Well, it happened! After 18 years of dreaming of starting a doctoral program in missiology, everything worked out and I am enrolled in the Doctor of Global Leadership: Redeeming Power and Liberating Equity for Gender/Ethnic Relations*. It’s quite surreal. See, Fabio and I have been on a bit of a journey these last few years. We finally figured out that reading and studying is extremely life-giving for us. For me, as a 7 on the enneagram, learning new things, reading about topics and sciences I’ve never studied before gives me energy, makes me feel alive, fills me with joy and awe and wonder. Personally, the last year, I had the privilege of being in three different anti-racism cohorts. One was a mix of lay women from several different churches that lasted one month. One was a group of Serve Globally women that was less defined, but we read a book about hospitality and discussed various subjects in small groups and big groups, had speakers and practiced Visio Divina. This was spread out over a year, meeting about once a month. We ended with a self-care retreat that was reflective and meaningful. Mine was in tandem with a trip to Paris with two colleagues as we did an “au revoir” trip for one of them and celebrated her time in France. The last one was a mix of Serve Globally personnel, made up of men and women living and serving in different countries that lasted a year and was the most intense – we read a different book every other month and watched many videos and talks on racism and equality. These groups were incredibly helpful to me in finding language and healing around concepts of race and gender equality. I knew my journey was just beginning, but I didn’t know what was next.
Then, I remembered that for years I had wanted to embark on the doctoral journey in missiology, a multi-dimensional, multi-disciplinary field. What exactly is missiology, you may ask? Here’s the dictionary definition: Missiology is a multi-disciplinary and cross-cultural field of study incorporating theology, anthropology, history, geography, theories and methods of communication, comparative religion, Christian apologetics, methodology, and interdenominational relations.
Just reading that and the title of our cohort gets me fired up! So many disciplines to draw from. I’m in my second week of classes and am excited to learn more.
I’m sure I’ll be posting more as I go along… but let me know if you have any questions!
Johnna
Feel free to read more about my part-time studies and cohort at Fuller Seminary here: *https://www.fuller.edu/doctor-of-global-leadership/fall-2021-cohort-redeeming-power-liberating-equity-for-gender-ethnic-relations/
