Maine School of Ministry (MESOM)
Theological education for the life of the church
We work with students practicing congregational leadership and those discovering a path to pastoral ministry. Our programs combine classroom learning and ministry competencies, devoted to God’s call.
Our primary program is based on a solid and innovative curriculum leading toward a certificate in Christian Studies, Pastoral Leadership, or Word and Sacrament. “Non-traditional students” will find a welcome here!
We also offer mentored-practice fieldwork serving congregations in Maine and beyond. Some “traditional students” fit here. Whether on an academic path, an alternative path, or something in-between, your progress with the Maine School of Ministry will be unique. And you will contribute something new to our learning community.
Our work and our vision grew up alongside the 21st century UCC Manual on Ministry. By promoting and cultivating a culture of call, adding academic resources and mentorship, we affirm God’s gifting and guidance in every generation – including toward more remote or rural congregations. Beginning in 2012, MESOM has affirmed students on their way to authorized ministry (lay or ordained) in the various associations of the Maine Conference.
See current course info below.
For more information, contact MESOM Advisory Team members: Bill Bliss, Rebekah Choate, Nick Davis, Leslie Foley, Beth Hoffman, John Lacey, Sarah Mills, Joe Schulte.
Email: Dean – Rev. Dr. Malcolm Himschoot
Upcoming Courses & Offerings
January Term 2025: ENROLLMENT OPEN – UCC History, Theology, and Polity – Fee $350 (outside Maine, $500)
Spring Semester 2025: Building Up A Thriving World: Applied Ethics for Christian Churches – Fee $350 / Introduction to Islam – Fee $350
January Term 2025
UCC Polity, History, and Theology
Instructor: Rev. Shernell Edney
Certificate Credit: (Leadership)
Requirements: Internet access for real-time Zoom, Google classrooms capability.
Course Description:
Do you thrive with interactive courses where you are engaging the material in real time? Throughout our time together, we will have live conversation with real sojourners of the denomination, including but not limited to: Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia Thompson, the current and first woman General Minister, President and CEO of the UCC; Rev. Dr. Yvonne V. Delk, the first African American woman ordained in the denomination; and Rev. Dr. JJ Flag, a disability theologian who lives faith through a very different lens than many others in our Church. This course fuses present possibilities in church life, future vision for UCC expressions, and content from past centuries leading up to the last 60 years of “being church” as a denomination. We will cover governance and decision-making, authorization of ministers and theological praxis from a unique standpoint. Taught by a neurodiverse professor, the approach in this class will be one that focuses on a variety of ways to learn but also an opportunity to have a great experience! The United Church of Christ lives in a space of creative tensions, responding in faith across generations. Come join us as we visit some of those creative tensions together where we will learn more about ourselves, each other, and how to BE the United Church of Christ.
Course Objectives:
This course is a condensed version of polity courses that meet requirements for a Member in Discernment or one seeking Privilege of Call to serve in an authorized ministry capacity on behalf of the UCC.
Course Fee:
$350 tuition (or $500 for students beyond Maine)
Scholarships:
Partial scholarships are available, if requested and approved. To apply for a scholarship in a specific amount, please email Dean Malcolm Himschoot: [email protected] by Dec 4.
Course Syllabus:
Course syllabus will be emailed to paid registrants after Dec 6th.
Class Meetings:
Four Saturdays. Jan 4 / Jan 11 / Jan 18 / Jan 25 from 9:00 – 3:30 Eastern time. This class meets entirely on Zoom.
Spring Semester 2025
Introduction to Islam
Instructor: Aida Mansoor
Certificate Credit: (Ethics and Cultures)
Requirements: Internet access for real-time Zoom, Google classrooms capability.
Course Description:
This course is an introduction to Islamic beliefs, practices, scriptures, and Muslim communities, especially in the US. Through a combination of lectures, readings, virtual site visits, and discussions, the course will cover Muslim beliefs and practices, various issues faced by Muslims living in the United States, the important roles that women play in Muslim communities, and the current interfaith efforts.
Course Objectives:
The course is designed to address the significant need for basic information about Islam in the contemporary context.
Course Fee:
$350 tuition
Scholarships:
Partial scholarships are available, if requested and approved. To apply for a scholarship in a specific amount, please email Dean Malcolm Himschoot: [email protected] by Jan. 10.
Course Syllabus:
Course syllabus will be emailed to paid registrants after Jan 11th.
Class Meetings:
Six Saturdays on Zoom: Saturdays, Feb 22 / Mar 8 / Mar 22 / Apr 5 / May 3 / May 17 from 9:00 – 1:00 Eastern time. Fieldtrips outside of class will be arranged to build connections with the Muslim community closest to you.
Building Up A Thriving World: Applied Ethics for Christian Churches
Instructor: Anne Dunlap
Certificate Credit: (Ethics and Cultures)
Requirements: Internet access for real-time Zoom, Google classrooms capability.
Course Description:
God designed a thriving world, a world of abundance and goodness and rest, and called it all good. As Christians, how do we live in ways that support that thriving? In this course, we will explore together how applied Christian ethics means cooperating with the ways God designed abundance and thriving throughout creation, and ways we can co-create with God the world longs for for us, even when humans get aligned around greed and fear instead of thriving for everyone. We’ll unpack the context of biblical stories, dig into theological and other frameworks that help us understand our own context, and add tools and practices to our work of building a thriving world together.
Course Objectives:
The course is designed for leaders both lay and ordained in rural and remote local church contexts.
Course Fee:
$350 tuition
Scholarships:
Partial scholarships are available, if requested and approved. To apply for a scholarship in a specific amount, please email Dean Malcolm Himschoot: [email protected] by Jan. 10.
Course Syllabus:
Course syllabus will be emailed to paid registrants after Jan 11th.
Class Meetings:
Ten Tuesday evenings on Zoom: Tuesdays, Mar 11 / Mar 18 / Mar 25 / Apr 1 / Apr 8 / [2-week break] / Apr 29 / May 6 / May 13 / May 20 / May 27 from 6:00-8:30 Eastern time.
MESOM Faculty
Shernell J. Edney Stilley
Instructor: UCC History, Polity and Theology
Rev. Shernell Edney Stilley holds a Bachelor of Science in Corporate Communications from Drexel University, a Master of Divinity from the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University, as well as a Master of Science in Health Psychology from Touro University. For six years, Rev. Shernell has served the United Church of Christ at the Conference level as an Associate Conference Minister. She focuses on a portfolio in the Illinois Conference that includes, but is not limited to, journeying with churches in the areas of Search & Call, Revitalization, Open & Affirming Discernment, Mental Health Wellness and Education, and Community Rediscovery. She has also previously been an adjunct Philosophy professor, Communications professor, and UCC History and Polity co-Teacher with Rev. David Gaeweski of the New York Conference.
Rev. Edney Stilley is currently a member of the United Church of Christ Board of Directors where she serves as the first appointed Chaplain to the Board; as well as Chair of the Governance Committee. Rev. Shernell’s favorite activity is to travel, especially internationally, and see as much of God’s world as she can.
Anne Dunlap
Instructor - Applied Christian Ethics
The Rev. Anne Dunlap
Anne is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and a co-founder of the Liberating Lineages Collective. She is a consultant partner with the Jewish Bridge Project, and worked for 8 years as the Faith Organizer for Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), where she curated the podcast for anti-racist white Christians, “The Word Is Resistance,” and led the creation of the SURJ-Faith Community Safety for All: Congregational Action Toolkit. She has taught courses at the Iliff School of Theology and the University of Denver, and is the co-editor and a contributor to Building Up a New World: Congregational Organizing for Transformative Impact.
The founder of FierceRev Remedies, Anne offers herbal consults, workshops, and mentorship with the goal of racial justice and collective liberation sourced in healing practice with the land. She is proud to be from Arkansas, currently living in Buffalo, New York, with roots in the Central America solidarity movement of the 1980s.
Aida Mansoor
Instructor: Introduction to Islam
A Community Chaplain in the Greater Hartford area committed to building bridges of understanding, Aida has been educating about Islam and the Muslim world since 1999. She serves on the executive board of the Muslim Coalition of Connecticut (serving as president of that organization from 2011-2015) and the Islamic Association of Greater Hartford. She is also a board member of the Connecticut Council for Interreligious Understanding, the Coalition for Elder Justice in Connecticut and the State of Connecticut’s Commission Against Hate Crimes.
Aida Mansoor has served as affiliate faculty of the Hartford International University for Religion and Peace.
Holly Morrison
Instructor: Ecology and Faith in Christian History
Rev. Holly Morrison serves as full-time pastor of Phippsburg Congregational Church, United Church of Christ. She has a passion for rural ministry and has previously served congregations in Maine, Colorado, Washington State, and Alaska. She and her wife are the stewards of Tir na nOg Farm, an educational farmstead devoted to restorative agriculture. In farming as well as ministry, she draws inspiration from her Celtic roots. Her writing may be found in Greenprints and two anthologies: There’s A Woman In The Pulpit (Skylight Paths, 2015) and The Smeddum Test: 21st Century Poems In Scots (Kennedy & Boyd, 2012).
Bill Bliss
Instructor - Applied Theology
The Rev. Bill Bliss
Bill’s work as a community organizer, musician, and television producer led him to Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where he received the Master of Divinity degree in 1988. After moving to New Mexico to study Native American spirituality, he was guided by his teacher to embrace his pastoral vocation by becoming an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ in 1992. He served congregations in Santa Fe and suburban Chicago before moving home to Maine in 1999 to serve as Pastor of the Neighborhood United Church of Christ in Bath, from which he retired in 2024.
As a member of the Board of Directors of the Maine Conference, Bill takes a particular interest in the Maine School of Ministry, which is developing new pathways for equipping individuals who are called to Christian ministry.
Stephen Hastings
Instructor: Ecology and Faith in Christian History
Dr. Stephen Hastings has been a UCC minister since 1991, serving in the Maine Conference since 1995. He has led the Dover-Foxcroft Congregational Church UCC toward carbon neutrality which has included the construction of a solar energy system that offsets both the church facility and the parsonage. He helped create the Maine Conference Earth Care and Spirituality Resource Team and arranged for Matthew Fox to speak on creation spirituality at the Annual Meeting in 2012. Dr. Hastings has Ph.D in Environmental Ethics and Creation Spirituality from Boston University; a M.Div from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary; a MS in Resource Systems and Policy Design from Dartmouth; and a BS in Physics from Towson. He authored the book entitled Whole-Earth Ethics for Holy Ground: The Development and Practice of “Sacramental” Creation Spirituality.
Carol Kerr
Instructor: Spirituality and Leadership
Rev. Dr. Carol Kerr, LCPC is a UCC minister and clinical counselor in private practice. She has worked many years as an interim minister and settled pastor along with her counseling practice. She is very interested in transitions, positive psychology, and identifying our values to find purpose and meaning in our lives.
Deb Jenks
Instructor: Spirituality and Leadership
Rev. Dr. Deborah Jenks is an Ordained Ministerial Partner (Disciples of Christ) and is retired having served in the Maine Conference UCC for 28 years as a pastor, and for the last 10 years in intentional interim and transition ministry. Deb’s experience also includes work as a Hospice Spiritual Advisor and Grief and Bereavement Counselor.
Rev. Dr. John Holbert
John Holbert was ordained to the United Methodist ministry in 1970, and served from 1974-76 as pastor of University United Methodist Church, Lake Charles, LA. He then was Assistant Professor of Old Testament at Texas Wesleyan College, Ft. Worth, TX, from 1976-79, finally returning to Perkins School of Theology in 1979, teaching there until retirement in 2012 as Lois Craddock Perkins Professor of Homiletics for the last 16 years of his faculty appointment.
He has preached, lectured, and taught in over 1000 churches and conferences in nearly every US state and 20 countries. He has published 11 books, including a novel, King Saul (2014). His scholarly books are primarily concerned with the intersection of the Hebrew Bible and homiletics. In his retirement he was given a festschrift in honor of his years of teaching, Parental Guidance Advised: Adult Preaching from the Old Testament, wherein 9 scholars offered articles celebrating his scholarly work through the years.
Contact the Maine School of Ministry
Rev. Dr. Malcolm Himschoot
Dean - Maine School of Ministry
Email: [email protected]
Cell Phone: 1.207.458.7836
Work Phone: 1.207.530.9594
More About Malcolm
Rev. Dr. Malcolm Himschoot, Dean, celebrates the possibilities of classroom and contextual education where faith and leadership meet.
He worked for seven years with the UCC’s Ministerial Excellence, Support, and Authorization Team when the Manual on Ministry and Ministerial Profile were updated in a nationwide conversation about a theology of ministry for the 21st century. During that time he earned a DMin in Transformational Leadership from the Methodist Theological School in Ohio, and participated in consortium gatherings among regional theological education programs across the life of the church. His commitments reflect the diversity, equity, and inclusion at the heart of Christ’s gospel.
Malcolm lives in Orono where he co-pastors the ecumenically-minded Church of Universal Fellowship. He is known as an out trans man, an activist and transgender educator, a sometimes-professor at the University of Maine, and a dad of twins. He also has an MDiv from the Iliff School of Theology, and a B.A. from Amherst College.