arguing here.

 

We aren't arguing. We are discussing.

 

I'm not sure where you are getting this information. Points 2-5 clearly add up to 54 hours. If you had the leveling courses, the total would be 78.

The amount of coursework isn't necessarily indicative of rigor, although it can be. Regardless, I'm not sure what on what basis you are making these assertions. It may be possible that DMin seminars are similar to MDiv courses, but I highly doubt that PhD seminars are similar. Often the very structure of the course is different (presenting research papers instead of lectures).

"At least the decent ones"...there is quite a mixed bag! It's quite common to be able to get into a DMin program without the languages. At Southern Seminary, for instance, only the Expository preaching track has this requirement. Southeastern doesn't require them. Southwestern does. New Orleans doesn't. Golden Gate doesn't. Gordon-Conwell doesn't require the languages. Dallas Seminary requires them both, which isn't a surprise given their preference for the ThM, language-intensive seminary model.

Foreign language study for social science and business majors isn't relevant, typically. That is why you have study of qualitative and quantitative (statistical) research methods.