Master of Arts: Youth Ministry

Mark Holcomb, M.R.E., Coordinator

A two-year program that provides a broad and powerful education for specialized ministry in the local church, the Master of Arts: Youth Ministry focuses on ministry to students and their families in today’s culture in a local church context. Theory is integrated with praxis, reflection and life. The first year of this program provides a traditional classroom-based education consisting of 30 hours. During the second year, the student engages in a mentored ministry to youth, coming back to Olivet for several one-week intensive courses, called modules.

The M.A. in Youth Ministry draws strength from leading experts in the field of youth ministry who come to campus for face-to-face teaching, encounters, networking, and learning with our students. The combination of those experts with our own residential faculty, who total over 40 years of highly successful experience in youth ministry, makes Olivet’s Master of Arts in Youth Ministry a powerful educational experience that will launch the student into a satisfying career of service for our Lord to the youth of the 21st century.

48 hours

Required:

BLIT 632 – Cultural/Historical Influences and Biblical Interpretation

PSYC 601 – Human Growth and Development

640 – Marriage and Family Relations

THEO 607 – Theology of Ministry

693 – Contemporary Issues in Theology

YMIN 612 – Foundations of Youth Ministry

630 – Developmental Theories and Adolescents

650 – Spiritual Development of Students

670A, B – Mentored Ministry I, II

691 – Integrated Seminar/Project

CHED and/or CMIN electives (6 hours)

THEO elective (3 hours)

YMIN electives (6 hours)

A cumulative GPA of 3.0 is required for graduation from the program, no course counting toward graduation may carry a grade of less than a B-.

Core Values Motivating the M.A. in Youth Ministry

• Integration of what the student learns in the classroom with the experience and practice of ministry in concrete settings.
• Intentionality, not only to integrate theory and praxis, but to do so consciously, clearly, explicitly and intentionally, never allowing any person to forget the need for and the practice of integration.
• Theological reflection draws on the belief of faculty members in the M.A. in Youth Ministry that there are right and wrong ways to speak about God with young people, their families, and communities. The goal is to encourage each student to grasp the theological foundations and implications of every aspect of ministry.
• Multiple voices, including those of other students are valuable for students in the youth ministry program to hear. Perhaps somewhat paradoxically though, students quite appropriately put a high value on quality interaction with the professor. Achieving these twin goals, our program is structured in modules, half-semesters (called blocks), and semesters, enabling Olivet to bring in a variety of complementary voices that the youth ministry community appreciates and the student deserves to hear.
• Mentoring goes “way beyond” mere programming. The mentoring model in the M.A. program in Youth Ministry can and should become a lifelong style for productive ministry. The student should learn a mode of human interaction that sustains in later life and ministry, both as one who mentors and as one who is mentored.
• Lifelong learning is a goal in giving the individual the tools and a renewed desire to become “global Christians” who possess the tools and seek to understand the ever-changing climate of our global community.

Program Format

More than most master’s degree programs, the M.A. in Youth Ministry uses a wide assortment of course formats and teaching methods: intensive modules, half-semester courses, full-semester courses, lecturing, mentoring, internships, seminars, papers, and projects. For a more detailed explanation of the various course formats, please refer to "Academic Policies: Program Formats".

While students in the M.A. program in Youth Ministry take a few modular courses during their first year, they take all their courses as modules during their second year. This allows the second-year students to engage in their mentored youth ministry experience on a full-time basis and gives them the option to do that mentored experience at locations quite distant from Olivet’s campus in Bourbonnais, Illinois. The program culminates in an Integrated Seminar during August of the second year, where the students present their projects and bring all the facets of their Olivet education in Youth Ministry into a coherent whole.