Resource Hub

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Educational Assessment and Accreditation Liaison Officers, Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Faculty, Institutional Senior Leaders, Researchers (including IR/IE), Field Education / Contextual Ed Supervisors, Other Institutional Administration, Spiritual Directors Tidy Studios Educational Assessment and Accreditation Liaison Officers, Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Faculty, Institutional Senior Leaders, Researchers (including IR/IE), Field Education / Contextual Ed Supervisors, Other Institutional Administration, Spiritual Directors Tidy Studios

How Would We Know? Assessing Personal and Spiritual Formation in Clergy and Church Leadership

Description: Using a case study drawn from research across theological schools, this workshop explores how to assess pastoral formation. Participants will strengthen the questions guiding their evaluation efforts, consider what evidence of formation they hope to see, and gain resources for advancing assessment conversations in their own contexts.

Keywords: assessment; character formation; clergy formation; educational assessment; formation assessment; Graduating Student Questionnaire; intercultural competence; personal formation; seminarian formation; spiritual formation; spiritual maturity; student development; theological education

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Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Spiritual Directors, Researchers (including IR/IE) Tidy Studios Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Spiritual Directors, Researchers (including IR/IE) Tidy Studios

Assessing Student Formation: A New Set of Core Assessment Tools

The definitive introduction to the Seminary Formation Assessment (SFA)—a 50-item suite of assessments measuring spiritual dwelling, seeking, struggle, and emotion regulation in seminarians.

KEYWORDS: open access / free access; assessment instrument; Colloquy article; emotion regulation; psychometrics; Relational Spirituality Model (RSM); Seminary Formation Assessment (SFA); seminary students; sense of community; spiritual dwelling; spiritual formation; spiritual seeking; theological education; training resources; virtues

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Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Spiritual Directors, Researchers (including IR/IE) Tidy Studios Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Spiritual Directors, Researchers (including IR/IE) Tidy Studios

Spiritual Formation among Students at Christian Seminaries: Mature Alterity, Symptoms, and Well-Being

Person-centered analysis using the Relational Spirituality Model (RSM) identifies four seminary student subgroups, with "regulated seekers" showing mature alterity, flourishing, and stable balanced spirituality over time.

KEYWORDS: open access / free access; flourishing; mature alterity; mixture modeling; relational spirituality; spiritual formation

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Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Faculty, Researchers (including IR/IE), Students/Seminarians, Spiritual Directors, Alumni/Clergy Tidy Studios Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Faculty, Researchers (including IR/IE), Students/Seminarians, Spiritual Directors, Alumni/Clergy Tidy Studios

Experiential Avoidance Mediates the Relationship between Prayer Type and Mental Health before and through the COVID-19 Pandemic

DESCRIPTION: This longitudinal study examines how different types of prayer relate to anxiety, depression, and burnout among 564 seminary students from 17 theological schools. Colloquial, liturgical, and meditative prayer predicted lower experiential avoidance, which in turn was associated with fewer mental health symptoms; petitionary prayer showed no significant direct or indirect effects. The findings suggest that prayer practices may contribute to spiritual and character formation partly by helping seminarians remain engaged with difficult thoughts and emotions rather than avoiding them, with implications for student formation, mentorship, and well-being.

KEYWORDS: anxiety; burnout; character formation; COVID-19; depression; experiential avoidance; mental health; prayer; psychological flexibility; seminarians; spiritual formation; spiritual practices; student well-being

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Researchers (including IR/IE), Faculty, Faith Communities and Judicatories, Alumni/Clergy Tidy Studios Researchers (including IR/IE), Faculty, Faith Communities and Judicatories, Alumni/Clergy Tidy Studios

A Mixed-Method Intervention Study on Relational Spirituality and Humility among Religious Leaders

Mixed-method intervention study of 136 emerging religious leaders tests whether change in humility corresponds to change in differentiation and God attachment during a humility cultivation intervention.

KEYWORDS: attachment behavior; God concepts; humility; intention; intervention; leadership; spirituality

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Researchers (including IR/IE), Faith Communities and Judicatories, Faculty Tidy Studios Researchers (including IR/IE), Faith Communities and Judicatories, Faculty Tidy Studios

Virtues as Mediators of the Associations between Religious/Spiritual Commitment and Well-Being

Longitudinal study of 580 seminarians tests whether virtues mediate the religious/spiritual commitment–well-being link, finding cross-sectional but not longitudinal mediation through blessedness and forgiveness.

KEYWORDS: construct validity; factor analysis; religiousness; virtues; well-being

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Researchers (including IR/IE), Faculty, Formation Directors/Student Life Staff Tidy Studios Researchers (including IR/IE), Faculty, Formation Directors/Student Life Staff Tidy Studios

Embodied Virtue: A Model of Virtuous Caring for Practical Theology and Christian Formation

Practical theology article proposing a virtue-based model of caring and Christian formation grounded in moral psychology and Wesleyan thought.

KEYWORDS: open access / free access; generative care virtues of generative care; journal article; moral likeness model of spiritual maturity; practical theology; Wesley's affectional moral psychology

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Researchers (including IR/IE), Spiritual Directors, Educational Assessment and Accreditation Liaison Officers Tidy Studios Researchers (including IR/IE), Spiritual Directors, Educational Assessment and Accreditation Liaison Officers Tidy Studios

Ecumenical and Traditioned Measurement: Measuring Christian Maturation across Distinct Traditions of Christian Spirituality

Article exploring the feasibility of an ecumenical measure of Christian maturation by drawing on five distinct traditions (African American, Anglican, Benedictine, Pentecostal, Reformed) and four navigation strategies.

KEYWORDS: ecumenical spirituality; measurement; psychology of religion/spirituality; spiritual assessment; spiritual formation

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Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Researchers (including IR/IE), Spiritual Directors Tidy Studios Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Researchers (including IR/IE), Spiritual Directors Tidy Studios

Measuring the Spiritual, Character, and Moral Formation of Seminarians: In Search of a Meta-Theory of Spiritual Change

Conceptual article proposing a meta-theory of positive spiritual change to undergird the development of a generalizable, reliable measurement tool for spiritual, character, and moral formation in seminarians.

KEYWORDS: psychology of religion; spiritual assessment; spiritual formation; spirituality

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