BST’s competency-based Doctor of Ministry (DMin) program is built around you. Whether you’re a seasoned ministry leader or looking to deepen your impact, this flexible program lets you chart your own course. You’ll work closely with expert faculty mentors to tailor your learning journey—earning credit for your real-world experience while mastering essential skills through diverse, hands-on approaches. As a BST DMin student, you’ll also gain access to the world-class academic resources of the Graduate Theological Union and UC Berkeley, empowering you to grow intellectually, spiritually, and professionally.
Mentors and Partners
Each student in the newly revised Competency Based Doctor of Ministry program will journey alongside a thematic cohort with several DMin students and mentors.
From Anyplace At Any Time
A student’s mentor team can be geographically centered or spread across the globe. The remote realities of the new normal in our world create numerous possibilities.
Culturally Responsive Themes
Each student will select one of the several themes to emphasize and build his/her mentor team accordingly.
Achieving Mastery
Students will be required to demonstrate achievement of learning outcomes through a variety of assigned tasks that have been customized to their experience and ministry context.
Cohort Themes
These thematic categories address some of the most significant social and cultural shifts experienced by congregations and other faith-based organizations in our world today. Each theme is supported by a team of faculty mentors.
Justice & Reconciliation
- Focus: Equip your congregation or organization to address critical issues such as racism, pathways to restoration for returning citizens, immigration complexities, and advocating for justice within your community.
- Mentors: Learn from Dr. Valerie Miles-Tribble and Dr. Aidsand Wright-Riggins.
- What You’ll Gain: Gain practical strategies and theological grounding to lead your congregation or organization in meaningful action and healing.
Preaching Social Justice
- Focus: Enhance your preaching to inspire and mobilize your congregation on today’s most pressing social justice concerns.
- Mentors: Be guided by Dr. Jacqueline Thompson and Dr. Sangyil Park.
- What You’ll Gain: Develop effective communication methods rooted in your tradition to educate and motivate your community towards positive change.
Eco-Justice/Creation Care
- Focus: Partner with Green the Church and/or the Center for Food, Faith, and Justice to integrate environmental stewardship into your ministry and address the urgent need for planetary care.
- Mentors: Learn from Dr. Ambrose Carroll and Dr. James Brenneman.
- What You’ll Gain: Discover spiritual, biblical, and ethical foundations to engage your congregation, especially the next generation, in environmental responsibility and food security.
Pastoral Care/Spiritual Formation
(Korean Language)
- Focus: Deepen your understanding and practice of pastoral care, spirituality, and spiritual formation within the Korean-speaking context.
- Mentors: Receive guidance from Dr. Daesop Yi and Dr. Sangyil Park.
- What You’ll Gain: Gain valuable insights and tools to effectively care for the spiritual needs of your Korean-speaking congregation.
Pastoral Care for Immigrant Churches
- Focus: Equip immigrant pastors and lay leaders with the skills to create sustainable and impactful ministries within diverse immigrant congregations.
- Mentors: Learn from Dr. Marie Onwubuariri and Dr. LeAnn Snow Flesher.
- What You’ll Gain: Develop culturally relevant strategies to support the growth and vitality of your immigrant church community.
Pastoral Care/Spiritual Formation
(English Language)
- Focus: Enhance your pastoral care skills and develop impactful spiritual formation programs for your faith community, with potential credit towards a DMin degree through CPE training.
- Mentor: Be guided by Dr. Rick Mixon.
- What You’ll Gain: Grow as a leader and empower your congregation’s spiritual journey through practical and enriching programs.
Womanist/Feminist Gospel
- Focus: Engage in critical analysis of the intersections of gender, class, race, and other social forces to better understand and address the experiences within your faith community.
- Mentor: Learn from Dr. Valerie Miles-Tribble.
- What You’ll Gain: Develop a nuanced understanding to foster a more inclusive and equitable faith environment.
Ministerial Training for Latinx Churches
(Spanish Language)
- Focus: Empower leaders of Latiné churches in the Bay Area with theological training and resources to effectively serve their congregations, many of whom are immigrants with diverse educational backgrounds.
- Mentors: Receive guidance from Dr. Pedro Pablo Morataya and Dr. LeAnn Snow Flesher.
- What You’ll Gain: Access ministerial and congregation-wide education in Spanish to strengthen your leadership and the vitality of your Latinx church community.
Curriculum
Year 1
- Two semester-long core courses—orientation & updates on Bible and Theology
- Small cohort-based thematic mentor sessions
Year 2
- One five-day intensive on “Writing the Dissertation”
- Small cohort-based writing workshops
Year 3
- Fine tuning the dissertation (cohort mentor meetings as needed)
- Oral Defense
- Graduation
Qualifications
- Master of Divinity or equivalent from accredited seminary or university
Competency-Based Education
Competency-based education provides opportunity for individuals to move at their own pace, and also quickly through portions of the academic programs for which they already have considerable background and experience.
- Especially attractive to bi-vocational ministers and lay leaders
- Use a variety of means for evidencing competency in designated areas
- Opportunity for students to save time and money
- Form meaningful relationships with mentors that contribute to skill development and ministerial formation
Upcoming Dates
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July 14
Application Deadline – Fall 2025
General application deadline for starting in Fall of 2025. APPLY HERE!
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August 18 - August 22
Advising Week
Students contact and meet with academic advisors to select courses and enroll for the upcoming term.
One of the Most Interculturally Diverse Seminaries in the Country
Since our founding 150 years ago, the core values of soul freedom, service leadership, social justice, public witness, religious liberty, and the centrality of the Word (written and spoken) still guide and sustain BST to this day. These Jesus-centered values, rooted in our inclusive inter-cultural heritage, have made BST an attractive school for students of many faith and denominational affiliations.
Here you will truly enter a spiritual “world-house” of teaching and learning, with a world-class faculty and students from every habitable continent on earth.
My theological training at Berkeley School of Theology helped set a moral framework around economic and racial justice that will ensure no worker, family or community is left behind.
Minister Cherri Murphy
DMin Candidate and Faith Rooted Organizer, Economic Justice for Black Oakland
