Welcome to the Street Psalms

Seminary

Providing free formation for all who want to create cities of peace for all people.

“Grant us the gift of becoming a community of the Incarnation - mystery of word made flesh, who sees and celebrates good news in hard places.”

-From the Street Psalms Prayer of Vocation

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Street Psalms is an Order with a Seminary and a Design Studio that serves a Global Network. Our goal is to free leaders from all walks of life to love their city and seek its peace, inspired by the Gospel of Jesus. Since our founding in 1999, we have done the work of formation alongside thousands of global leaders.

The Street Psalms Seminary provides ongoing formation for the Ordained, those seeking ordination, and those who want to be formed alongside our community for work in their local context. We host a variety of rhythms and formational experiences that are open to all who wish to participate, regardless of enrollment in a specific program.

Unlike most seminaries that offer a wide range of courses, our seminary has a singular focus, and we offer just one program: the Incarnational Leadership Program. It co-missions participants for incarnational leadership modeled after the life of Jesus, to love and serve their city and create the conditions for human flourishing – what we refer to as a community in mission (CiM).

There are three recurring themes that are emphasized throughout all of the offerings of the seminary, and provide a foundation for the conversations we hope to foster:

Incarnation: Our entire approach to formation recognizes the Incarnation as the mystery of Word made flesh. It provides the spiritual technology necessary for human flourishing. It reveals God’s preferred method of communication. God comes to humanity at our level and communicates within the limits of the human condition. This act of communication makes God’s love tangible and frees humans to participate in the ongoing act of Creation.

Anthropology of Human Flourishing: The spiritual technology of the Incarnation makes it possible for us to become fully human and build communities of human flourishing that give glory to God. Saint Irenaeus famously said, “The glory of God is humanity fully alive.” We seek to plumb the depths of this insight modeled by Jesus. We do this with the help of Scripture, tradition, our own experience, as well as thought leaders throughout history. This includes both ancient wisdom and modern science. One such contribution comes from the work of René Girard. We have found his anthropological insight of “mimetic desire” to be especially helpful when reflecting on human flourishing, especially as it relates to violence and the sacred. We want to explore what it means to become human in light of an all-loving and non-violent God who is in rivalry with nothing, not even death.

Questions, Not Answers: The poet e.e. Cummings said, “The beautiful answer is always preceded by the more beautiful question.” This practical wisdom is an essential feature of our approach, and we have learned to trust its magic. We use the questions at the core of the Incarnational Framework as a guide throughout the seminary curriculum. Remaining faithful to these questions has allowed us to bridge great difference and build unity without uniformity.

We are an underground Community in Mission that provides a safe place to be formed for the risky work of liberation in vulnerable urban communities. We are a life-long learning community. Our campus is dispersed in cities around the world through a diverse network of partners. The city is our classroom, parish, and playground. Our framework frees leaders to love and serve in the shape of a community in mission. Our hermeneutic is “from below.” Our method is induction, based on an apprenticeship model. Our design process produces social innovation. We are joyfully unaccredited.

Read the seminary case statement >

Incarnational Leadership Program

We offer three tracks:

Formational Opportunities (Open to all)

All of our offerings are free and open to all who wish to participate, regardless of registration in any seminary program or track.

Core Curriculum:

CiM Suite of Resources >
The primary text for the Seminary is the See.Do.Be.Free. book, which combines the suite of resources into one book.
Workshops >
Designed to help realize the vision of creating cities of peace for all people where everyone belongs, especially the most vulnerable.
Online Courses >
On-demand online courses around what it means to become a Community in Mission.

Community Rhythms >
Join us for daily, weekly, and monthly rhythms where we practice doing theology from below, remember our shared vocation, and induct each other into our collective humanity.

FAQs

What is a Community in Mission?

A Community in Mission is a living, breathing paradox of creative tension. The things that sustain community may at times seem at odds with the things that sustain the mission. This creative tension is not a flaw, but one of its essential features. It’s what generates momentum and makes it work.

Sustaining the creative tension requires courage, compassion and a growing capacity to forgive and then forgive again. Why? Because a Community in Mission is always a work in progress made up of people who are a work in progress, in a world that is a work in progress, all of which evolve by undergoing being loved and forgiven by One who is not scandalized by our imperfections. This requires a spirituality of imperfection that can hold and heal our imperfections. This is how creation unfolds and gives glory to God.

For now we want to emphasize that when modeled after the life of Christ, CiMs imagine themselves not as the provider of religious goods and services to passive consumers, but as the gathering of those who are actively undergoing a gospel that frees them to love and serve. In doing so, this shifts the identity of its members from passive consumers to active participants, undergoing a huge, open-ended adventure in which we are true co-creators helping design the adventure itself. It re-energizes, re-members, and re-centers the faith community to become a living example that models the very reason it exists. It does so by freeing its members to love and serve, not in the shape of a closed system, but in ways that honor the vocation and call of its members and seek the common good of all and participate in the ongoing act of Creation itself. CiM’s are not private clubs that promote their own cause. They are public gifts that widen the circle of human concern and call forth a shared humanity so that everyone belongs.

What is the cost of participating in the Street Psalms Seminary?