June Intensives 2025 – Week Two – June 9-13, 2025
This course provides a one-week intensive time of shared study, learning, and devotion which will focus on the life, works, and ministry of Dietrich Bonhoeffer as pastor
theologian in the Lutheran tradition and recognized ecumenical leader in his time (1906-1945). The emphasis of this course is on cultivating an “integrative habit of mind” that seeks to faithfully overcome a much too prevalent gap between theology and pastoral ministry, as well as with other forms of Christian ministry. To this end, students will be asked to read, reflect, write, and discuss together questions, discoveries, insights and new understandings derived from required readings for the purpose of learning both more about and from Bonhoeffer’s theological and pastoral formation and work. This integrative way of formation comprised his time as a student, candidate for ordination, doctoral student, vicar, pastor, preacher, teacher, Confessing Church leader, prophetic voice, Nazi resistor, and martyr for Jesus Christ.
Dr. Michael Pasquarello III (Mike) was born and raised in the southeastern part of Pennsylvania where his father worked more than forty years as a machinist for General Electric in downtown Philadelphia. He was raised in a Christian family which was very influential in his call to pastoral ministry.
Mike began professional life by serving five years in the United States Marine Corps (1971 – 1976) attaining the rank of Captain. He then left military life to attend school in preparation for pastoral ministry. Following his graduation from Duke Divinity School (1983), Mike was ordained to serve in the North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church. He served 18 years in pastoral ministry, being appointed to small, medium and larger congregations in suburban, city, and rural locations. During his last pastoral appointment, Mike worked towards an M.A. and PhD in the History of Christianity at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, focusing on the history of preaching as exemplified by pastor theologians. He wrote his thesis and dissertation on Hugh Latimer and preaching during the English Reformation.
In 2001, he was appointed to the faculty of Asbury Theological Seminary where he held the Granger E. and Anna A. Chair in Preaching. After fourteen years at Asbury, Mike accepted a position on the faculty of Fuller Theological Seminary where he served as Llyod J. Ogilvie Professor of Preaching and established both ThM and PhD programs in Preaching. Following three years at Fuller, Mike moved to Beeson Divinity School at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama where he served as Beeson Professor of Methodist Divinity, Director of the Beeson preaching institute, and Director of the Wesleyan Studies program.
Mike has published eight books, including God’s Ploughman: Hugh Latimer (1485-1555) a ‘Preaching Life’ (Paternoster Press); John Wesley: A Preaching Life (Abingdon Press); Dietrich: Bonhoeffer and a Theology of the Preaching Life (Baylor University Press); Christian Preaching: A Trinitarian Theology of Proclamation (Baker Academic); The Beauty of Preaching: God’s Glory in Christian Proclamation (Eerdmans).
This past May, Mike retired from his position at Beeson. He and his wife, Patti, a Nurse Educator, moved back to Lexington, KY where two of their four adult children live, as well as a grandson and granddaughter. They also have a daughter and her spouse in Louisville, and a son in Philadelphia. Mike has thoroughly enjoyed his twenty-three years as a professor. But his primary aim has been to learn and grow in his service to Christ and the church as a pastor theologian. Since leaving pastoral ministry in 2001 he has looked for ways to serve in congregations which he hopes to continue in retirement. Since January 2025, he has been serving as interim pastor with Trinity Methodist Church, Maysville, KY.
If this is your first credit class at Trinity, or you are not taking the course as part of a degree, please complete the non-matriculated application. A bachelor’s degree is required to obtain credit.
To register to audit a Master’s Level course, please complete an audit application.
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