Hi Steve, there’s a lot of excitement at Regent College about a new, innovative program that’s just been launched. Can you tell us a bit about it?

We have created a new master's degree in Leadership, Theology and Society that’s going to focus on the nexus of these three ideas. It’s a program designed for people who are in full-time working situations who want to explore the connection between their theological convictions and their responsibility in the world.

One of the best faces of Regent College is our international student body that comes here from Africa, Latin America, Asia, Europe, and North America. However, it’s become obvious to Regent that not everybody can come to Vancouver for a year or two or three. There are people out there who have a deep desire to learn, to think, to reframe the way they are thinking about who they are and what they do in the world… but they can’t leave Hong Kong, or Washington, or London for 2 years. The great gift of the program is that it won’t ask you to leave the place you are.  

Can you give us a flavour of what we can expect from the course?

Regent College has had a 50-year history of offering rich, theological, imaginatively offered education to people from all over the world from different walks of life. In this new MA program the best of Regent College’s faculty and teaching will be woven into the very fabric of the curriculum. You will be part of a learning cohort of 25 people from around the world. Each student will be assigned a mentor—gifted leaders who have a strong interest in the work of mentoring. There will be telephone conversations and journals kept. You’ll spend two intensive weeks here at Regent and then go back into the context of your workplace for six months asking, “What is it that I have learned in these two weeks in Vancouver? What will it mean now for the work that’s unfolding before me? For the person that I am, in the context God has placed me?” In ReFrame language, it will be an opportunity to deeply unpack what it means to be Christ’s ambassador in the particular place God has called you to lead with the guidance of mentors, theologians, and others who care deeply about connecting their faith to every aspect of the work God has given them to do.   

Steve on Vocation: https://vimeo.com/234588264

The course sounds great. How would I know if it’s right for me?

We’re looking for people who have stepped into history in their own places, among their own people, and chosen to be responsible for how things turn out. I think that the word responsibility is a good word to use in relation to leadership.

One of the great leaders of the late 20th Century was a man named Václav Havel. He made the argument time and again that “the secret of man is the secret of his responsibility.” So at the very heart of our humanity is our responsibility—our ability to respond to the world around us. We’re looking for people who have a clarified sense of vocation already, although we understand that it’s an unfolding reality for all of us. But we are imagining this to be a program for people who have already shown some instincts for being a responsible person in the world. They’re the kind of people who take initiative. We’re not looking for CEOs necessarily, although they may come to the program.

For those who are hearing this and saying, “This has my name on it,” When can they apply?

Enrolment is already taking place. We have our final deadline in February. We will begin the program in July this next summer, 2018, for two weeks here in Vancouver.

If you’re interested, more information about the program can be found at www.regent-college.edu/graduate-programs/malts.

We hope that you will join Steve and the team in this next step on your reframing journey.