Street Psalms Seminary – Street Psalms

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 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 formation 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 by the Order 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.

We function like an underground Community in Mission that provides a safe place to be formed for the risky work of liberation in vulnerable urban communities. 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 >

Below, learn more about our ongoing community rhythms, online courses, virtual workshops, and programs. These opportunities are anchored by the Ordained community and open to all who wish to participate regardless of if they are enrolled in a specific program.

Programming (Open to All):

All of our programming is free and open to all who wish to participate.

Programs (Application required):

For leaders looking for a deeper dive, we offer two programs:

After completing the pre-requisites, this one-year program provides guided discernment for those leaders seeking ordination with Street Psalms.

After completing the pre-requisites, this one-year program supports leaders who want to develop the capacity of their local community in tangible ways.

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.

I have more questions. Who should I reach out to?

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Programming (Open to All):

Programs (Application required):

FAQs

Read the Street Psalms Case Statement