School of Discipleship

What the Lord Requireth: Testimonies of Justice
and Mercy by Grace and Peace:
This School of Discipleship class will primarily be
testimony based in format.  We will have 7 different
Grace and Peace-er's share from their wealth of
wisdom and years in mercy ministry.  Presentations
will include a Q&A time.  Classes will also define the
ministry of deed and briefly look at various models
and approaches to mercy ministry.  The goal of the
class is to equip attendees for confidence in mercy
ministry and loving others in deed.  The whole class
will also work towards planning, conducting and
evaluating a short term ministry of mercy in the
neighborhood.  It's gonna be sweet.
-john cline

IMAGE & MEANING: A LOOK AT CULTURE
In our culture, we are bombarded with images and
messages that we often lack the wherewithal or even
perceive the need to fully understand.  These images
and messages are sometimes arbitrary (TVs blaring
talk shows in waiting rooms, ubiquitous
advertisements on strangers clothing) and
sometimes targeted specifically at us (internet
banner ads, television commercials), but all need to
be comprehended to the best of our ability;
comprehended in order to avoid cultural
assimilation.  As Christians, we are called to be in
the world but not of the world, but we are also
shown time and again how Christ, the apostle Paul
and others often utilized the cultural tropes of the
time to better communicate greater truths.  What do
these ideas and methods mean to us now, and how
can we apply them?  Today, Christians struggle to
maintain any cultural foothold, as the century-plus
history of the church's chronic recoiling from secular
culture has caught up with us in a negative way.  In
this semester-long class, Sylwinn and Jim Tudor will
lead the attendees in a discussion-based
 exploration of how contemporary imagery
(advertising, TV, film, music videos, print, the web)
can be generated for manipulation as well as
aesthetic beauty.  Hopefully you will come away with
a greater confidence in terms of how to decipher the
unrelenting outside visual forces.  It is our hope to,
for the most part, keep things to a practical level, as
it is our belief that media literacy is of fundamental
importance in all contemporary education, and
needs to be taken considerably more seriously at all
levels of learning. If you live in today's world, this
class is for you!
-Jim Tudor

These classes are scheduled to begin Sunday mornings at 9:15 AM in the library and gallery, respectively. The classes will run from December 4th through February 19th.   All are welcome!