Meet the Graduates:
Case Thorp
 
More than 700 students complete their degrees at Fuller this year, with plans that will take them into a range of ministries and vocations. This series highlights just a few of these graduates.
 
Charles S. “Case” Thorp III decided to earn his Doctor of Ministry at Fuller because of the pragmatic nature of the program. Serving as an associate pastor in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, when he first started the DMin program, Thorp is now associate pastor for mission and evangelism at First Presbyterian Church of Orlando—and he feels this new Fuller degree has helped equip him for missional ministry.
 
“Other seminary programs emphasize creating pastor-scholars, and I felt that my Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary had adequately prepared me as a critical thinker,” Thorp says. “I wanted a program that was on the cutting edge of ministry application. The missional nature of the DMin showed me Fuller was making a bold claim on the future of the church, with a vision I felt to be relevant, authentic, and engaging.”
 
As he completes his degree, Thorp will continue in the ministerial path he had begun prior to Fuller, “but my fundamental perspective upon the church and God’s work in the world will forever be changed,” he says. “I feel called to serve as a senior pastor in the future and look forward to taking the concepts of missional ecclesiology to that role. At times I have to tame the critical spirit to the mainline church that was nurtured by some of the missional academicians we studied, but to do so in a way that finds a faithful, pragmatic approach to ministry that is both biblically and contextually appropriate.”
 
Learn more about Fuller’s DMin program.
 
Read more stories about Fuller’s 2009 graduates.