I’ll probably be posting more about my thesis work in the coming months, so I figured I’d outline the process, as well as define my terms. I’m using “thesis” because it’s the more common/familiar, even though it isn’t entirely accurate.

There are actually several steps involved:

1) Project Proposal: I have to come up with an idea of what I want to do, and how I’m going to do it. This is the part that I’ve been trying to figure out for the last year. In June, 2009, I went to a workshop that was supposed to help me “clarify” my ideas with the help of my classmates. We spent 5 days (Monday - Friday) helping one another refine each other’s ideas.

On Wednesday I came into class and said “Ok, so what I’ve figured out about my idea is that I really don’t want to do my idea.” My advisor said “Better to figure that out now than when you’re half-way through it. Don’t worry, something else will come to you.”

That was a year ago. Over a year ago, actually, and nothing had come to me. Well, some ideas came to me, but they were things that I couldn’t really figure out how to research, or wouldn’t work for other ideas. Or I just hated the idea after a matter of hours.

I recently signed up for the not-at-all-pretentiously-named World-Changing Writing Workshop and after the first week I was doing one of the writing exercises and came up with a topic (overly-broad at this point and needing to be narrowed down) of wanting to examine what people mean when they call themselves “Spiritual But Not Religious” and what leads them to that position. What is it, specifically, about organized religion that turns them off (since that seems to be a core part of “religion” vs “spirituality”).

The two books that I’ve started reading are Spiritual but Not Religious: A Call to Religious Revolution in America by Sven Erlandson and Spiritual, but not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America by Robert C. Fuller. Fuller teaches at college in Illinois. Erlandson is a life coach who seems to live near Dayton, Ohio.

2) The Project Itself: Once the project proposal is approved (and I’ve found two people to serve as advisors), the Project itself will begin, hopefully sometime this fall. What will actually be involved in the project is yet to be determined, but there’s some kind of practical/research component required.

3) The Project Report: The write-up of the project (what was proposed, what was researched, what was discovered, etc). Several sections about 20 pages long, totally about 100-120 pages. This will need to be done by next March/April.

4) Project Evaluation: This is where the advisors look at your work and determine whether or not you’ve “done the job” and if you’re ready to graduate.

This is not for a Ph.D. but “Doctor of Ministry” degree, commonly abbreviated D.Min. and yes, it’s pronounced very much like “demon,” in fact, when I first told one of our friends that I was “thinking about pursuing a D.Min.” she thought I said “pursuing a demon” which lead to a very wide-eyed look that I mistook for “What? Are you crazy? Going back to school? I thought you hated school, and do you have any idea how much time and energy that’s going to take?” when really she was thinking I had “gone ‘round the bend” mentally and was going to start trying to do exorcisms.

So that’s where I am, and where I’m headed.