Welcome to this course

Welcome to this course

Welcome to the Institute of Ministry. Whether you oversee a communion, lead a local congregation, run a business, or support a small team, we are glad to share this study with you. Leadership places the concerns of other people within your care. This course will help you examine the habits and arrangements through which that care becomes real.

The teaching is written from the Apostolic Old Catholic Mission's perspective. The Institute of Ministry is the educational body providing the course. The course does not replace the governing arrangements, professional duties, or safeguards that apply where you serve.

Titles are nothing

Even Moses received counsel and shared responsibility. If Moses needed help, none of us can claim to be above correction, advice, or the need to share the work.

If you are unwilling or unable to carry a role, give it to someone who can. Arrange a proper handover through the authority responsible for the appointment. Humility means admitting the truth; grace allows a different place of service without treating it as personal disgrace.

Titles are nothing. A title proves neither competence nor faithfulness. Keeping a position for its prestige while its duties go undone is arrogance and self-importance. The people entrusted to your care need the work done.

Who this course is for

The course is for Primates, Archbishops, Bishops, other ordained and lay church leaders, business leaders, and people preparing for responsibility. You may study without holding office. No previous qualification, membership of the Mission, or book purchase is required. Experience of a workplace, congregation, charity, or voluntary group can help you apply the teaching; you may use the fictional cases instead.

Learning outcomes

On successful completion you will be able to:

1. Distinguish service, legitimate authority, personal status, and domination in church and professional settings.
2. Interpret the relevant teaching of Scripture and the Fathers with attention to context and the limits of present-day application.
3. Apply Jethro's advice to the allocation of work, appointment of competent people, escalation, review, and continuity.
4. Evaluate decisions about confidentiality, safeguarding, complaints, conflicts of interest, and fair process.
5. Judge financial and organisational choices by their effects on people, the common good, and long-term viability.
6. Identify practical changes in culture, mentoring, rest, and accountability that make responsible service sustainable.

What is expected of you

Allow approximately forty hours across four units. Each ten-hour study route includes deliberate reading, a source-comparison workshop using the teaching provided, guided cases, private practical exercises, revision, and a quiz. Ten hours is a study allowance rather than the time required simply to read the page. A pattern of five hours weekly takes about eight weeks.

The exercises are unsubmitted practice. You may think, speak, sketch, or make private notes in a form that helps you learn. There is no required journal, essay, upload, mentor, or cohort meeting. Do not record identifiable pastoral, employment, safeguarding, or medical information in study notes or course communications.

Assessment and feedback

Each unit has a bank of sixty questions. A sitting draws twenty from that unit only, allows twenty-five minutes, and requires at least 80 per cent. You have two attempts per quiz and the higher result counts. Pass all four quizzes; an overall average cannot compensate for one failed unit.

Questions identify their type. Four-statement judgement gives full marks for four correct statements, half marks for three, and zero otherwise. Multiple-response questions can give partial credit for an incomplete correct selection; selecting a distractor reduces that item to zero. Short answers accept the listed equivalent terms without regard to capitals. Answers and explanations are shown after grading, never during an attempt.

Everything assessed is taught in the course. Optional books and external resources can deepen your formation but are not required purchases or unseen assessment material. If an access need affects a timed attempt, contact the Institute before beginning so that a reasonable adjustment can be considered. If both attempts are unsuccessful, seek feedback and a support review; further attempts are not promised automatically.

Completion and your certificate

Successful completion requires at least 80 per cent in every unit quiz. Your Institute of Ministry certificate includes verification details. It records study and assessment; it does not confer ordination, appointment, faculties, professional registration, or permission to minister. No CPD accreditation or professional points are claimed.

How long you have

Your enrolled place lasts 180 days, commonly described as six months, counted from your own enrolment. There is no fixed course end date. One reminder is sent four weeks before your enrolled access expires. When that window ends, enrolled access closes but your existing results are retained. Contact the Institute before it ends if disability, illness, caring responsibilities, or other circumstances mean you need longer.

Public reading does not create a recorded assessment result. Sign in and enrol free of charge when you want to take the quizzes and record progress.

Support, accessibility, and how to begin

For course help, technical support, accessible formats, reasonable adjustments, or a broken link, contact getsupport@ministry.institute. Explain the difficulty and the page concerned; private medical records are not needed in a first enquiry.

If you are new to the Institute, complete Getting Started with the Institute of Ministry once. Then read A note on language, Scripture, and sources and begin Unit 1.1, Part 1. Use the same navigation and completion controls that you meet in the Institute's other courses.