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The Seminary’s grant research profile has grown while focusing on a number of strategically important fields of study. Use the directory below to learn more about research projects.
The Polaris Young Adult Leadership Network amplifies and supports the leadership of Christian young adults across the United States. The network cultivates community among young adults through holy friendship. It also creates opportunities to further the impact of their work and support fresh ideas. The prevailing narrative surrounding young adult faith tells of decline and church disaffiliation, but this is an overly simplified chapter in a much larger story. An ultimately more hopeful reality exists; many young adults are not leaving, they are leading.
Young adults lead in diverse occupations, shepherd vibrant ministries, and pursue spiritual entrepreneurship from a deep well of faith. It is clear the future of churches and the welfare of local communities are in exceedingly capable hands. Young adults step into their power with ingenuity, excellence, and a cooperative curiosity for what the Holy Spirit is breathing into existence. Our world is rapidly changing. Young adult leaders are the innovators who will bridge the gap between our communities as they currently exist and our communities as God calls them to be.
Teaching Spiritual Entrepreneurship in Theological Education is a grant project that seeks to make spiritual entrepreneurship and its corollaries (Christian social innovation, social entrepreneurship, changemaking, etc.) more available in theological education. The TSE Project seeks to identify gaps in theological schools’ current offerings around entrepreneurship; to explore, design, and test pedagogical models for teaching spiritual entrepreneurship tailored to theological education settings; and to expand the resources — and pedagogical confidence — of schools hoping to enter this conversation with their students.
This project centers the faith, resilience, and politics of first-generation Asian American Christians in order to broaden our theological imagination and understanding of Asian American religious and political participation in the U.S. The majority of Asians in America are foreign-born. Yet in many of the studies of Asian American Christianity, the faith and practice of these first-generation Asian Americans are subordinated to their more assimilated, second, third, and fourth generation counterparts. How should we understand the faith, practice, and politics of first-generation Asian Americans? This oral history project will consist of 50-60 interviews of first-generation East Asian American Christian immigrants in their native language, spotlighting their unique religious experiences and political orientations.
The Ministry Collaboratory @ Princeton (the Collaboratory) disseminates findings and creates resources emerging from Princeton Theological Seminary’s recently completed young adult innovation hub, The Zoe Project (2017-2021). Various strategies for young adult/congregational collaboration will be tested in 90 congregations clustered in 30 different communities. The Collaboratory will also develop a suite of learning tools to help young adults and congregations empathize, collaborate, and innovate together more effectively.
The Institute for Youth Ministry secured a grant from the Fuller Youth Institute to create Christian education curriculum on neurodiversity and faith formation in youth ministry. The curriculum aims to equip leaders to shape congregations in which young people of all neurotypes flourish. The project is part of Fuller Youth Institute’s “Character-Forming Youth Discipleship” project, funded by The John Templeton Foundation.
En Conjunto! Strengthening the Recruitment, Retention, and Graduation of Latinx Masters and PhD Students is a project of the Hispanic Theological Initiative (HTI) funded by Lilly Endowment Inc. The grant will enable further development of four projects embedded in HTI’s professional development focus for Latinx masters and PhDs in theology and religion.
The Isaiah Partnership: Pastors Leading Innovation will test two models of pastoral leadership formation that foster innovation and change in, with, and through congregations. These models will inform how Princeton Theological Seminary prepares students in degree and non-degree programs to lead innovation and catalyze change in their communities and by mobilizing lay persons in congregations. Concurrently, this project will engage Princeton Seminary faculty in creating a theological framework for innovation and change leadership, in which innovation is understood as participation in God’s “new thing” in Jesus Christ (Isa. 43:19).
Drs. Shane Berg and Gordon Mikoski successfully secured a small planning grant that will lead to an application to conduct a full project. This is the first phase of a three-phase initiative offered to institutions accredited by the Association of Theological Schools. The goals of the Initiative will be (1) to explore emerging challenges and opportunities facing ATS institutions as well as the Christian congregations that they serve; (2) to gain clarity for each about its mission; (3) to assess the effectiveness of the applicant schools’ educational strategies and financial operations; and (4) to design and implement plans to launch new and/or strengthen current projects to address key challenges and opportunities.
The Hispanic Theological Initiative is a program administered and based at Princeton Theological Seminary under the leadership of Rev. Joanne Rodriguez. The intent of this project is to increase recruitment, retention, and graduation rates of Hispanic PhD students, leveraging institutional resources toward dissertation completion and the eventual doctorate that will result in a greater presence of Hispanic faculty and senior administrators in seminaries, schools of theology, and universities.
Under the leadership of Rev. Joanne Rodriguez, Hispanic Theological Initiative director, this project aims to strengthen and advance an online, peer-reviewed bilingual presence for articles and book reviews of Latinx scholars.
Under the leadership of Drs. Eric Barreto and Lindsey Trozzo, this project, originally titled “Assessing the Use of Digital Tools for Real-Life Residential Learning,” will develop effective practices to increase digital competence for both faculty and students and enhance competencies in teaching and learning in our residential community.
In a collaboration with Villanova University, Professor John Bowlin is serving on the Advisory Board and as a senior mentor for Collaborative Inquiries in Christian Theological Anthropology. As a senior mentor, Dr. Bowlin will take responsibility for two to three projects and play a significant role in at least one workshop per year. The principal investigator for this project is Dr. Jesse Couenhoven of Villanova University.
In collaboration with Canisius College, Professor Afe Adogame is helping to conduct the first comprehensive, comparative, and empirical study of huge megachurches in the global south with congregations of over 15,000 members each. The project focuses on churches in 10 countries — Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and South Korea. Seven Regional Project Leaders (RPL), each having a sub-grant from Canisius, will form research teams and focus on specific areas.
Princeton Theological Seminary received a 3-year grant to establish the “Imagining Church” project. In the first phase, digital ethnography was undertaken to develop portraits of 23 thriving congregations from among a variety of candidates recommended by denominational leaders and fellow ecclesial researchers.
Dr. Shawn Oliver is working in collaboration with Dr. David Wang of Biola University on research that will equip seminaries with robust insight to improve and refine their missions concerning the formation of students as strong leaders in effective ministry.
The “Disability and the Church” project, funded by a Project Grant for Researchers through the Louisville Institute and led by the Rev. Dr. Erin Raffety and a team of 5 research assistants, conducted ethnographic research with 11 congregations, ministries, and families with people with disabilities in New York City, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania from 2019-2020 in order to gauge challenges and best practices in congregational ministry with people with disabilities
Professor Emeritus Darrell Guder is directing a project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The result will be a translation providing an authoritative English edition of the first three volumes of Karl Barth’s Lectures and Essays (1905 – 1921).
The Barth Translators’ Seminar received a second Scholarly Editions and Scholarly Translations program grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2023 the amount of $300,000. This award follows an earlier NEH project that finished translating the first three of eight volumes in the critical edition of his Lectures and Shorter Works, covering 1905–1921, the first volume forthcoming in print and digital editions in 2022 with Westminster John Knox Press. This current project will translate the second three volumes in this series, covering 1922–1933, in which Barth offers incisive critical commentary on socio-cultural, political, and religious themes in Germany at the time of the Weimar Republic (1919–1933).
CTM-Inside/Outside has brought theological education to incarcerated young men at Garden State Correctional Facility, with the potential to award certificates that attest to successful completion of a course or courses.
Now nearing its conclusion, Sustaining the Preaching Life is led by Professor Nancy Lammers Gross. It aims to support and resource the continuing development of preachers in a peer-learning environment.
The name of this project is derived from Proverbs 27:17. Dr. Anne Stewart, project leader, and her team seek ways to strengthen pastoral leaders and congregations, building on the value of cohort learning groups and the Seminary’s residential model of education. Peer learning groups of women clergy are organized and equipped with the capacities, agency, and savvy to negotiate challenging leadership contexts with a confidence that is born of competence.
The Log College Project is an innovative initiative at Princeton Theological Seminary to help Christian congregations design, test, and implement new models of youth ministry. Twelve congregations will receive $15,000 grants to build new ministries that take theology and young people seriously. This project is funded by a grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc., built by the Institute for Youth Ministry, and housed at Princeton Theological Seminary.
In 2017, the Lilly Endowment launched its Young Adult Innovation Hub Initiative. Princeton Theological Seminary proposed a project to empower congregations to build relationships with young adults and nurture their religious lives — especially by learning from and supporting young adults in various “domains” where they find meaning, purpose, and belonging in their communities outside of churches, and by ferreting out the implicit theological issues that undergird young adults’ involvement in these domains. The Zoe Project gathers 12 congregations into a community of practice to explore, experiment with, and share their experiences as each church launches its own Zoe Project to build relationships with young adults and support young adults’ religious lives through one particular domain in their community.
The Confirmation Project seeks to learn the extent to which confirmation and equivalent practices in five Protestant denominations in North America are effective for strengthening discipleship in youth. These denominations include the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church in the USA, and the United Methodist Church. It seeks to provide Christian leaders with examples of good practice and with strategies that are effective in helping young Christians grow as disciples of Jesus Christ. Strengthening discipleship includes nurturing faith in Jesus Christ and facilitating youth encounters with Christian traditions (Scripture, creeds, confessions, and practices) to support lifelong Christian vocation. This project is funded by the Christian Youth: Learning and Living the Faith grant provided by the Lilly Endowment, Inc.
