Contemporary Worship

The MA Contemporary Worship is a unique combination of academic and vocational focus: can be taken independently or accredited to an ordination training programme. The Modular structure provides unrivalled range of programme content. Team-taught across two departments: the programme exemplifies the King's tradition of excellence in both research and professional training.

Watch the video here, or access the 'interactive' tab to view at a larger size and see any alternative films playOverviewVideo('/prospectus/images/home.jpg','http://podcast.ulcc.ac.uk/accounts/kings/SSPP_Podcasts/Theology_and_Ministry.flv','true','details_358'); KEY BENEFITS

• The MA is the first in the UK specifically designed for contemporary worship leaders.
• The MA helps worship leaders to critically engage with worship.
• Worship leaders study alongside youth ministers, clergy and Christians working for NGOs.
• Located in the heart of London.
  
  

PURPOSEThe MA in Contemporary Worship is part of a modular degree programme at King's (co-taught with the Department of Theology & Religious Studies http://www.kcl.ac.uk/trs ). It seeks to provide intellectual frameworks and practical insights for Christian mission and ministry. The programmes offer unrivalled diversity of course content and teaching expertise. Designed in a unique cooperation between theologians and ministers, they combine intellectual depth with a wide range of practical issues - from contemporary worship to Fair Trade. They will challenge, inspire and refresh anyone engaged in Christian ministry, from ministers and ordinands, to laity and members of faith-based organisations.

DESCRIPTIONThe MA in Contemporary Worship is delivered in collaboration with the Department of Theology & Religious Studies and the Centre for Theology, Religion & Culture in the Department of Education & Professional Studies.

The MA in Contemporary Worship connects cutting-edge academic research with contemporary issues of Christian life and ministry. There are purely historical and theological MAs available in other universities, and there are vocational courses in seminaries and training colleges, but this programme presents a significant alternative. It will do justice to the complexity of academic debates but it will always relate them to the practical and the present. Drawing on the expertise of the Department of Theology & Religious Studies and the Department of Education & Professional Studies, this programme exemplifies the strengths of King's as both a leading research university and a centre for professional training. It promises a level of interdisciplinary excitement and pastoral engagement that would be hard to match elsewhere.

The MA in Contemporary Worship is designed to help worship leaders think theologically about their ministry. It explores the changing shape of worship and how it relates to questions of theology and culture.

Students take the compulsory module, Patterns in Contemporary Worship. The module aims to offer theoretical frameworks for understanding developments in contemporary worship. This module sets contemporary patterns of worship within the context of wider cultural change. Theoretical approaches are developed drawing upon the understanding of cultural change in modernity to theorise the contemporary worship scene as a specifically Christian postmodern moment. This leads on to sessions that deal with the changing nature of worship within specific ecclesial contexts and traditions. There will be an emphasis upon studying worship as it is practiced drawing upon recent empirical research as well as published liturgical texts.

Students take one other compulsory module, which is Theology in Practice. This core module links all the programmes on the King's Theology and Ministry MA programme. It aims to equip students with theological tools that will help them to analyse the styles and the purposes of Christian ministry. With these tools (including disciplines of social science with their empirical research methodologies, historical enquiry, and scriptural interpretation) students will be in a position to articulate a theology of ministry, and to formulate methodologies for understanding and interpreting their contexts and their actions as ministers.

In addition to the dissertation, students will then take two further modules from the following:

• Ministry and the Bible;
• Church, Mission & Society;
• Contemporary Ministry and Apologetics;
• Educational Issues in Christian Ministry;
• Pastoral Use of the Bible;
• Patterns in Contemporary Ecclesiology;
• Patterns in Youth Ministry;
• Theology, Church & Worship;
• Theology, Politics & Faith-Based Organisations.