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

What Graduating Student Questionnaire data can contribute to formation assessment

Formation assessment can be difficult when schools rely on individual survey items or a single overall measure to represent complex student outcomes. Drawing on a peer-reviewed analysis of 5,528 theological school graduates and a follow-up analysis of the class of 2026, this article shows how ATS Graduating Student Questionnaire data can illuminate distinct dimensions and patterns of formation—including spirituality, social justice commitment, intercultural competence, self-identity, interdisciplinary integration, and well-being—and offers practical ways schools can incorporate these findings into locally meaningful assessment strategies.

KEYWORDS: assessment; formation assessment; Graduating Student Questionnaire; GSQ; spiritual formation; social justice; intercultural competence; self-identity; interdisciplinary integration; student well-being; theological education; educational assessment; student outcomes; survey data; institutional effectiveness

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

Formation for plural pathways: another story told by ATS alum/workforce data

Theological education has often imagined vocational formation around a single primary role, but ATS alumni data show that nearly three in 10 employed graduates hold multiple positions, with such arrangements often persisting years after graduation. The article argues that theological schools should respond by helping students integrate multiple roles, develop transferable skills, understand adjacent career pathways, and imagine coherent vocations that extend beyond a single job or ministry setting.

KEYWORDS: alumni; bivocational ministry; career pathways; multipositional work; multivocational ministry; portfolio careers; theological education; theological formation; transferable skills; vocation; vocational discernment; vocational formation; workforce; employment; career advising; field education; ATS Alum/Mapping the Workforce Study

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Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Researchers (including IR/IE), Multi-Audience/General, Students/Seminarians, Alumni/Clergy Tidy Studios Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Researchers (including IR/IE), Multi-Audience/General, Students/Seminarians, Alumni/Clergy Tidy Studios

Flourishing in Ministry Wellbeing Assessment

Developed by Matt Bloom, the Flourishing in Ministry Wellbeing Assessment is a free self-assessment designed to help seminarians, alumni, clergy, and other ministry leaders reflect on their well-being. Participants receive scores across four dimensions—Daily Wellbeing, Resilience, Thriving, and Authenticity—along with resources intended to help them sustain or strengthen their flourishing.

KEYWORDS: assessment instrument; authenticity; burnout; clergy well-being; Daily Wellbeing; flourishing; leadership; ministry formation; ministry leaders; resilience; seminarians; student well-being; thriving; well-being

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Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Faculty, Institutional Senior Leaders, Researchers (including IR/IE), Alumni/Clergy, Other Institutional Administration Tidy Studios Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Faculty, Institutional Senior Leaders, Researchers (including IR/IE), Alumni/Clergy, Other Institutional Administration Tidy Studios

The Ministry Label: Who Claims It, Who Doesn’t

Using data from the 2022–23 Mapping the Workforce Study, the article explores how ATS alumni describe their work several years after graduation, including how ministry identity, employer-required credentials, and work settings intersect. It highlights graduates whose vocations fall outside traditional congregational ministry and raises questions about how theological schools can better support vocational discernment and alumni formation.

KEYWORDS: alumni; career discernment; clergy; congregational ministry; credentials; employment; ministry identity; non-congregational ministry; theological education; theological formation; vocation; vocational discernment; workplace fulfillment; workplace support; Mapping the Workforce Study; Alumni Questionnaire

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

Clergy in America

Research report of the NSRL offering a nationally representative portrait of U.S. congregational leaders' demographics, health, beliefs, practices, and challenges.

KEYWORDS: open access / free access; Black Protestant; Catholic priests; clergy demographics; congregational challenges; Evangelical Protestant; Mainline Protestant; mental health of clergy; National Survey of Religious Leaders (NSRL); quantitative research; research report

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Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Researchers (including IR/IE), Other Institutional Administration Tidy Studios Formation Directors/Student Life Staff, Researchers (including IR/IE), Other Institutional Administration Tidy Studios

Strengthening the Mental Health and Wellbeing of Tomorrow's Faith Leaders in Theological Education Settings

This (U.S.) federal report is based on an August 2023 expert panel concerning faith leader training, mental health, self-care, community partnership, and theological education.

KEYWORDS: open access / free access; clergy burnout; conference proceedings; faith leaders; mental health; resource compendium; self-care; seminary training; theological education; well-being

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

A Reflective Guide to Effective Evaluation for Theological Schools

ATS Commission on Accrediting guide presenting a principle-based, practice-oriented framework for institutional and educational evaluation in theological schools.

KEYWORDS: open access / free access; ATS Standards of Accreditation (2020); Checklist for Effective Assessment; educational effectiveness; evaluation and assessment; institutional planning; student learning; student learning outcomes; theological schools

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