The Certificate in Missional Leadership Cohort   – Starting September 2022

The aim of this program is to Educate, Equip and Experiment in mission.  The program is designed for both individuals and leadership teams from churches. However, we believe that the certificate program will be most fruitful for leadership teams from a particular church as we provide time in breakout groups for you to contextualize and further your mission locally.

We will meet for four Saturdays (over seven months) as a learning community with church pastors, leaders and community developers.  These sessions will start at 9:30 a.m. and end at 1:30 pm (Pacific Standard Time).  Our premise for these learning sessions is that Covid has exposed and accelerated the need for shifts in our models of church developed during Christendom.  For most churches, these realities call for a return to the local, a shift toward a thicker and more porous shared life that takes formation as well as the issues of your neighborhood or city more seriously.  We believe that this course of study for congregational teams of clergy and lay people can be a way of a helping your churches to envision a way of life that prevails over the alienation of our age and leads to a hopeful future rooted in the action of God in our world.   Topics to be discussed and explored in year one will include:

September 24th – Understanding our secular age  /  Using  Grandview’s thirty-year journey as learning map

Practice of reflection and prayer – Andrea Perrett

  1. Understanding secularism and the powers we are up against – Tim Dickau
  2. Sharing Grandview’s journey of forming porous, thicker community in Christ.
  3. Panel on the work of transition in a community.
  4. Dialogue with your co-hort.

November 26th– Developing a Thicker and More Porous Shared Life / Exploring housing and home

Practice of prayer and reflection – Andrea

Meditation for Reflection: “Why We still believe in the church” – Reflections from the CML team.

  1. Building a Theology of Community and Place – Tim Dickau
  2. Loving your Neighbors – Four creative expressions
  • Interview with Barry Jung and Karen Reed and Bernard Tam and Co:Here
  1. Dialogue with your cohort

January 28th –Seeking the Kingdom of God / Making a Difference in your Context

Practice of reflection and prayer – Andrea Perrett

  1. How a theology of the Kingdom holds together what has been torn apart (eg. prayer and justice, healing and prophetic action, faith and work) – Tim Dickau
    • Communal Meals / sharing life with the poor – Karen Giesbrecht
    • Creating Employment through Social Enterprise – Russell Pinson / justwork
    • First Nations Reconciliation – Jodi Spargur
  1. Designing your project

Workshop

March 25th –  Revisioning Evangelism and Discipleship

Practice of prayer and reflection – Andrea Perrett

  1. Why Evangelism today?  Theological vision and Renewed Practice – Ross Lockhart / dialogue with Grant Zweigle
  2. The story of Alpha / Finding your own creative forms to introduce people to the Way of Christ – Shaila Visser
  3. Empowering Leadership – Al Chu
  4. Next Steps for your community:
    • In Evangelism
    • In Discipleship
  1. Next year – the Project!

 

How much does it cost? 

Most of the costs will be offset by the Centre for Missional Leadership, as we want to lower the obstacles that would keep people from participating.  The total cost for all four sessions in Year One of the program:

    • $250 per person ($200 for on-line)
    • $500 for everyone if you come with a group (of up to five people) ($400 on-line)
    • $75 for students (VST, Regent, SAH)

This fee includes both monthly lunches provided (for those in person) and one free consultation with a member of the CML team in 2023 for every group registration.

To register please contact CML Administrator Ms. Mavis Ho at cml@standrews.edu or by calling 604.822.9372. Registration deadline is September 18th 2022.

As a bonus, for those who sign up AS A GROUP by September 1st, 2022 will receive one free copy of Forming Christian Communities in a Secular Age by Tim Dickau. https://biblescanada.com/forming-christian-communities

We are excited about this learning opportunity and believe it can be a catalyst for renewed vision and mission in your churches during this critical time.

Homework Assignments (example for September / about 2 ½ hours per session)

  1. Understanding and exegeting your neighborhood/Questions for your assignment.

Talk to one person you know who is not a part of your church.  Explain that you are doing an assignment for a class trying to understand better people’s perceptions of churches.

  • What do you appreciate most about neighborhood (or city if you live in a smaller center)?
  • What are two of the most important needs or lacks in your neighborhood?
  • Do you think the church or churches in your neighborhood make a difference? If so, how?
  1. Talk to another person in your neighborhood who is poorer or more marginalized than you. This may be someone who is economically, physically or socially isolated (even before Covid-19).   Some of you may know or have friends or acquaintances in this situation.  If you don’t, ask someone who does have a connection to someone in this situation.  Get to know them.

Sample questions to ask them:

  • What do you appreciate about our neighborhood?
  • What challenges do you face living in this neighborhood?
  • How could our church be of support to you?
  • What gifts do you have that you contribute to other people?
  1. Name 1 church and 1 organization that is making a difference for good in your neighborhood or city. Come ready to describe them.
  2. Reading
  • Plunging into the king Way – Chapter 2
  • The intentional Christian Community Handbook – Chapters 2-3