Urban Ministry Clinical Pastoral Education

Urban Ministry Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) offers the opportunity to minister with the underserved in our community.

CPE Application 

The placements are such places as the Open Door Medical Clinic, Helen Wright Women's Shelter, Alliance of AIDS Services- Carolinas, and the South Salisbury Street Men's Shelter. Other sites in the Triangle Area will be offered according to interest and need.

CPE at WakeMed is a process that holds as foundational learning about self. This is a dynamic process occurring through relationships with peers and supervisors. This happens in supervision, group, case conferences, didactics, and focused reflection.

Urban Ministry CPE is also about learning from the underserved, and providing pastoral care with persons often shunned in our culture. The learning will include but not be limited to:

• The barrier of poverty in the struggle for growth
• The role of religion/spiritual life in finding/maintaining hope in despair
• Power and discrimination
• Addiction
• Advocacy
• Privilege of race, socio-economic, gender
• Domestic Violence
• Mental Illness
• Boundaries of compassion and care with dignity

Urban Ministry CPE is open to laity, divinity school students, and clergy with a strong interest in learning from and serving the poor. It will include social and theological analysis and exploration of the structures that support or hinder the poor.

Participants in Urban Ministry CPE will also serve one 24-hour on-call rotation per month in the hospital setting. This offers the student the opportunity to develop in the area of evaluation and crises counseling.

The skills the student is developing in their work with the underserved in their respective sites will be used in a crises setting. This will afford the student an opportunity to serve all socio-economic levels, as well as a heightened sensitivity to serving the poor in a crises setting.

Urban Ministry CPE is offered both in a Summer Unit and an Extended Unit. The Summer Unit lasts for 11 weeks and requires participation five days a week for eight hours a day.

The Extended Unit lasts for sixteen weeks with participation in a part-time basis. 

Please note: Application deadlines are one month prior to the program start date.  For more information about Urban Ministry CPE with WakeMed, call 919-350-7096.

• For a detailed fact sheet regarding the Urban Ministry CPE Summer Session (11 weeks),  click here.
• For a detailed fact sheet regarding the two Urban Ministry CPE Extended Sessions (16 weeks) offered in the fall (August/September through December) and winter (January through April/May),  click here.