Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
A Certificate in Christian Ministry Plays an Important Role
Whether you are called to the ministry or another form of service, education is in your future. For many, that means a college degree. For others, however, certificate programs in Christian ministry may offer important and affordable paths to learning. And in many cases, you'll find that Christian ministry certificates are the perfect complement to any degree that you might earn.
On its own, no certificate will qualify you to become an ordained minister. In most denominations, that takes graduate level education, usually as a Master of Divinity, to achieve.
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But certificates have an important role in ministry education, whether ordination is in your future or not:
- Certificates offer an inexpensive and quick taste of what full training in the ministry can accomplish
- Certificates can fill in gaps in ministry subjects that other specialized degree programs might not have covered
- Certificates brush up your skills with the latest thinking and training if you’ve already been in the ministry for many years
- Certificates may offer pure knowledge and personal satisfaction in religious studies even if you have no career goals in mind
You can find certificates to suit you at every level of study and on every path to a Christian life.
What Is a Certificate in Christian Ministry?
Certificates are academic programs designed to teach you about specific topics in Christian studies. Although they are often offered by colleges and universities, they do not usually award college credits. The classes may be identical to some degree-granting coursework, but they come without the supporting studies in other liberal arts that make a college degree a college degree.
On the other hand, they can be had for a fraction of the price, and can be completed much more rapidly than a degree—in a few months, or a year at most. You get the distilled information you are looking for with the crusts cut off.
This means that many certificates come with between two and six separate courses. You can find programs that have exactly the kind of training you are looking for in specific topics, without any distractions or extras.
Certificates can offer a broad overview of a subject to help you get your bearings, or intensive study in a specific topic to hone your expertise in a one area.
That combination of quick completion, diverse topics, and multiple goals makes certificates the Swiss Army knives of ministry education. You can find them aimed at almost any purpose and at every level of study.
Undergraduate Certificates Offer a Solid Start in Christian Education
Undergraduate certificates have coursework similar to what you would find in an associate’s or bachelor’s level degree program. That means fairly basic, introductory classes that don’t require a lot of prior knowledge to get through.
That can make these certificates a great introduction to pastoral studies or ministry practices. You can get an overall introduction to the work of ministry in only a few months. This might be just the taste you need to motivate you to pursue a full degree, or to give you more confidence as a lay minister.
Some schools also award certificates as extensions of their existing degree programs. In these cases, they are really more like concentration or specialty areas; the programs are not always open to students who are not already enrolled and pursuing a degree. When they are, they are not available for credit. They can, however, develop your expertise in areas where your current undergraduate program might not offer quite the level of training that you want.
Graduate Certificates in Christian Ministry Develop Expertise On Top of an Existing Degree
Graduate certificates are aimed at individuals who have already earned a bachelor’s degree. These programs aim to build on that basic level of education with specific coursework at the master’s level, but without a complete master’s program. They drill down into a single subject area, such as ministry leadership, Biblical hermeneutics, or workplace ministry that a formal degree might not have covered in-depth.
These certificates are a great way to either round out your knowledge in specialties you hadn’t considered in your bachelor’s program, or to build up your skills in areas that will best prepare you to eventually enter a graduate degree program.
Post-graduate Certificates Offer Education at the Highest Levels of Ministry Studies
Post-graduate certificates are designed similarly to graduate certificates—they offer a way to dive into an area of study that you might not have covered in your degree program. The biggest difference is that they are aimed at individuals who hold a master’s degree already.
Master’s programs can be even more focused than bachelor’s degrees. That’s great for developing deep knowledge in a particular specialty, but if you later find you want to switch the type of ministry you serve, it can leave you high and dry.
A post-graduate certificate lets you fill in the gaps without having to go back to school for another full master’s degree.
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With Certificate Programs, Courses Completed Do Not Always Equal Credits Earned
Many certificate programs describe their coursework in terms of credit hours. But you have to be careful when reviewing these programs—just because that’s how the class is described, it doesn’t mean you are necessarily earning credits that will count toward a higher degree.
For starters, only certificates that are run by accredited colleges can offer genuine credits for your coursework. And in some cases you will find certificates that do come with credits you can count toward a degree.
These programs usually serve as entry points into a particular degree program at a particular college, however. The credits that come with the certificate will not usually be transferable, in the way that associate’s degree credits often transfer between schools. Instead, the university that offers the certificate may accept it as counting toward a future degree earned only at that school.
This can still offer you an inexpensive way to try out a particular program without making a full commitment to a degree, or to get started even if you’re not in a position to pay for the full degree just yet. And even if you choose not to continue, certificate programs are complete modules that will leave you with useful training no matter what.
Certificate Programs are Available in Every Subject in Christian Ministry
Part of what makes certificates so useful is that they are able to focus so narrowly into so many different subjects. So it’s impossible to catalog all the different kinds of certificate programs in ministry and religion that are available today.
In general, however, there are certain broad subjects areas that these programs seem to fall into. They may offer an overview of the entire area of knowledge, like Biblical hermeneutics, or drill down into a single specific topic, like the Gospel and Epistles of John. But most certificates fall somewhere in one of these categories:
Certificates in Scripture
Scripture may be the most common kind of certificate available in Christian studies. Partly that's because there is such a rich and historical field of study into the Word of God and the Gospels of Christ. But it's also because these are difficult things to study, often through translation, with many interpretations offered and adopted by different denominations over the years.
Bible studies can be very rewarding subjects for certificate programs, however, giving you the option of focusing on very specific topics that you might otherwise have trouble wrapping your head around.
Certificates in Christian Counseling and Pastoral Skills
The array of skills required of an ordained minister can be dizzying. Everything from understanding the musical challenges of worship ministry to mastering the psychology of couples counseling may be required of a pastor, and sometimes all within hours.
Pastoral skills certificates help hone those abilities, giving you the specific training in liturgical or ministerial work to deliver better service to your congregation. Counseling skills are something that many pastors realize they can use more training in, and certificates can offer significant boosts in those skills.
Some pastoral certificates also deal with the more practical kinds of ministerial work, from organizing overseas missions to handling bookkeeping and accounting for your parish church.
These certificates also offer options to explore or perfect new types of ministries. You’ll find options in areas such as:
- Youth and family ministry
- Missionary ministries
- Evangelical preaching
Certificates in Christian Studies and Theology
Certificates in these areas offer more philosophical and analytical investigations into Christianity or religion in general. They provide new thoughts and new skills for research and analysis into Christian doctrine and the spiritual impulse felt by all human beings.
These kinds of certificate are useful for bettering your understanding of Christ and the foundations of faith. Christian apologetics walks you through the explanations and logic of belief.
You can also use these programs as launching points for understanding other religions and cultures. A better understanding of religions such as Islam or Judaism may in fact bring you closer to your own faith in Christ and closer to the Father by comparison.
Certificates in Education and Development
The ministry extends into many different areas of Christian ethos. That includes matters of social justice and education. Christian primary and secondary schools in the United States enroll nearly 5 million students each year according to the National Center for Education Statistics, an echo of an age where almost all education was religious education.
That translates to a lot of Christian jobs in education. But not every degree program in ministry deals with the particular challenges and needs of the Christian education system.
Certificates offer training to help fill in those gaps, preparing you for leadership roles, developing a personalized teaching model from the Biblical perspective, and tying together modern research into education with the Christian worldview.
And Christian ministers have long been on the side of the angels in social justice movements, from the bridge in Selma to dark cells along Death Row.
Social justice is a Christian concept, the term first advanced by a Jesuit scholar in 1840's Italy named Luigi Taparelli.
Community development and outreach is another area that takes particular skills and training. Unless your chose a ministry degree that was specific to these concerns, you might find that a certificate program is your best bet for brushing up on the real-world expertise you need to serve this ministry.
Christian Ministry Certificates Are Offered by Both Colleges and Other Organizations
Because certificate programs aren't the same as degree programs, you'll find that many organizations that offer them are not necessarily colleges or universities. Because they are not official academic institutions, those organizations aren't eligible for accreditation.
Accrediting agencies recognized by the Department of Education or the Council for Higher Education Accreditation serve as an important check on the quality and standards a school offers students. Accreditation is considered a must-have for college degrees accepted by employers and ordination councils.
With certificate programs, it becomes more of a bonus than a requirement. But when considering certificates from schools that are not accredited, be aware that you will have to do your own homework to make sure you're getting what you pay for. There are a wide range of different qualities of certificate programs in Christian ministry, from college-credit caliber to borderline fraud. You'll have to be careful in picking a certificate that meets your standards, and those of potential employers or congregations you might serve.
Online Options Have Become the Standard for Christian Certificate Programs
Many different types of Christian studies have shifted to remote learning just as secular schools have. Certificate programs are a particularly good fit for online courses, though. In fact, you might find that it's easier and more common to find an online option for your certificate studies than it is to find old-fashioned on-campus courses.
That's because certificates have relatively few classes and last for a short period of time.
No one wants to relocate halfway across the country to attend a three-month certificate course.
With online certificate programs, you don't have to. Even better, you get the pick of all the different schools that offer them, nationwide. That makes for better odds of finding the right fit for your needs.
It's also easier to fit online studies into your existing lifestyle and commitments. Most certificates offer asynchronous courses, which means that you can consume the course content at a time and place of your choosing. And it doesn't have to be the same time each day, either. If lunch break is the best chance you have on Wednesday, you can study then. If Thursday is more open in the evening, you can stream your class then.
A Starter Pack in Your Ministry Career
It's often a first step on a longer path of education and experience toward pursuing your true calling.
A Christian Certificate Program Is a Booster to Your Ministry Skills and Career
Certificates offer a powerful dose of knowledge in a lot of different subjects, but it's pretty important to keep them in perspective. A certificate can be a starter pack in your ministry career or help to polish up your skills for a particular kind of service. They are only rarely a qualification by themselves to work in ministry professions.
Certificate programs are really more about giving you more expertise or more options to pursue the calling you are already following. By itself, a certificate doesn't offer a lot of qualification to minister. But with other experience and education, it can be the key difference in doing the job better, or getting into a new niche in the ministry.
Because certificates are low-cost and low-risk, they can easily be a way to improve your ability to serve in volunteer positions in the ministry. Although you don't need a formal education to be a volunteer, it may be just the first step on a longer path of education and experience toward your calling.
Certificates also offer enough basic skills to boost your ability as a lay minister, or even to improve your knowledge of the Bible and Christianity as an employee in a different kind of church job. Even if you are the bookkeeper at a small local parish, you are a person of faith committing to an important kind of service. Deepening your relationship with God and your knowledge of theology can help you in a thousand small ways through your day.
Of course, there are many Christian jobs that happen outside of the organization of a church, too. Faith-based charities, community groups, and other outreach organizations can all benefit from someone who has taken the time and trouble to earn a certificate in ministry.
And, finally, certificates serve as a kind of preparation for more advanced degree programs. Whether you pick a certificate which offers transferable credits or not, you will always carry with you the knowledge and skills you learn. Those can give you an edge when applying for or working your way through college degree programs in ministry or Christian studies.
