Whether it’s called continuing education, certification, or lifelong learning, non-degree programs have been an underlying force of student and program growth for many Association of Theological Schools (ATS) institutions throughout their histories. And although these programs exist outside the accrediting structures of degree programs, nearly all of them are closely aligned to the mission of their institution.
What began in many theological schools as denominational requirements for clergy or authorization for lay licensure has expanded into an array of learning opportunities. These include the augmentation of degree programs and exploration of theological or biblical topics. But they also include leadership training, broad-ranging spirituality topics, pastoral counseling, mentoring programs, and community organizing.
Recent research by the Association of Leaders in Lifelong Learning for Ministry (ALLLM) surveyed schools offering lifelong learning programs to better understand about how continuing education is perceived by and integrated into theological institutions. In the 2020-21 academic year, it identified 84 programs operating at 273 ATS schools. In the 2024-25 academic year, when the survey also included interviews, there were 138 programs in 289 schools.
ATS data showed a 24.2 % (1,320 students) increase in non-degree program enrollment between 2023 and 2024. Among the 260 institutions surveyed, students seeking M.Div. and Th.M./S.T.M. degrees declined by 1.5% (378 students) and 3% (37 students) respectively over the same period.
The growth in lifelong learning programs comes as divinity degree program enrollment has been on a 20-year downward slide. But it’s not all bad news for degree program enrollment over these 20 years. MA degree enrollment has increased nearly 30 percent, and doctoral programs are up by about 16%.
For some institutions, lifelong learning is a return to their foundations in preparing learned and engaged leaders, from which some will be called into other forms of ministry. It is also a place where innovation happens much more rapidly than within the boundaries of accredited degree programs and where the academy can quickly interface with the world around it. What follows are profiles of five theological institutions where lifelong learning plays a vital role in the educational mission of the school. Find more at intrust.org/magazine.
At the Heart
AMBS centers lifelong learning program
With roots in a correspondence pastoral training program dating to the early 1970s, regular itineration of professors teaching in adult Bible schools, and an annual pastor’s conference, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS), Elkhart, Indiana, began to formalize its work in lifelong learning following a listening tour conducted by President J. Nelson Kraybill in the late 1990s.
Jewel Gingerich Longenecker, Dean of Lifelong Learning and D.Min. Program Director, said Kraybill heard constituents wanted to continue having strong degree programs along with more entry points to theological education.
“They really valued our depth of theological education and excellence that the seminary had been known for, and they didn’t want that to go away,” she said. “But (they asked us to) please add elements of accessible programming that would allow people to grow in their identity as Christians, as Anabaptist, as leaders.”
Longenecker was hired as Associate Dean for Leadership Education at her alma mater in 2001 with the task of formalizing lifelong learning into what became the Church Leadership Center. A key moment came in 2006, when the president appointed her to the administrative cabinet.
“That has shaped everything going forward because that meant I am part of the decision-making, part of the visioning, part of strategic planning, part of the conversations about budget,” she said. The program was integrated into the core of the seminary’s operations.
Drawing on the experience of seminary faculty as instructors at the Church Leadership Center allows “people to get a taste of what (the faculty) have to bring to conversations, and we want our teachers to get a taste of what’s going on in the constituency,” Longenecker said. Augmented by a stable of core adjuncts and subject matter experts, the center offers a variety of short courses, seminars and a three-year Missional Leadership Development Program, where leaders can explore or expand their call to ministry.
The interplay between the Church Leadership Center and the seminary’s degree programs is a valuable connection, Longenecker said. A third of the incoming classes previously participated in the center programs, she said.
As Longnecker begins her transition away from her role next summer, she is confident that lifelong learning will continue to play an important role at AMBS. “As I look at what people are saying about the life of the church, it seems to me that the type of programs we’re doing in lifelong learning are meeting people in this moment,” she said.
A new calling
Adapting for change
The Center for Lifelong Learning at Columbia Theological Seminary, in Decatur, Georgia, is designed as a flexible addition to the seminary’s degrees. Offering a variety of scholarly, contemplative, practical and pastoral excellence programs and certificates, Israel Galindo, Associate Dean for Lifelong Learning since 2013, says the center is designed for a different type of student.
“Lifelong learners are motivated by the question: I’ve got a problem I need solved and who can help me with that?” he said.
With “a foot in both worlds” of the academy and continuing education, he said the center’s overarching goal is helping ministry professionals build new skills as their calls change.
“Just because you lost your church or you burned out doesn’t mean you’re not called,” he says. “Let us help you find your calling. We have some practical programs to help discern how do you find your new vocation? How do you market yourself with a theological degree with the skills you’ve developed into a new calling?”
Galindo is aware of the changing demographics of degree seeking students at theological institutions and a general shift away from the MDiv. For him, serving the needs of the church takes priority, and lifelong learning is a pathway for preparing ministers for these new realities.
Columbia’s president, Victor Aloyo, sees the Center of Lifelong Learning as the key to fulfilling the last of its four mission objectives: to call, equip, send, and sustain ministry leaders. He believes students at Columbia are informed the lifelong learning opportunities, even offering free courses while enrolled in a degree program.
“We would be missing an essential element and development of the seminar’s mission without the Center,” he says. “Lifelong learning is a critical element of sustainability of these servant leader scholars who are out in the trenches.”
Aloyo says it is exploring how the center can help train lay leaders in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Connections
For new students and the alumni
Brite Divinity School, in Fort Worth, Texas, has a long history of providing continuing education for pastors and church leaders, beginning with a lectureship in 1888. Now called Ministry Week, the three-day conference draws hundreds of people to its campus for lectures, workshops, and worship.
The school’s Center for Lifelong Learning also encompasses the Stalcup School of Theology for the Laity and the Thriving in Ministry Program with resources for new ministers and those seeking to reignite their ministry efforts.
Lizette Acosta, Director of the Center for Lifelong Learning, came to Brite in 2023 and is helping expand its continuing education efforts beyond events to include more programmatic offerings.
In addition to the three Thriving in Ministry endeavors – From Brite to Beyond Brite, Flourishing in Ministry, and its Spanish-language counterpart, Prosperando en el Ministerio – Acosta has initiated a Certificate of Theological Foundations and is planning a program on practical ministry.
Programs that now fall under the Center of Lifelong Learning, such as the lectures and summer gatherings, have always been part of Brite’s core mission of serving church leaders. As such, Acosta said her department is included in the goals of the school.
“One of the benefits of lifelong learning or continued education is that we’re very nimble,” she said, adding there is an enthusiasm from administrators and professors to explore ways in which these programs can enhance degree programs and attract new audiences.
“If a seminary wants to shift to remain relevant, lifelong learning is a way to do it,” Acosta said of the opportunity for continuing education to remain in the lives of its graduates and their ministries. “And it helps us to remain relevant and to be nimble and to adapt, and it provides a place for connection.”
Engagement
Keeping alumni on a path of growth
Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in Mequon, Wisconsin, is unique among schools profiled here in that its continuing education offerings are catered to a self-described “captive audience” – the 1,377 graduates of the seminary serving as pastors in the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) church.
Bradley Wordell, Director of Continuing Education, said the program, Grow in Grace, is deeply embedded into the seminary’s core mission and is considered one of its two primary arms of education alongside the MDiv. program.
The genesis of Grow in Grace began with former seminary professor Rich Gurgle, now president of Martin Luther College, who sought to transform the school’s summer seminars for pastors into something more formal beginning in 2010, including instituting a Master of Sacred Theology degree. A graduate of the seminary, Wordell served the church as a pastor and missionary to Japan for 16 years, returning to the school in 2015 as a professor. He became director of continuing education programs in 2022.
Approximately 45% of the denomination’s pastors take at least one course during any two-year cycle. New graduates are enrolled in a three-year mentoring program where another pastor serves as a confidant, a pastor to the pastor, for check-ins, support and spiritual care. As a result, the denomination has a remarkably low attrition rate for newly ordained pastors.
“We are typically graduating classes of 30 to 40, and if we lose one of them in the first seven years, we think it’s really sad,” Wordell said. “I will often have a pastor that comes to me and says, ‘If it weren’t for that mentoring program, I would’ve been out. I would’ve quit.’”
With a strong emphasis on encouraging continued theological and biblical reflection, peer-to-peer support, honest relationships, and spiritual preparedness, Wordell says, “All those things may be more important than the academic portion of [lifelong learning], but it all goes together.”
Although the programmatic offerings within Grow in Grace continue to change over time, Wordell said the seminary has “found its niche” and doesn’t believe it will change dramatically in the near future other than pursuing higher engagement. About 40 students are currently enrolled in the Master of Sacred Theology program.
“We like to say in our Grow in Grace office that we love our pastors,” he said. “They are gifts from God, and we’re always asking how we can serve them better.”
The Future
Experimenting with what’s coming next
Looking toward the future of theological education is literally embedded in the name of Acadia Divinity College’s non-degree programs. “We don’t necessarily call it lifelong learning here,” said Jodi Porter, Director of Education for Ministry Innovation of the school’s Futuring Lab, which includes two integrated components: a Futuring Hub and the Sandbox for Theological Education and the Church.
Porter’s colleague Joel Murphy leads the Futuring Hub at the school in Nova Scotia, focusing on “looking over the horizon” to take a proactive approach to coming needs in ministry and theological education. The Sandbox is where experimentation in teaching and learning practices is implemented.
“We’re think about what does the ideal MDiv. graduate look like?” she asked. Strong integration with curricular goals at the institution affects not only the degree offerings, but also supplemental courseware and microcredentials on topics such as artificial intelligence, conflict in ministry, and pastoral care.
Funded by the Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative grants, the Futuring Lab is working to integrate its staff and structure into Acadia’s overall operations as it “right-sizes and scales its related work” beyond the grant cycle. At the same time, the school continues to provide and work toward expanding its denominational master class and microcredential offerings as part of the strategy for non-degree programs.
“The practical piece that comes out when we do this is it invites students to make connections between faith and life and life and faith,” Porter said. “I’m a big fan of that praxis method of making sure that we’re not just learning content in our classes, but we’re figuring out how it matters in the world.”
Acadia’s president, Anna Robbins, recently articulated a new strategic vision that represents an integration across the institution of many of the elements the Futuring Lab has begun investigating. Porter believes it will help shape the future beyond Acadia. “We are exploring how to resource the larger industry of theological education when it comes to featuring practices,” she said. “When it comes to leading-edge scholarship and teaching and learning, when it comes to embodying decolonization as a precursor to innovation. … We want to do that not only here, but more broadly as well.”
Resourcing
Providing ways to try new things
The Leadership Institute for Growth, Healing, and Transformation (LIGHT) at Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago was established in 2022 with the goal of making “theological education more open, accessible, and responsive to a broad audience, including clergy, lay leaders, and spiritual seekers,” said Kate Lassiter, Senior Director of Lifelong Learning and DMin programs.
Lassiter brought her experience as a tenure track professor at a Catholic college and clinical pastoral education director, along with an entrepreneurial mindset, to Meadville Lombard as the school tasked her with formalizing its continuing education programs in addition to launching a DMin program in 2023.
LIGHT’s budget and governance is integrated within Meadville Lombard’s institutional structure. LIGHT operates as a department of the school. It’s mostly online course offerings generate revenue to cover costs along with grant income that allows flexibility and creativity in programming.
With a vision for lifelong learning programs that embrace mentorship, community building and organizing, and spiritual exploration without regard to religious affiliation, Lassiter said LIGHT’s offerings expand on Meadville Lombard’s traditional degree programs to provide educational opportunities for a broad set of participants to meet the needs of non-degree seeking students.
“Part of the relationship here is that it gives people a chance to experiment, to try new things out, to think about ministry in a different way,” she said. “For our faculty, it gives them a chance to show up in a different kind of space that is time limited. You don’t have to teach an entire course. You can try this thing out for two hours, see if there’s some juice, and then expand from there.”
Among the many programs offered at Meadville Lombard, the certificate in spiritual direction provides first-hand field experience as second-year certificate students are matched up with MDiv students for a year of free spiritual direction.
“This means we’re resourcing better clergy and introducing them to this thing you should do in ministry,” Lassiter said. “And then our certificate students get to have more experience. They’re supervised, they’re learning.”
Trends in theological degree enrollment and changes in church attendance demographics are opportunities for theological innovation and spiritual entrepreneurship, according to Lassiter, and something Meadville Lombard’s LIGHT programing is specifically positioned to address.
“Ministry is going to change. Ministry is already in flux, so what are we preparing people for?” she asked. “What is essential and what do we absolutely have to give people? Or what skills do we need to teach people? What practices do we need to help inculcate in people in order to make ministry something that is more flexible, dynamic, fluid?”
The Secret Sauce
For the long haul of life in ministry
There’s no argument among those planning, implementing, and teaching lifelong learning programs that theological degrees are important and here to stay. But they are even more confident that non-degree programming will play a larger role in their institutions.
For administrations and tenured professors, it is an opportunity to experiment outside the guardrails of an accredited degree program. For lifelong learners, it is the prospect of having talented subject-matter experts open new areas of exploration and mentorship, professional development, and spiritual growth housed within a trusted institution throughout their careers.
Helen Blier serves as President of ALLLM and Director of the Center for Lifelong Learning at Columbia Theological Seminary. She’s written extensively on the benefits of lifelong learning among ministry professionals and the shift among theological institutions incorporating it as a core element of their education goals. From a philosophical point of view, she said, “lifelong learning is the norm, and the degree program is just a tiny pericope in the middle of being a lifelong learner.”
For Blier and others promoting non-degree programming at seminaries, they aren’t interested in displacing degree programming, but they are captivated by the prospect of creating programming that helps ministry professionals thrive.
“How do you help sustain people over the long haul of ministry?” she asked. “I think we’re going to look back and say, we actually knew what the secret sauce was: It was lifelong learning.”
