A friend emailed me and asked which units I have studied this year at Bible College. He asked because I have been talking about college and a few of the units I have done on this blog, but not listed them all. So I thought I would list them all.
Some of the units I have done before at other institutions, but because I did not complete a course I decided to start from scratch. Here you go…
1. Study skills - this is the basic that all students need to do to make sure you know what you are doing.
2. Old Testament Intro - This is the second time I have done this. This time I got to really look at God’s covenental relationship with mankind. As a result I gained a new appreciation of God’s commitment to us all.
3. Creative Living - I had done a similar unit to this before. This touched on Who God is, who we are and how we live our lives in light of that. This gave a me a deeper understanding of who I am in Christ. It was one of my favourite units this year.
4. Intro to Christian Belief - I had done this before, but again you can not do too much of the basics. It challenged me to really think about what I do believe in a couple of areas and update my theology.
5. Intro to Biblical Interpretation - this looks at how we read, interpret and apply the Bible to today. It reinforced the importance in being rigorous in my message preparation.
6. Leadership - this unit helped me to formulate some thoughts on leadership in life and the church. It was an area where I felt I was lacking going in. I really enjoyed it and I feel more prepared as a result.
7. New Testament Intro - third time I have done this, but still good to learn it from a different perspective. Focussed heavily on the context that Jesus lived and ministered amongst in NT times.
8. Ministry of the Spirit - this looks at Who the Holy Spirit is and how He works in the world, our lives and ministry. I gained a deeper understanding of how the Holy Spirit works in and through us as ministers.
9. Ethics - I really enjoyed looking at the big issues of life and working through some of the grey areas. Rather than telling us what to believe, it helped us to think through an issue ethically.
10. Pastoral Care - this looked at the aspects of pastoral care in the church and the community. Like the leadership unit, it helped to formulate some thoughts on caring for people in and outside the church.
11. Preaching and communicating - as the title suggests it is about preparing and preaching messages. I have done a reasonable amount of preaching in the past, but found this useful.
So there you have it, the units I did this year. As I said I have done a number of them before, but I wanted to do them again all in one place. The idea was to cover the basics and to put more tools in my ministry toolbox, so I could prepare for future opportunites to serve God in whatever context I find myself in.
I have a feeling this is only the beginning of the studies, but the rest will probably be part time while working part time…