DMin Semester at a Glance
The Doctor of Ministry program at Houston Theological Seminary is designed to be a formative experience for Christian leaders. The core program can be completed in as few as three years. Most courses are semester-long and hybrid in format, focused on one-week residential intensives. Students only need to come to Houston one week each semester, and the rest will be accessible remotely. So what would a typical semester look like?
Students take 5 hours per semester over 6 semesters / 3 years. Those 5 hours each semester will include a content course (3 hrs) and the research seminar or project (2 hrs).
Intensive Dates Upcoming (Monday to Friday):
- Spring 2025: March 3–7, 2025
- Fall 2025: October 13–17, 2025
- Spring 2026 (tentative): March 2–6, 2026
- Fall 2026 (tentative): October 12–16, 2026
Content Course (3 hrs)
Through the DMin program, students will take 6 content courses–3 core courses and 3 track courses. These courses proceed over the course of the semester in the fall and spring, and they will be focused on the one-week intensive when students will travel to Houston. Accordingly, courses will have three stages of progression:
- Preliminary work – done at a distance, with some remote sessions
- One-week – done in-person in Houston
- Concluding work – done at a distance, with some remote sessions
Research Seminar/Project (2 hrs)
The research seminar will focus on exposing students to current research trends and helping them progress towards completion of their own doctoral project.
These seminars meet about twice a month remotely for 1.5 hours and focus on personal research progression. From the beginning of the program, students will have a guided journey towards finishing their research project. Over the first two years students participate in the Research Seminar (four semesters), where they progressively determine and refine their research project. The goal is that the student will not only have chosen a topic but already have written chapters towards their project by the end of those two years. In the third year, students will take a Research Project course (two semesters), focusing independently on their project and guided in a dual supervision process, with both a faculty research supervisor and a First Reader (a subject matter expert who may be drawn from outside of the HCU/HTS faculty).
More Information
Explore more detailed information about the DMin program:
- DMin Summary Information
- DMin Program Distinctives
- DMin Costs and Scholarships
- DMin Program Structure and Semester at a Glance
- DMin Program Entry and Advancement
Please feel free to contact Andrew Garbarino (agarbarino@hc.edu), DMin Program Coordinator, who can help guide you through the application and shape a program that fits your interests and ministry goals.