Explores the way biblical virtues of hospitality and fellowship shape who Christians are and how they may extend hospitality to others in their homes and in the household of faith as a means of participating in the mission of God in an unhospitable world.

Examines a crucial component to missions, namely, the effort to maintain a distinctive Christian ethos in the pursuit of extending the gospel to those outside the Church during the early church era. The dynamic between drawing and maintaining boundaries on the one hand, and having the flexibility to adjust and accommodate, is as vital as it is tricky. How the early Church navigated these issues for contemporary consideration and emulation will be explored. Readings, discussion forums, and lectures will structure the course, and assessment will be done through a service project, an informative essay, and an exam focused on the application of the presented material.

In this course, students practice making the Gospel translatable to the cultural context of their field of mission, they are equipped to employ a redemptive-historical hermeneutic for interpreting scripture and research six descriptive domains that encapsulate the cultural orientations of their mission field. As students acquire knowledge of missional practices, consult an expert practitioner and get involved in an on-site evaluation of a place where Gospel and missio Dei intersect, they accumulate vital resources for coherently contextualizing the Gospel in any mission field.

When God started his narrative of redemption for humanity through Israel, he called Abram and his family and put them on mission together. The goal of this course is to provide the framework of how God is continuing to use the family as a primary community to embody his message and image to local neighborhoods.

If the world keeps changing, so must the church. This course is designed to equip those who have a creative heart and mind for the missional church with new contextual forms of ministry. Students will be informed and challenged to imagine and design a new fresh expression strategy to engage their particular community.

This course will examine a Gospel centered community. Students will learn what it mean to live a Gospel centered life and the implications that has for community. They will develop an understanding of their Gospel Identity and their biblical mandate to be a unified community centered on the Gospel living the Spirit’s mission to build the Kingdom. Students will learn the theology behind a Gospel Centered Missional Community and practical steps to implementing one into their local context.

This course will examine the impact of missional principles that can be applied to any ministry context for local church effectiveness. Students will learn what questions to ask to interpret their context as well as best practices for missional communities in diverse locales.