I am a seminary dean who believes that the best seminary education occurs in conjunction with service in a local church. Education gains relevance and significance when we put to work what we learn through planning worship services, training laypeople, preaching the Word, and doing evangelism. In fact, if I were king for a day, I would require all seminary students to serve in a local church full-time internship prior to graduating.
With that in mind, I am pleased that the Billy Graham School at Southern Seminary offers a PhD that still requires students to complete their coursework at Southern but that does not require a physical relocation to Louisville. We still encourage students to move to our campus, but qualified students now serving in ministry away from Louisville may attend PhD classes for four weeks a year (typically two weeks in Nov-Dec, and two in May-June) while majoring in Evangelism and Church Growth, Christian Missions, World Religions, or Applied Apologetics. In addition to the intensive on-campus class time, students have significant Internet interaction and discussion with the professor and other classmates throughout the year. All students—whether living on-campus or off—complete the same courses.
The Graham School doctoral degrees emphasize biblical foundations for evangelism and missions, honest analysis of church growth and missiological methods, historical reviews of God’s work throughout the world, apologetic preparation for countering world religions, and scriptural approaches to spiritual warfare in evangelism and missions. Equipped well, our current PhD students and graduates have served, or are serving, as local church pastors, North American and international missionaries, seminary and college professors, college executives, denominational employees, church staff members, mission administrators, and in other church-based roles.
Our prayer is that Graham School doctoral students will continue to lead evangelicals throughout the world to focus on the Great Commission. If you are interested in getting more information about this program, contact Dr. Adam Greenway, BGS Director of Research Doctoral Studies, at agreenway@sbts.edu.
