Leading Change DMin Cohort
Spring 2027
Application Deadline: January 31, 2027
Overview
In a rapidly changing world, the primary leadership task is to energize a community of people toward their own transformation, which will allow them to meet the challenges of uncharted terrain. This is known as adaptive leadership, which Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky define as “the practice of mobilizing people to tackle tough challenges and thrive.” The skill set a leadership team must develop is “adaptive capacity.” Key to the concept is this: Effective leadership is absolutely dependent on the leader’s own ongoing transformation and ability to lead others into a process of shared transformation through ongoing learning, facing loss, navigating competing values, and experimenting their way forward.
In this Doctor of Ministry cohort, launching Spring 2027 Christian faith leaders will learn how to lead adaptive change and develop adaptive capacity and resilience in themselves and their constituencies.
Schedule
Year 1: Leadership for a Changing and Disrupted World (16 units)
Spring (Mar–Jun) 2027: Reading and Seminar (6 units, online with in-person intensive in Pasadena, June 2-9, 2027)
Summer (Jun–Sep) 2027: Doctoral Research (4 units, online)
Fall (Sep–Dec) 2027: Integration (6 units, online)
Adaptive capacity is the ability to preserve and adapt core values that are most critical to the organizational identity, alongside courage to leave behind legacy practices that no longer serve the mission going forward. To develop this capacity, a leadership team needs to begin by listening and discerning to identify technical problems that, when addressed, engender trust, and the adaptive challenges that catalyze transformation that’s necessary to effect change.
The first year introduces core concepts, exploring the critical differences between “stewardship” and “leadership” and between “technical problems” and “adaptive challenges.” We will dive deep into practices of adaptive leadership as a process of personal-communal growth in a changing environment. During the in-person intensive week, students will work in groups to do an assessment of a church or organization in real time, preparing them to do their own organizational or congregational assessment.
Year 2: Adaptive Capacity and Resilience: Yours and Your People’s (16 units)
Spring (Mar–Jun) 2028: Reading and Seminar (6 units, online with in-person intensive in Pasadena, June 5-9, 2028)
Summer (Jun–Sep) 2028: Doctoral Research (4 units, online)
Fall (Sep–Dec) 2028: Writing Course (6 units, online)
The second year is a focus on the reality that, in adaptive leadership, there are no “best practices” or old techniques to rely on; instead, “you are your only tool.” This year is a deep dive in personal self-reflection, spiritual and leadership practices, and communal discernment for articulating a theory of change necessary to develop the capacity for your organization to face their adaptive challenges, work through resistance and sabotage, and faithfully live into their mission.
Year 3: Adaptive Prototypes, Alignment, and Practical Theology (16 units)
Spring (Mar–Jun) 2029: Reading and Seminar (6 units, online with in-person intensive in Pasadena, June 4-8, 2029)
Summer (Jun–Sep) 2029: Writing Course (6 units, online)
Fall (Sep–Dec) 2029: Doctoral Research (4 units, online)
In year three, the student’s theory of change is put to the test by developing small, safe, modest, experiments (called “prototypes”) that create the conditions for the learning needed to face their adaptive challenges. Prototypes enable leaders to create the conditions for lasting, aligned, organizational transformation. Students will bring all of their learning together to utilize a model of theological reflection that will help them ground their change process in the theological convictions of their congregation or organization.
Instructors
Tod Bolsinger (PhD, MDiv) is the senior congregational strategist and executive director of the De Pree Center Church Leadership Institute; senior fellow of the De Pree Center for Leadership; and affiliate associate professor of leadership formation at Fuller Seminary. He was the founder of FULLER Equip, an innovative approach to online formation and leadership development, and served as a vice president of Fuller for six years. Prior to his educational career, he served for 27 years as a pastor.
Dr. Bolsinger is the author of nine books, including Outreach Magazine Resource of the Year in pastoral leadership Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory; Christian Book Award Finalist Tempered Resilience: How Leaders are Formed in the Crucible of Change; Christian Book Award Finalist How Not to Waste a Crisis: Quit Trying Hard; and three other books in the Practicing Change series.
Bolsinger is also co-owner and principal of AE Sloan Leadership, Inc, an executive coaching and consulting firm that works with church, nonprofit, and marketplace leaders in leading change. He is married to Beth, a professional artist and former executive coach and marriage and family therapist. They have two adult children, Brooks (and Jess) and Ali (and Ben). An avid nature lover, Tod would have been a National Park ranger if only he hadn’t taken biology after lunch in high school. When he retires, he is going to do hiking trail maintenance, trout rescue, and be a ski host who makes sure there are four people on every quad chair lift.
He can be reached at [email protected].
Chat with an Admissions representative
Office Hours
Monday–Thursday
8 am – 5 pm (Pacific Time)
Friday
10 am – 5 pm (Pacific Time)