Reimagining Ministry: The Transformative Power of Hartford International’s Doctor of Ministry Program
Today’s spiritual leaders face unprecedented challenges. In an increasingly diverse, complex, and rapidly shifting religious landscape, even seasoned practitioners need space to reflect, recalibrate, and reimagine their approach to faith leadership.
Hartford International University’s Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) program is an advanced professional degree for clergy, chaplains, nonprofit leaders, educators, and other spiritual practitioners seeking fresh insight, renewed purpose, and tools for transformative leadership.
A Doctor of Ministry Rooted in Real-World Impact
HIU’s D.Min. is not a traditional academic exercise—it’s a dynamic, deeply personalized program built for experienced faith leaders actively serving in ministry, chaplaincy, nonprofit, or faith-based advocacy contexts.
The D.Min. program’s structure is intentionally flexible, enabling students to stay fully engaged in their ministry contexts, whether a congregation, hospital, military base, prison, or university, while pursuing rigorous, meaningful learning. The curriculum blends applied research with a deeply interreligious learning environment, empowering students to lead with clarity, creativity, and compassion.
Transformative Projects That Make a Difference
Each D.Min. student at HIU develops a transformational initiative rooted in their own context. These “change projects” are real-world-focused initiatives that use applied research to respond to a real challenge or opportunity in the student’s ministry setting. These aren’t abstract papers – they’re lived experiments in leadership.
Examples of past D.Min. projects include:
- Merging congregations and guiding identity transitions
- Launching new ministry programs to support unhoused populations
- Transitioning a historic church into a town-owned community center while continuing worship
- Revitalizing religious education programs and youth formation
- Restoring Holocaust-era Torah scrolls as a form of spiritual healing and cultural repair
- Coordinating Muslim alumni and student networks in higher education chaplaincy
- Mapping the real work of university chaplains through a national study
- Reimagining faith formation for a new generation
Each D.Min. project is fully customized to reflect the needs, goals, and mission of the leader’s community. Graduates leave not only with a completed project but with a model for transformative change to make a tangible impact in their community.
A Rich Interreligious Learning Community
From the beginning, D.Min. students at HIU become part of a close-knit, interfaith cohort. They engage in a dynamic deep learning community with colleagues from a rich diversity of faith traditions and professional backgrounds that offers both intellectual challenge and relational support through in-person retreats and ongoing online seminars.
It’s not uncommon for a Unitarian chaplain, a Muslim community leader, a Catholic priest, and a Baptist pastor to share insights in the same seminar – each voice contributing to a deeper, more expansive understanding of ministry. These bonds create a rare kind of community — supportive, honest, and deeply empathetic. Many religious leaders describe ministry as lonely work, but in HIU’s D.Min. program, students find solidarity. In a profession often marked by isolation, students consistently find the cohort to be a rare space for honesty, vulnerability, and mutual encouragement. Free from denominational politics, many faith leaders feel more open to share the struggles they face and ask the tough questions about ministry, leadership, and vocation.
A Curriculum Built for Practice and Possibility
HIU’s D.Min. program curriculum is built on relevance. Rather than following a rigid track, our students are encouraged to choose electives that support their unique project goals while engaging with core themes in spiritual care, ethical leadership, interreligious literacy, and social transformation. D.Min. electives align with HIU’s Centers of Excellence, including the Howard Thurman Center for Justice and Transformative Ministry and the Center for Transformative Spirituality. Students collaborate on projects and receive mentorship from nationally recognized faculty, such as Dr. Lisa Dahill, whose work at the intersection of ecology and ministry bridges deep theological reflection with urgent real-world concerns. Others might work with Dr. Scott Thumma, Co-Director of the D.Min. and an internationally known expert on megachurches, or Dr. Allison Norton, the other Co-Director of the D.Min. and an authority on migration studies and congregational life.
Powered by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research
HIU is home to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research (HIRR) – a national leader in studying congregational trends, religious innovation, and ministry challenges. For over 40 years, the Institute has conducted cutting-edge, longitudinal research on American religious life, offering powerful insights into the trends, challenges, and opportunities facing religious communities today.
D.Min. students benefit from direct access to the Institute’s data and insights, as well as its Co-Directors, Dr. Thumma and Dr. Norton, who also co-direct the D.Min. Research areas include changing patterns of religious affiliation, clergy wellness and burnout, technology use in worship, and post-pandemic transformation. This unique resource equips students to situate their projects and local challenges within broader cultural and institutional trends and draw from ongoing research.
Calling Spiritual Leaders Ready to Create Real Change
In today’s complex and rapidly changing religious landscape, spiritual leaders need tools to create real impact in their communities. HIU’s D.Min. program is built for experienced spiritual leaders who want to reimagine and renew their sense of calling, deepen their skills, and respond creatively to the evolving needs of the world around them.
What sets HIU’s D.Min. apart is its flexible, interreligious, and deeply practical approach – honoring students’ lived experience while equipping them with tools for transformative change rooted in justice, compassion, and hope. Our D.Min. students enter a program that nurtures their leadership and graduate with a sharper sense of the big picture and their place within it.