D. Min. Project Guidelines


We want the project process and product to be profitable for both yourself and the church.  What follows are some realistic guidelines that will help you to that end.


Completing the D.Min. degree

This might not sound like an encouraging way to start, but doing a D.Min. project will not be easy.  Many students never complete it.  It will take time, perseverance and planning.  For many students, this is their first experience at writing a book-length piece of work.  Furthermore, it is often their first academic experience that is without the threat of a failing grade for work turned in late or not submitted at all.  These factors, plus an already busy schedule, mean that the project will not be completed unless it is booked into your schedule.  The tendency is to work on it during down time - which never happens.

Proposal Ideas

The best way to finish the D.Min. program is to be interested in your project.  Past students have generated ideas in a number of ways.  (If you want to see previous projects, they are bound and on the shelves at Westminster library.  A number of them are also in the CCEF library).

What are your ministry strengths?  Look for ways to capitalize on those strengths and so broaden your ministry.
What are your ministry weaknesses that you believe need to be remediated in some way?  Use the project to develop certain skill or knowledge areas
What is your present ministry?  What project would be useful within that present structure?  It is ideal if the D.Min project can dovetail with your present ministry responsibilities.
Do you consistently see certain kinds of problems in your counseling ministry?  Become an expert in those issues.

Generally speaking, project ideas tend to be one of three different types.

1. Problem-centered projects focus on specific counseling problems such as bulimia, spousal abuse, internet pornography.
2. Concept-centered studies develop theological issues of interest to biblical counseling such as the practical implications of various views of sanctification, new ways of discussing idolatry, the various faces of legalism, and so on.
3. Program or technique-centered studies focus on a method, tool or program used in counseling such as group counseling, peer counseling, or music and worship as treatments for specific problems.

Remember, the primary goal of the D.Min. project is to make you a better pastoral counselor.


Securing a Committee

As you develop a project idea, talk with one of the faculty members Tripp, Powlison, Welch, Winston Smith) before you launch into the preliminary research for your formal proposal.

Final approval of your proposal rests in the hands of your committee.  This committee will consist of at least two Westminster faculty members - a first reader or chairperson and a second reader.  Most of your future project discussion will be with your first reader.  If you have a strong preference for a particular faculty reader you should contact that person.  Usually we can accommodate preferences.  Otherwise, the faculty will choose a committee that it thinks is suitable for your topic (Welch is the contact person).  You also must have a third reader who is not on the Westminster faculty.  This person will be paid by Westminster to read your final project and submit a written evaluation.  (The outside reader will not have authority to approve or disapprove your final project.)  If you know of an outside reader whose feedback you would value then recommend his name to your committee when you submit your proposal.  Otherwise, your committee will choose an outside reader.

Be sure to read all the Westminster catalog requirements.


The Proposal

Before you sit down and write the formal proposal, try to answer the following questions for yourself (these answers are not necessarily submitted with the proposal):

How would I summarize my primary purpose in one sentence?
Why would anyone care about this work?

There is no predetermined outline for the proposal.  It can be organized in any way that you think will communicate clearly.  There are, however, elements that tend to be included in most proposals.  These include the following.

your reason for choosing this project
a representative sample of the work that others have already done
your intended audience
the solution you will be providing
an outline, with paragraph summaries of each section
projected completion dates for the various phases/chapters


The Three Faces of Your Project

There will typically be three elements to your project: the critical, the exegetical and the practical.  The relative weight you give to each depends on the nature of your project.

The critical face of your project should include your interaction with the existing relevant work on your topic.  This will be more than a literature summary; it will be a critical review of relevant theological and secular literature that hones your apologetic skills.  This review will be exhaustive in some cases, representative in others.  It will demonstrate your familiarity with what has preceded you.

A review proceeds this way.  After identifying key concepts and key individuals related to your topic you will begin to construct a list of research sources likely to be related to the topic.  These might include professional journals, books, doctoral dissertations and master’s theses, unpublished manuscripts, and nonprint media.  Then you simply plunge into the literature, perhaps somewhat randomly at first, especially noticing frequently cited material and commonly accepted themes.  You should continue your reading until you are familiar with the significant debates in your field.  When you are piecing this together, try to avoid quotes of one author by another.  When possible, you should be working with primary sources rather than secondary.

A problem the faculty often finds in this section is confusion over how to interact with secular literature.  At Westminster and CCEF we are looking for critical face sections that demonstrate a unique approach to secular psychology and science.  We believe that secular observations are typically theory-laden.  They arrive packaged in assumptions that ultimately deny God and a biblical understanding of the relationship between the Creator and the creature.  Certainly, God’s common grace allows unbelievers to make some helpful observations, but we must go through the process of taking every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5).  We sometimes call this process “recasting” and we distinguish it from “integration.”  Recasting acknowledges that there are some reliable observations that can be found in secular literature but they must be refined and put into a new mold.  Perhaps the best way to develop this skill is to review issues from the Journal of Biblical Counseling. 

The exegetical face of your project will be crucial.  In it you will examine essential texts, biblical metaphors, and theological propositions relevant to your central idea.  The problem that the faculty often encounters in this section is that students ignore accepted principles of hermeneutics.  Proof testing, moralizing, reading into a text more than drawing out the meaning of a text - these are some of the issues that come up during project defenses.  It would probably be wise for you to review a text such as Exegetical Fallacies or some of the fine work on hermeneutics by Silva and others on the Westminster faculty.

The practical face is where you do ministry.  You want to show what your exegetical work looks like and sounds like.  Some projects may include an experimental section where a group that is the focus of your work is compared with one that did not receive it.  These projects are worthwhile and could possibly be published in a journal such as The Journal of Psychology and Theology; however, such projects tend to be the exception rather than the rule.  Most projects will be quasi-experimental or simply descriptive.  By quasi-experimental we mean that you are making efforts to show that the changes observed in your target person or group were in fact real changes caused by your intervention rather than other reasons.  Description means that you give a careful case study, or series of single case studies, usually including actual dialogue, that concretely communicates what you did in such a way that your work could provide guidance for others.


Defending your Project

After you have completed your project, submit it to Donna Conley, WTS registrar, and he will send it to your committee.  After the committee has reviewed it, you will be required to orally defend your work before the counseling faculty.  To set up a defense date, you should call Karen Barnard at CCEF (215- 884-7676) and ask her to schedule your defense.

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