March 2027 Course Descriptions
Congregational Leadership
This seminar-style class is designed to assist pastoral leaders in: understanding more clearly the distinction between technical and adaptive challenges and changes; exploring and making progress on a current or looming challenge or dilemma; addressing how, in this turbulent era in which our churches are impacted by national partisan-political divisions, we leaders can remain attentive to the voices of those around us while listening even more closely to God’s call to us.
Our experience will be our classroom. Please read that sentence again. This class will be a safe, supportive environment in which students will benefit to the degree that they invest themselves in the learning process. Where do you face or anticipate a difficult challenge? Where do you feel stuck and want to make progress? Dealing with this dilemma will be the heart of the class, which is for anyone in a position of leadership – ordained and non-ordained, official and unofficial; veteran pastors and those in the initial stages of preparation; Parish Ministry Associate students and those simply interested in leadership.
Required Texts
Sacramental Theology
This course addresses the basic principles of sacramental theology from a classical Anglican standpoint and the historical development of the Book of Common Prayer as a response to those principles. Working from the perspectives of ritual theory and identity formation, using the theological categories of incarnation, ecclesiology, and soteriology, this course provides the foundations of a theological and methodological approach for further study and practice of the liturgical worship in the Episcopal tradition.
Required Texts
This course will apply concepts learned in Social Ministry I to the participant’s particular local context. Students will develop ministry partnerships within their own local community and will learn basic community organizing principles such as asset mapping. This course will use, in part, the Called to Transformation model of Asset Based Community Development developed by the Episcopal Church and Episcopal Relief & Development.
Required Texts
This seminar-style class is designed to assist pastoral leaders in: understanding more clearly the distinction between technical and adaptive challenges and changes; exploring and making progress on a current or looming challenge or dilemma; addressing how, in this turbulent era in which our churches are impacted by national partisan-political divisions, we leaders can remain attentive to the voices of those around us while listening even more closely to God’s call to us.
Our experience will be our classroom. Please read that sentence again. This class will be a safe, supportive environment in which students will benefit to the degree that they invest themselves in the learning process. Where do you face or anticipate a difficult challenge? Where do you feel stuck and want to make progress? Dealing with this dilemma will be the heart of the class, which is for anyone in a position of leadership – ordained and non-ordained, official and unofficial; veteran pastors and those in the initial stages of preparation; Parish Ministry Associate students and those simply interested in leadership.
Required Texts
- O’Malley, Ed; and Cebula, Amanda. Your Leadership Edge: Lead Anytime, Anywhere, KLC Press, ISBN 978-0-9889777-5-4
- Bolsinger, Tod. Canoeing the Mountains, InterVarsity Press, ISBN 978-0-8308-4147-9
- McShane, Kathleen; and Babchuck, Elan. Picking Up the Pieces: Leadership after Empire Fortress Press, an imprint of 1517 Media, print ISBN 978-1-5064-9097-7
- Beaumont, Susan. How to Lead When You Don’t Know Where You’re Going, Rowman & Littlefield, ISBN 9781538127674
- The Rev. Roger Gustafson is bishop emeritus of the Central States Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Prior to his election as bishop he was a co-pastor of Advent Lutheran Church, Olathe, for 23 years. He earned his Master of Divinity degree with Honors from Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, California, and his Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota. He is certified as an ELCA discipleship coach, working with ordained clergy and parish presidents. He was an independent contractor with the Aspen Institute, serving as head of experience design for Weave: The Social Fabric Project. He recently served as interim pastor of The American Church in Berlin.
Sacramental Theology
This course addresses the basic principles of sacramental theology from a classical Anglican standpoint and the historical development of the Book of Common Prayer as a response to those principles. Working from the perspectives of ritual theory and identity formation, using the theological categories of incarnation, ecclesiology, and soteriology, this course provides the foundations of a theological and methodological approach for further study and practice of the liturgical worship in the Episcopal tradition.
Required Texts
- Boersma, Hans. Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry. First Edition. Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 2011.
- Weil, Louis. Liturgical Sense: The Logic of Rite (Weil Series in Liturgics). New York: Seabury Books, 2013.
- Martos, Joseph. Doors to the Sacred: A Historical Introduction to Sacraments in the Catholic Church. Updated ed. edition. Liguori, Missouri: Liguori Publications, 2014.
- Valantasis, Richard. Dazzling Bodies: Rethinking Spirituality and Community Formation. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2014.
- Dr. Donna Ruth Hawk-Reinhard, AF is a professed member of Anamchara Fellowship. She has a PhD in Historical Theology from Saint Louis University and an MDiv from Covenant Theological Seminary. Since 2008, she has taught classes in spirituality, early and medieval church history, introduction to Christian theology, and Anglican Studies in a variety of contexts including vocational, university, and seminary settings. Her research area is the intersection of sacramental theology, liturgy, and Christian identity formation.
This course will apply concepts learned in Social Ministry I to the participant’s particular local context. Students will develop ministry partnerships within their own local community and will learn basic community organizing principles such as asset mapping. This course will use, in part, the Called to Transformation model of Asset Based Community Development developed by the Episcopal Church and Episcopal Relief & Development.
Required Texts
- Mather, Michael. Having Nothing, Possessing Everything
- Harder, Cameron. Discovering the Other: Asset Based Approaches for Building Community Together
- The Reverend Deacon Shane Schneider serves in the Diocese of Western Kansas at Grace Episcopal Church in Hutchinson and as Deacon-in-Charge at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in McPherson. A graduate of Kansas State University, he holds an M.A. in Sociology from Arizona State University and an M.P.S. in Social Entrepreneurship from Fort Hays State University. An alumnus of The Bishop Kemper School for Ministry, he received diaconal ordination in 2022. For more than a decade, Dn. Shane has worked in communications and marketing for Saint Francis Ministries, an Episcopal child and family services nonprofit based in Salina, Kansas. He also serves as an adjunct online sociology instructor for Fort Hays State University, where he teaches Introduction to Sociology and Diversity & Multiculturalism in the U.S.