Deepen Your Ministry Practice. Expand Your Community Impact. Lead Toward Justice and Peace.

In a world longing for healing and a just peace, the Doctor of Ministry in Peacemaking and Social Change at EMU empowers ministry practitioners—from pastors to educators, activists, and community leaders—to integrate justice-forward theology with real world change.

Students bring their ministry contexts into direct conversation with coursework—discovering that what they read, write, and discuss becomes immediately applicable to preaching, advocacy, and everyday conversations.

Learn from full-time seminary faculty with expertise in theologies of peace and liberation, trauma-informed care, and nonviolent social change, while studying alongside peers from diverse ministry settings and Christian traditions.

With fully online courses, a flexible one course at a time structure, and scholarship opportunities covering up to 50% of tuition, this program offers holistic, sustainable, theory-and-practice-based formation for working ministers.

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About the DMin Program

Class Type:

100% Online (asynchronous)

Cost:

$701 per credit hour plus fees

Program Start Terms:

Summer

Program Options:

Doctor of Ministry

Credit Hours

Years (Avg.)

The Doctor of Ministry in Peacemaking and Social Change at EMU is an advanced, professionally-oriented degree that equips graduates to lead in faith-based settings, including congregations, nonprofits, community organizing and appropriate teaching roles. Our students are coming to DMin studies from a variety of ministry contexts—like a nonviolence trainer and advocate working in public schools, a state representative, and a campus minster running inclusive and affirming programs at a state university—and many are bivocational pastors, serving local churches in part-time or supply roles.

Join a doctoral program where you’ll be empowered by an Anabaptist-informed, holistic approach to justice and peace. Step into a space designed for embodied, critical theological reflection on promising theories and practices of peacemaking and social change. Develop the strategic skills needed to cultivate dynamic communities of action, driving constructive change toward a more just and peaceful world.

Learning at Eastern Mennonite Seminary is rooted in multiple Anabaptist-Mennonite perspectives, threaded with an invitation to explore theologies of nonviolence and practices for peacemaking and transformational leadership. Our current students represent several mainline traditions plus a variety of Anabaptist-Mennonite streams. People of all faith backgrounds are welcomed and encouraged to apply.

Program Details

Learning Format

This 32-credit-hour DMin program has been designed with all new, fully asynchronous online courses taught by full-time faculty at Eastern Mennonite Seminary with expertise in peacemaking and social change. Take one course at a time, and complete your work week by week on a timetable that complements your ministry. Learn more here.
Featured Courses
Theologies of Nonviolence, Justice and Peace

Deepen your impact as a peace and justice leader through a course that equips you to harness the transformative power of nonviolent theory, engage diverse theologies of peace, and apply these insights directly to your ministry context.

Trauma-Informed Spiritual Care

Strengthen your trauma‑responsive ministry by exploring the science and spirituality of how wounds shape bodies, brains, beliefs, and behaviors, and by developing contextual, justice‑seeking practices of spiritual care that foster repair and wholeness amid the ongoing impacts of trauma.

Analysis of Self and Systems

Resource your leadership for systems change by exploring how self and systems shape one another, integrating philosophical, psychological, and theological insights to strengthen your capacity for grounded, relational, and transformative ministry.

Other core courses include:
- Religion and Social Change
- Theologies of Liberation
- Peacemaking Practices
- Scriptures and the Ministry of Peacemaking

Applicant Information

Admission Requirements
- An MDiv from an accredited school with a minimum GPA of 3.0 and at least three years of full-time ministry activity since completion of the master’s degree.
- Regular, ongoing engagement in a current ministry setting, which can be either paid employment or a volunteer leadership role.
- EMS will not extend opportunities for transfer credit into this doctoral program.
- Students who do not hold an MDiv will be considered for admission if they have been in the practice of ministry for at least five years after earning their master’s degree in a field related to their ministry work with a minimum GPA of 3.0. When their graduate work does not include preparation in biblical studies, church history, theology, spiritual formation, and/or skills for ministry, these students will be required to complete additional graduate work prior to admission.
Application Requirements
- A complete application for the Doctor of Ministry program.
- Three references: 1) ecclesial, 2) academic, 3) applicant's choice.
- An academic writing sample of at least 2000 words, either full paper or excerpt from a theological graduate course demonstrating scholarly writing and research with citations. If no recent/theological education, must produce a 5-page writing sample in which you identify and defend how you would form a biblical, theological, and ecclesial approach to a topic in peacemaking and social change and identify, utilize, and properly cite a minimum of three scholarly academic references.
- A personal statement of 750-1000 words responding to the following prompts:
  - Describe relevant personal, academic and ministry experiences. What have you learned about yourself as a leader through those experiences?
  - Describe your role and your current ministry context. How do you expect to integrate DMin learnings and research with that community?
  - Describe your interest in peacemaking and social change. What are your goals for seeking a DMin in this area?