Why is this project important? How will this work make a real contribution to the church in its ministry?

PROPOSAL PURPOSE STATEMENT

By the time you get this handbook, you should already have a research project or thesis in mind and will be starting to work on your purpose statement, especially your Major Question. In many ways, this is the most important part of your project as everything else is guided by your major question. Therefore, this question must be narrow enough to provide clear boundaries to your work but broad enough to allow you room to make the contribution you desire.

The purpose statement will answer the question of why the student has selected this project as his or her focus of ministry and academic work in the DMin program. In drawing up the purpose statement, the student is seeking to provide a rationale for the project. Why is this project important? How will this work make a real contribution to the church in its ministry?

The purpose statement is further broken down into four subsections as follows.

Title – The title of the project should be explicit and specific, and should begin the proposal.

Problem statement – The proposal begins with an indication of the origin and development of the student’s interest in the subject. The focus of this, however, should be on why the project is significant to the candidate and the candidate’s constituency. What is the problem of ministry around which the project will direct its attention?

The learning proposal description should be full and clear enough for the course instructor(s) and DMin Director to understand why the project was undertaken.

Major question –

The major question is a clear and concise definition of the area of study to be explored. What is the basic inquiry that will be answered by the student’s research and ministry? How will the student seek to make some contribution to the resolution of the problem you have set out?

Goals of the project –

The student should, as succinctly as possible, write out the goals of his or her project; that is, what does the student hope to achieve through the project. A typical project has one or two central goals that flow from the problem statement and major question.

Last Completed Projects