Pittsburgh has several D.Min focus areas, including several that I was interested in:
- Pastoral Theology
- Parish Focus
- Reformed Focus
- Eastern Christian
- Urban Focus
The first 2 or 3 really looked interesting to me but didn’t quite grab me. I made a visit to the campus in November and looked through the materials again the night before. I remember thinking, “Well I like parts of this one and parts of that one, but I’ll just have to see if something seems more clear after tomorrow.”
I met with the director of admissions and after we talked for awhile she said, “Oh, and I’m not sure this is even on the website yet, it’s a new focus that we’re developing.”
She handed me a course outline for “Reformed Christian Spirituality” which took elements that I liked out of several of the other areas of focus and made them into something new, which is described as having these goals:
- Approaching reformed spirituality through biblical and theological study
- Educating the heart and the mind
- Conversing between faculty and pastors
- Claiming a core identity to deepen worship, proclamation, and theology
I saw it as a designed to help deepen faith — faith that is Reformed (from which the Presbyterian Church is descended) and Christian.
