Fall 2012 Syllabus and Course Dates Available

The Cults and Other Religions syllabus is now available along with the schedule being udpated. See you on September 12th (new start date)!

REMINDERS

1-1’s should be scheduled with Andre to discuss the outcome of your preaching and teaching.  You will need this to achieve competency.

June 13^th will be our cookout and class time.  This is one week before the class officially ends.  The details are as follows:

6:00pm                     Cookout Begins

6:20pm                     Year 2 Student Recognition

6:25pm                     Vision Casting

6:30pm                     Mentoring

6:40pm                     Student Evaluations

6:45pm                     Where are we headed?

7:00pm                     Class

Check out the 2012-13 schedule!

Pray for Reign Retreat

The PFR Retreat will take place from Friday, August 24, 2012 at 6pm until Saturday, August 25, 2012 at 6pm.  Included in the overnight stay is dinner the first night, then breakfast, and lunch on the last day. Please post back with any questions.

Course Eval Forms Available

You can download a course eval form here and then send it to me when you are done. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.  Also, it was quite awesome to see God working through each of you during the preaching and teaching time over the past two weeks.  You were a blessing!

The Gospels Syllabus is now Available

You can find the syllabus for 'The Gospels' here.  The class begins on April 4, 2012 and there is work that must be done to prepare for the first week.  Enjoy!

2/29 Class Postponed

Due to the pending snowstorm, class is postponed until next week (formerly an open week).  Stay safe and God bless you!

2/29 Class Prep

From Andre:  Rich and I thought that it might be good to spend part of next week's class up in the worship center getting used to speaking on stage.  What we will do is have each of you go up to introduce yourself and to give us a quick synopsis of what you plan to speak on for 2 minutes max.  Just a way for you to start getting comfortable before speaking in front of more people.

Sermon Line-up for the Preaching Class

March 14th
Michelle
JC
Steve T.
Ray
Annmarie
David P.

March 21st
Dave B.
Brian D.
Pat
Tim
Daniel
Raj

Books for the NT Class

Putting Together the Puzzle of the NT (2009): ISBN 978-1-60657-015-9
Jesus and the Gospels (2009): ISBN 978-0-8054-4482-7

Note: The books above are available on the Kindle as well.

WSOM PFR Retreat for Certificate Students

Please respond back as to what weekends are free for you in August so we can plan our retreat weekend! Please post before our next class on 2/29/12.

Bless the Quilters. Calling all WSOM students to set up tables for quilters this week in the back class room under the lights.

Looks like no interest to car pool so I will see you all at Wellspring.

Sermon Assignment

Andre has a sermon by Andy Stanley for the class to listen to.  Instructions are:
1. Listen to it (only 18 minutes)
2. Write down the Strengths and Weaknesses of the message from their perspective
3. Fill out a Sermon Brief for the sermon.

See you soon and God bless you!

Peacemakers at Wellspring and More

The registration for the Peacemaker Seminar on January 28th is in place and the following students should have already received a confirmation email: Dave Blough (confirmed receipt), Raj Selvaraj, JC Oswecki, Steve Tate, Tim Cosby, and David Paul.

If you cannot attend the seminar, you have an option to attend the Peacemaker DVD small group class as an Adult SS option starting Feb 26th at the 11am class. If you are able to facilitate this class, you will be able to earn your teaching competency. Please let me know if you are interested!

Wingmen never wing it...

My friend Waldo posted a blog entry about great intention and accomplishing goals.  This is what I referred to in class tonight.  You can find it here.

Please post confirmation on attending Peacemakers on the 28th at Wellspring. Thanks!

Art of Preaching and Teaching Syllabus is Available

Hi Everyone!  The syllabus is now available for our class which begins on Wednesday, January 4, 2012.  Please make sure to read it in its entirety and prep with first week of work.  If you have not ordered your books yet, please do so.  God bless you and Merry Christmas!

Need WSOM Help

Can anyone help with the Clothes Closet on 12/14? Looking to help bring containers down at 7ish.

Last Week of Theology - Post Your Questions

This is your chance to post any questions you would like to go a little bit deeper on and have the rest of our class respond.  Let's actively participate!

New Resources Posted for Systematic Theology

Rich has made available the following resources for us to reference:

1. 33 Things Accomplished at Salvation
2. Jesus Claimed to be..
3. Order of Salvation
4. Atonement Theories
5. Work of the Holy Spirit

Week 7,Nov. 9 reading as follows:

Pgs. 124-125
Pgs. 138-146
Pgs. 205-237

WSOM is on for 11/2/2011

More resources are now available

In the Systematic Theology section of our Resources page, there are two new documents available on the deity of Christ that Rich has made available so enjoy!

• Deity of Christ

• Verses on the Deity and Humanity of Christ

More Resources Posted

Earlier today Rich provided some more resources and reminded us to bring the circle diagrams we handed out last week.

Systematic Theology Resources Posted

Thanks to Rich you can now access the following on the WSOM website:

1. Apostles Creed
2. Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology
3. Dispensations and Covenants
4. Nature of Theology
5. Trinity Diagram
6. Trinity Heresies

Theology Follow-up

Good session tonight in my opinion!  I hope you received your invitation to join the Google group I created.  This enables you to receive notification on any updates to the blog.  As to the Filioque, from what I read, it appears that John 14:26 and John 15:26 are in view.  Am I correct?

Tonight - April 13th

Hi Everyone,

We are starting our new class tonight on "Grasping God's Word". We now have 3 new members to our group for this semester (Kathy Monahan, Gene Ouellette, and John Gerhan).

You are invited to bring a bag dinner at 6:00 (optional), join us for a time of worship and prayer at 6:30 (required), and our class will start by or before 7:00. The Women's Discipleship group is not meeting tonight, so our prayer time may end up being shorter than normal. Come ready to discuss the reading via the quizes, and your written observation assignments on Acts 1:8, I John 1:5-7 and 8-10 if you have time).

Brain Dailey is trying to set us up with his computer so we can project on the board and write on it (we'll see if that works).

Can't wait. Rich

TONIGHT
The ladies from Marypat's group are off this week so it is just us. I'd like to do this following:

6:30 - 6:50 - Worship and Prayer to get our hearts ready
6:50 - 7:00 - Few logistics regarding the last project and papers
7:00 - 8:00 - John will lead us in another prayer method
8:00 - 9:00 - Discussion on chapter 8, "Hearing the Still, Small Voice"

NEXT WEEK (last week)
To maximize our final discussion on this important topic of Hearing God, we'll do this next week:

6:30 - 7:30 - Worship on our own and flow into Andre leading in another prayer method (we'll re-join Marypat's group the week after this)
7:30 - 8:45 - Final discussion on chapter 9 and lingering questions/comments
8:45 - 9:00 - Review logistics for next class and get your initial ideas for final projects

REMINDERS
Papers - Several still need to do first one, second one due tonight
Book for Second Class - need to order right away if you haven't already, "Grasping God's Word" by Duvall and Hays

Look forward to seeing you all tonight and meeting with the Lord together!

The Ken Ham Controversy

Recently, Ken Ham was eliminated as a speaker at a couple homeschooling conferences. You'll want to check out his blog and then follow links to his other articles for more information.

The gist of the controversy is that Ken believes that another speaker, Dr. Peter Enns, is a promoter of liberal theology who undermines the authority of the Word of God. For example, viewing Adam symbolically, his acceptance of evolution, and not having a biblical view of inspiration.

After reading about this, what do you think? Should he have been kicked out? Where do you stand?

Rob Bell's Controversy

Rob Bell recently wrote a book titled "Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived." What are your thoughts?

New Syllabus Posted for Interpreting God's Word

Rich now has available the syllabus for the next course and a quizzes document. The are found here.

PFR night this Sunday! Post to the blog if you can attend.

If you can help the Clothes Closet by staying an extra 30 minutes after class, please let me know.

Walk Through Church History

I need some students to volunteer setting up a table for 'Walk Through Church History' and be willing to accept registrations and promote it for the next few Sundays. Please let me know if you can do that.

PFR Weekly Schedule

The Pray for Reign Weekly Schedule can be downloaded here. Please let me know what you think? By the way, please log into the blog and reply instead of hitting reply in your email so everyone can have the benefit of your comments. God bless you!

Jan 26 Canceled

We have decided to cancel tonight and will extend another week. May God keep you safe in your travel. God bless you friends!

Wednesday Jan 26 Options

It looks like we have 3 options for class:
1. Cancel (extends our class out another week)
2. Abbreviated (run from 6 - 7:30)
3. Keep as is

I will post another entry out by Noon tomorrow with a decision. Please post your comments here and let me know what you think. God bless you!

The Holy Spirit

After reading from Sylvia Gunter today, I thought I would share something from my reading...
 
“The Holy Spirit is our gracious Helper in prayer.  We need His assistance in all our prayers.  We are to look to Him for our motivation, to empower us to believe God, and to guide our prayers.  Sometimes we must submit to our weakness and in humility let Him pray our hearts to God.” – Thrasher

What are your thoughts?

Posting

I have now made it possible for you to post without having an account. Just click on the 'comments' below the post to add your comment. God bless you!

Notifications

Here are some things to keep in mind based on our discussion tonight:
1. Winter term ends on March 23, 2011
2. You need to submit your $100 fee for the winter term to me
3. Please send your eval from the last course to me
4. Read your syllabus again
5. Post a reply to this blog that you received an automated email

Looking for Insights

I would appreciate your insights on the following:

1) What is the "original sin"? (first of all, is this a Biblical term or a man-created one? I think it is the latter, but I could be wrong...). And who committed this "original sin"? Is it Adam or Eve? See I Tim 2:13 and Rom. 5:12. Was sin introduced into the world through Adam or earlier through Eve?

2) Were both Adam and Eve created on Day 6 (Genesis 1) or Adam between Day 2 and Day 3 (as one might conclude on the face value of a reading of Gen. 2:4-7 and following)?

3) Why do we call it the Old Testament and New Testament - assuming Testament means covenant, does that mean there are are 2 separate covenants that are applicable, one in the days before Christ and one after? Another perspective is the question is "did people come to faith in God through another way in the OT compared to the NT?"

4) The question (a tricky one) raised by Rich last week was "Were Adam and Eve perfect?" - I think so personally if the definition of perfect means flawless - they did not have the taint of original sin that everyone is born with and before they sinned, they were perfect - at least this is my view - of course one may argue and I am sure the theologians do that only God is perfect - I believe that Adam and Eve were also - the only differentiation was they were not omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, etc and other such attributes that makes God God and man not God...

5) Is God alone fully sufficient to meet mankind's needs? Is Christ alone fully sufficient to meet our needs as humans - perhaps this is a tricky question too - but think of this, if this were so, whey did God feel that Adam needed a companion? And if the answer is yes, why were Adam and Eve not satisfied with paradise?

6) Are all humans born with sin? I think that the Bible teaches so (See Ps. 51:5 for instance)....does that mean a baby born at childbirth or an aborted child will not be able to enter heaven - my personal opinion is that babies will be in heaven (in fact, I believe that all children who die before what is called the age of accountability - which again I believe is a non-biblical term) - I have my reasons for believing so, but would be interested in hearing your views....

Thanks very much.

Anyway, this is just a quick list that I am hopeful would stimulate and challenge us to think about what we really believe and why we believe it.

David P.

Class Two Discussion

Okay I got a private lesson from David on how to use the Blog. Here are my comments from this mornings email plus a few additional thoughts.


One thing I would like to add to last week’s discussion is my take on Genesis one and two. I think the Genesis one account of creation of man/woman is to show that they are both created in the image of God and therefore equal to Him in worth and value. The Genesis two account with more detail I think is to show that although they are equal they are also different. I believe those two themes are consistent with the rest of Scripture. One other thing that came from the Genesis Flood book is the theory that the original creation had a world wide canopy of water that collapsed at God's command to bring the flood. This was a source of a great amount of water for the flood, and also could have allowed humans to live very long lives without ultra violent aging. Interesting theory.


This week:

1. Your first paper is due. Email them to me, or bring to class.
2. Let me know if your reading will be completed by Wednesday.
3. The syllabus has been updated with the 2nd Edition OT Introduction page
4. Think about sharing some of your Psalm readings into the prayer and worship time at 6:30 each week.

Reading Psalms

What has God been revealing to you in your reading?