DESCRIPTION: The church today needs to recapture the mission given by Jesus to go and make disciples of all nations. Often, while the church has gone wider, it has not gone deeper. As well, the impact of Christian discipleship has been criticized as being privately engaging, but socially irrelevant. The purpose of this class is to develop a long-term, biblical strategy that returns to making disciples of Jesus Christ the central mission of the church.

SIGNIFICANCE FOR LIFE AND MINISTRY: This course will equip the student to think about who is a disciple, what is discipleship, and how you go about growing people to maturity. We will explore personal methods of disciple-making, such as one-to-one relationships in mentorship, spiritual direction, and counseling; and group disciple-making methods, such as small groups for fellowship, accountability, recovery, ministry teams, etc.

LEARNING OUTCOMES: The student will (1) articulate a biblical, theological, and missiological understanding of making disciples in contemporary society; (2) appreciate the importance of a curriculum in the local church, by understanding the personal and communal nature of Christian discipleship; (3) have tools for evaluating contemporary discipleship programs; (4) be sensitive to engage in disciplemaking programs according to sociocultural variables of gender, age, ethnicity, and spiritual development levels (understanding how social sciences provide insights into Christian ministry); (5) evaluate the current model and create a plan for a revised model of disciplemaking that is culturally relevant to the student's church or ministry situation; (6) be more committed to the formation of disciples in the context of Christian community; (7) gain skills is creating an environment that fosters Christian discipleship.

COURSE FORMAT: The class will meet on intensive weekends Fridays 7 p.m.- 10 p.m., and Saturdays from 9:00a.m. to 12 m.d. and 1-4 p.m. Classes will combine lecture (information) with a constructivist approach for creating knowledge (formation) highlighting the students' ministerial experiences that can be shared in the classroom. There will be some reading and other preparation before each class session. There will also be assignments due later in the quarter. Details of these tasks and deadlines will be provided in the syllabus.

REQUIRED READING:

Course Reader: Avila, Mariano y Manfred Grellet, eds. Conversión y Discipulado. San José, Costa Rica: Varitec S.A. (Visión Mundial), 1993 (en Versión Electrónica). [300 pp. ISBN 9977965293, available on Moodle course homepage]

Grun, Anselm y Meinrad Dufner. Una Espiritualidad desde Abajo: Dialogo con Dios desde el fondo de la Persona. Madrid: Narcea, 2005. [133 pp. ISBN 8427713371, $12]

Kenneson, Philip. El Fruto del Espíritu en la Comunidad Cristiana. Buenos Aires: Kairos. [350 pp. ISBN 9879403711, $25]

Oak, John. Discipulado y Crecimiento Integral de la Iglesia. Buenos Aires: Kairos, 2006. [315 pp. ISBN 9879403851, $12]

Segura, Harold. Más Allá de la Utopía: Liderazgo de Servicio y Espiritualidad Cristiana. Buenos Aires: Kairos, 2005. [200 pp. ISBN 9879403800, $10]

ASSIGNMENTS AND ASSESSMENT:

1. Students are required to be present and prepared to participate in classroom discussions (20%)

2. Five 50-word principles extracted from the readings of each session (20%)

3. Three 500-word summaries of readings and class discussions according to modules (15%)

4. A 1,000-word field research report based on ten hours of participant observation and interviews that analyzes (a) a local congregation's theology of discipleship and (b) the "hidden curriculum" of the congregation (20%) (due after intensive)

5. A 2,500-word paper that discusses the student's theology of discipleship applied to a specific human group (i.e. gender, age, ethnicity, and class background) in the student's local congregation or ministry situation (25%) (due after intensive)