Sunday, October 31, 2010

Updates!

Obviously it has yet again been a couple more months and I am finally updating all y'all again. Here's a rundown of my activities in the last while:

September: I went down to Montana and went white water rafting in the pouring down rain (5-day trip). After that we went camping for a few day (beautiful weather), and then headed to Spokane, WA. In Spokane we did our ministry skills overview: the students spent 9 days learning about community development, church and urban ministry (my focus), and TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages). During that time we lived at a sweet mansion on Liberty Lake and cooked all our own meals together.

October: We began October with our ministry skills specializations. For a week my group lived in downtown Spokane and volunteered at several places (feeding ministry, youth ministry, homeless ministry, etc.). We also partnered with a church there to learn more about ministry and be involved with their ministry a little. The other two groups focused on community development and TESOL respectively. After finishing specialization, we returned to Montana and did some classes. I mostly did homework... and spending time with students... and spiritual formation class.

Now? Well, I'm back at Prairie, starting in on classes. I'm doing Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, Principles of Managing Not-For-Profit Organizations, Acts, and finishing up an Urban Strategies distance ed course, not to mention Spiritual Formation and my internship stuff. It's keeping me busy, but it's fun too-- which is good.

A couple words on Perspectives: If you're a Christian, you should take the course. It's designed for anyone to do. You can be as involved as you want: auditing it, doing the basic work, certificate level work, college level work, or graduate level work. The course is about what God is doing on earth-- His global purpose-- and how we can be involved. It has the power to change your perspective on involvement in missions forever. What does it mean to be a "world-class Christian?" How do you support missions from where you live? What is involved in reaching people who have never heard the Gospel before? Can a Muslim also be a Christian? Is the Great Commission only found in the end of the Gospels, or is it something woven throughout Scripture? Were the Gentiles an afterthought/something God just included because the Jews weren't responsive? All of these questions, and hundreds more, are addressed in the course. Written by experts in their field and people with experience as well, the articles are both interesting and informative.

That was more than a "couple words," but as you can see I'm a huge fan of Perspectives. If you're interested in taking it, let me know-- I can connect you up! While it's been a lot of homework for me (since I'm taking it for credit), it has been well worth the effort and quite enjoyable. As an Intercultural Studies major, I've studied a lot of things related to other cultures and missions, and this course brings everything together in a very coherent and intriguing manner!

Well, that's all for now!