Courses

This course will give you greater insight into God’s heart and design for children.  The course aims to help students develop and articulate a Bible-based and Christ-centred view of children and childhood. It also aims to help students integrate this view with their own theology and ministry. The course aims to help students develop and articulate a Bible-based and Christ-centered view of children and childhood. It also aims to help students integrate this view with their own theology and ministry. By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• identify the implicit views of children by observing their place and role in the weekly gathering of a local church.
• articulate the theological perspectives on childhood implied in key biblical passages.
• demonstrate the understanding of key concepts and issues in recent scholarship around children, Bible, and theology.
• make a meaningful contribution to the application of biblical-theological perspectives on children in a practical ministry situation.

 

Discipleship is an essential part of the Christian mission that was practiced by both our Lord Jesus Christ and the early church. However, this important aspect of the church’s mission tends to be neglected, ignored or misunderstood by churches in the 21st century. This course encourages the student to revisit the biblical foundations of discipleship, evaluate its current praxis in the light of scholarships and develop a biblical contextualized theology of discipleship. The purpose of this course is to encourage students foster a discipleship culture in their local ministerial contexts.

Expository preaching is not only a valuable skill for the preacher, but it is a skill sadly employed rather in infrequently in many of today’s churches. Most the great preachers of our world preach expository sermons. This course will introduce you to the value and application of important disciplines like exegesis, hermeneutics, and homiletics. Considering other forms of preaching, you will discover the uniqueness and value of expository preaching. A significant part of expository preaching is the ability to read the biblical texts in context. This will include learning to take cognizance of the historical/social contexts, literary contexts, theological contexts, and canonical contexts, that is, reading scripture through the eyes of Jesus. You will also learn to bridge the gap between the ancient context of the Biblical world and your unique contemporary context. Once you have acquired some knowledge and skill for expository preaching, you will have an opportunity to acquire practical experience. By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Demonstrate familiarity with the appropriate academic disciplines and their application, including exegesis, hermeneutics, and homiletics.
• Demonstrate familiarity with the history of expositional preaching, its strengths, and weaknesses.
• Demonstrate familiarity with the preparation and delivery of sound expositional sermons on both the Old and New Testament and the issues related to these two parts of the Bible.
• Demonstrate skill in bridging the gap between the ancient context of the Biblical world and your unique contemporary context.
• Demonstrate an ability to preach expository sermons.

This course explores the history, theoretical underpinning, and primary models of narrative preaching as a foundation for equipping you to learn some narrative methods of preaching. The heart of the course requires you to prepare and deliver sermons using both first-person and third-person narrative models. The course ends with you undertaking an evaluation of your narrative sermons, both a self-assessment and a congregational assessment. Edwards, J. Kent. 2009. Effective First-Person Biblical Preaching: The Steps from Text to Narrative Sermon. Kindle edition. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan

This course provides an advanced introduction to Practical Theology as a theological discipline. It includes an overview of the discipline (Unit 1), a study of research models (Unit 2), and a research paper (Unit 3). Denscombe M 2010. The good guide for small scale social research projects (4th ed.). Buckingham: Open University Press. (available through EBSCOhost) Osmer RR 2008. Practical Theology: an introduction. Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, USA

This course examines many biblical, personal, and practical foundations for church leadership. By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Affirm the Christocentric principle of servant leadership
• Investigate and apply the Biblical criteria for leadership
• Evaluate various forms of church government
• Demonstrate an understanding of the relation between pastor, elders, and deacons
• Demonstrate the ability to formulate goals for the church and devise and document strategies to achieve them
• Draft a plan for identifying and training future leaders
• Explain procedures for leading various meetings within the framework of a local church
• Avoid burn-out within the ministry
• Develop principles for motivating both self and others
• Explain the process of decision-making and delegation
• Describe policies for relating/interacting with other churches
• Demonstrate understanding of temptations facing church leaders
• Set priorities for ministry

The general themes covered in this module are group and youth counselling singleness, premarital, and marital counselling. (Prerequisite for this course is PRA2121) By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Demonstrate awareness of issues involved in group, premarital, and marital counselling.
• Counsel a group of young people in selecting a marriage partner.
• Design a premarital counselling course.
• Design a programme outline for marriage enrichment.
• Provide counselling to a single person or a married couple.
• Demonstrate an understanding of family counselling.
• Offer biblical counsel for couples struggling with common causes of divorce.
• Offer biblical counsel for Christians seeking remarriage.

This course is an in-depth study of "The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict," bringing the Biblical principles of conflict management together in a practical way. By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Glorify God in conflict situations.
• Grow to be more like Jesus through conflict.
• Use conflict situations to serve others.
• Do everything in your power to facilitate reconciliation with an opponent.

This course will help you to better understand what it would look like for children-at-risk to be meaningfully incorporated in the mission of the Church, something which a large part of the Church has either ignored or underemphasised for 2000 years. It will urge you to help correct those failings by responding appropriately in your ministry. By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Define “children-at-risk” within the context of the worldwide crisis and within your own ministry.
• Formulate a biblical response to the worldwide orphan crisis.
• Define “Holistic Child Development” in the context of a biblically and theologically grounded model.
• Interpret the biblical and theological foundations for a call to action in your ministry.
• Draft an action plan for your church or ministry which addresses the needs of children-at-risk in your context.

This course prepares the preacher for the construction and delivery of the sermon. By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the task of expository preaching.
• Discuss different types of expository preaching.
• Formulate the proposition of an expository sermon.
• Apply the techniques of effective pulpit speech.
• Analyze the unique challenges presented by diverse preaching contexts or methods: (a) ethical/social issues, (b) children, and (c) storytelling.

This course prepares the student with the pastoral responsibilities of preaching, teaching, leading, equipping, administrating, and many other tasks in the context of the local Church. By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Construct a Bible-based model of the work of a pastor.
• Conduct home and hospital visits.
• Formulate procedures for performing weddings, funerals, baptisms, the blessing of children, and holy communion.
• Formulate a procedure for integrating visitors into the church.
• Create ongoing opportunities for members to serve God.
• Devise a plan for establishing a new ministry in your church (e.g., cells, youth, children’s, women’s, outreach, etc.).
• Describe principles of pastoring in a rural context, a multi-cultural setting, or a cross-cultural context.
• Implement Biblical disciplinary procedures for dealing with sin in the church body.

This course introduces the student to the field of pastoral care, including its basis, goals, terminology, concepts, and techniques.  By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Demonstrate a broad understanding of Christian counseling as a field within pastoral care, including its terminology, basis, goals, and techniques.
• Appreciate the changes that take place in different stages of life, and use this knowledge to enrich your own life as a counselor.
• Use the Bible appropriately as a counseling tool for people struggling with personal issues such as anxiety, unforgiveness, depression, and illness.

Inspired by the example of Jesus, Biblical leadership explores key New Testament leadership models, principles, practices, and requirements with a view toward personal growth and transformational leadership development. By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Describe the leadership models, principles, practices and objectives of Jesus and Paul.
• Describe the prerequisites and qualifications for Church leadership.
• Explain the key elements involved in effective spiritual leadership.
• Assess your own leadership with a view toward transformational development.
• Develop a practical plan for growth.

This course provides an introduction to the primacy of our relationship with God through different modes and principles of worship and prayer. It will also aim to inform a biblical approach to nurture your family spiritually. By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Apply biblical principles of worship and prayer in your relationship with God, both privately and corporately.
• Implement biblical principles of family life in your relationships with your own family.
• Use biblical principles of family life in your ministry to others experiencing family problems.