Purpose

The Master of Arts in Ministry and Culture (MAMC) and the Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree programs are both designed to equip persons to fulfill their vocations in providing faithful and effective forms of ministry in congregations and in the world. While the more extensive 82 semester-hour MDiv remains the degree required for ordination in most denominations, the 48 semester-hour MAMC degree, which like the MDiv requires Supervised Ministry, is designed to affirm and respond to the educational needs of persons interested in, for example:

• congregational leadership in denominations that do not require in all cases the Master of Divinity degree for ordination; 
• forms of diaconal ministry, licensed professional ministry, commissioned, bi-vocational, or lay ministry (e.g., in Christian education, youth work, hospice care, and counseling and mediation).

Students in the MAMC program will develop their abilities to:

• act as responsible biblical interpreters critically informed by current historical, literary and theological scholarship in the field of biblical studies at a basic level for the practice of ministry;
• articulate a theology that takes into account a liberative hermeneutic and is responsive to key themes in Christian theology, ethics, biblical exegesis, Christian history, and each student's own denominational heritage and polity;
• demonstrate the skills and practices associated with ministry in conversation with the student's denominational heritage, Christian traditions, theological formulations, and cultural contexts;
• develop an understanding of the student's own personal and spiritual formation appropriate to the practice of ministry.

For more information on the M.A.M.C. program, please go to the PTS Catalog.