About Education for Ministry
Education for Ministry (usually abbreviated as EfM) is an adult learning program that seeks to enable people to see and to experience the connection between Christian faith and daily life. EfM helps us to interpret the richness of the church’s faith in our complex world and to express it with confidence, in both words and actions, in our day-to-day lives and in our own communities.
EfM can be summed up as Exploring Faith Matters!
It is formational and transformational for Christian life and ministry.
We do EfM in small groups led by trained mentors.
Through individual study, sharing discoveries and exploring our faith together, we learn to think theologically. We connect what we come to know of the Christian tradition with our ordinary daily activities.
Each Year level has a different focus, so a different Year Level Text.
Year One: The Hebrew Bible
- A Short Introduction to the Hebrew Bible by John Collins. (Fortress Press, 2007)
Year Two: The New Testament
- Introducing the New Testament by Mark Allen Powell. (Baker Academic, 2009)
Year Three: Church History
- Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmaid MacCulloch. (Penguin Books, 2009)
Year Four: Theology, Ethics, and Interfaith Encounter
- Theology for a Troubled Believer: An Introduction to the Christian Faith by Diogenes Allen. (Westminster John Knox, 2010)
- The Christian Moral Life: Practices of Piety by Timothy F. Sedgwick. (Seabury Books, 2008)
- My Neighbor’s Faith: Stories of Interreligious Encounter, Growth, and Transformation by Peace, Rose, and Mobley. (Orbis Books, 2012)
2 additional texts are studied by all year levels.
For 2017 these texts are:
- Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman
- We Are Theologians: Strengthening the People of God by Fredrica Harris Thompsett
Cost
Annual enrolment fee is $185
Books are purchased seprately by each student.
EfM was developed in 1975 by the Anglican School of Theology at the University of the South in Tennessee, and the University continues to update the program, most recently in 2014. EfM has expanded internationally and ecumenically—with groups in Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Mexico, The Bahamas, and Botswana as well as the USA, and including people from other denominations. Over the years 80,000 people have participated in EfM. EfM began in Australia in 1978 and is now administered, under licence from the University of the South, by The Anglican Diocese of Brisbane as EfM-Australia. In Australia over 2000 people have completed the four-year program.
EfM is open to people of all denominations and faiths.
For information about enrolment, please contact Jane Norris
P: 8339 5728
M: 0438 544 916