Detailed Course Report

After my first four classes, I feel an urge to explain what the classes are about and my expectations. This is more for my own good and record than for your enjoyment, so skip this post if you please.

Foundations of Spiritual Development
Let me start by mentioning that at the beginning of this class we stood up for a worship song and then prayed before class. A lovely shocker!!

I expect this class to be one of the most difficult for me. I have a strong sense that the academic workload will be lighter than other classes, but the heart workload will be heavy. This professor desires for us to develop spiritually (hence the name of the course) and this is done only by dealing with the most difficult parts of our lives and facing them openly and honestly. On the first day, we did an exercise where we put down people, places and circumstances of any kind on sticky notes. If it was a positive, then it went on yellow. If it was a painful experience (with that person, place or circumstance) then it went on pink. We then categorized them under the phase of our spiritual walk in which it or he or she occurred. And we did this in small groups. All other members of the group could see my positives and painfuls. Talk about being honest from day one! That's why this class will be difficult. Dealing with the heart is much harder for me than to deal with the intellect. Which is why I LOOOVE my second class. See below, but before I go there, I must describe a bit of the grades of this course.

10% is for going on a retreat, 10% on memory verses and 10% is on 2 reports in which we describe our experience intentionally sharing the gospel with someone else while we are here at CIU. There are other parts of the grade, but I just love these 3 things! I get to share the gospel as a part of my grade. Wow.

Systematic Theology 1
Now this class, I left SO excited! I talked to friends later that day and asked them what they thought. Their responses were roughly, "I almost fell asleep" or "That class is gonna be hard for me. Ugh." What did I think? I can't wait to get back into that class! There's just something about theology that I just love. In this class, I get to write down my theological beliefs on each section of study from Grudem's book. We will also be studying cross-cultural theologies to understand "how theology is developed, understood or taught in another culture." Sa-weeet!

Also, we have a project where we get to decide what we do. One option is to participate in a debate on either 1) How effective you can be if you believe in errancy of Scripture, 2) Sovereignty vs Free Will or 3) Amillennialism vs Premillennialism. I doubt I will do a presentation of this sort because either others have taken the spots already or I fear the 2nd & 3rd year students who have well developed arguments already. Other options for this project include, but are not limited to: *Creating a sermon or tract that involves "careful exegetical undergirding." *Lesson plans about the units in the course for "lay" people. *Video presentation on the Gospel of Christ. *Website with the Gospel presentation. *Refutation of a major sect.

So, I look forward to this course because it's just my niche. Also, the prof's a funny southern guy. He says "raht quick" often (that's "right quick" if you didn't catch it). I love it.

This course has been dropped.

Genesis to Song of Solomon
My adviser teaches this course and Hebrew courses. Every few years he takes CIU students on trips to Israel. I've heard it's awesome and that he's a great tour guide. So, with that in mind, we started class by singing "This is the day" in English, then Hebrew, then Aramaic. Yup, never did THAT in my undergrad!

I expect this class to be a daunting task as I know how difficult it will be to read Genesis to Song of Solomon alone. Now, I have to read supplementary textbook style material on said reading and furthermore, I need to understand all of the reading and put that knowledge into written form for summary, some exegetical analysis, and personal application. Whew, it's going to be quite the ride. However, even so I look forward to the reward of having studied the OT. How privileged am I to study under such a professor that can write a survey textbook on the entire OT? And oh, the reward of finally understanding more of the OT. I simply just don't get it all when I read on my own. Not only that, but I have a wonderful resource for future use!

Lastly, I'm looking forward to reading the book "Mission in the Old Testament." I began learning on this subject in Perspectives, and I look forward to seeing God's mission even more throughout the OT.

The Mission of God
This is a new course for CIU and so the prof is sort of making things up as he goes. Coming right from my first year of teaching, I understand his position fully. In fact, I think he's quite a bit more prepared for this course than I have ever been for any class! He asked if anyone has taken the Perspectives course for credit. I have, but only for undergrad credit. He said, "This is like Perspectives for credit, but five times more." My jaw dropped. Um, Perspectives was a lot of work. If this is five times more than Perspectives, I may as well not be taking anything else!

We'll see exactly how much work it's going to be (I think he's way over exaggerating). I look forward to the work because it's all good stuff. Also, I think it helps to have taken Perspectives because I've heard some of the information already, if only on an introductory level. Also, in this class 20% of our grade is "cross-cultural evang. practice report." Again, sharing the gospel is a part of my grade!

At the end of this class, we break into small groups (the same ones each week) for accountability. The class was concerned a bit about girl-guy groups, but he said they're missions & prayer accountability groups, not know-your-deepest-darkest-sin type of accountability groups. This week was an introduction to one another, so he had us each describe our own rooms growing up. There's really quite a lot you can learn about someone from the room they grew up in! One lady in my group is a Japanese elderly lady. I look forward to hearing her perspective.

Gospels
I begin this class tonight (6-9pm) and tomorrow (8am-5pm) and it only runs four weekends in the school year.



With all of these classes explained, I am quite concerned about my course load. Many seminary and grad students take 3-4 classes, not 5. So, please pray for me as I decide if I should drop a class, and Tuesday is the last day to drop with a full refund.