Tasks

Class preparation. You must read or view material for class discussions (videos, Bible and other reading, etc.) before class. Bring up misunderstandings in class. Assignments draw on lectures, readings, and discussions, so you are accountable soon anyway. Don't fall behind!

Reading: (BTW, I buy most of my books used on eBay, where they're often cheaper than used on Amazon)

• The Holy Bible. ESV, NIV, or NLT preferred. NASB, RSV, or NRSV just fine. KJV, NKJV, TNIV acceptable. Message, Passion not acceptable for class purposes even if they're fine in other contexts. Others and non-English translations okay by permission.
• Patrick Robertson and David Watson, The Father Glorified.
• Lesslie Newbigin, A Walk through the Bible.
• Selected shorter readings, on Canvas or linked from schedule.
• Optionally, one of the following. Choose one that interests you. Listed by popularity. beginner, intermediate, advanced

  Telford Work, online Doctrine lectures (full YouTube playlist) for a full dose of the lecture material other students will be sampling. All students watched these (or were supposed to LOL) in earlier semesters. They could basically be a book; so why not let you treat them as one?

  Matt Mikalatos, My Imaginary Jesus for a zany whirlwind journey with a donkey and the Apostle Peter in Seattle pondering how our 'contextualizing' can domesticate Jesus as an idol.

  Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism for examination of common reasons for people today not to believe in the God is Christian faith, and then reasons that trust in God is warranted, or at least worth entertaining.

  N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope for clarifying and exploring the significance of Jesus' resurrection for our faith, present, and future.

  Thaddeus Williams, Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth: 12 Questions Christians Should Ask about Social Justice for a theological appraisal of critical social justice theory.

  Vincent Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered for fans of cross-cultural mission and contextualization in greater theological depth than The Father Glorified.

  Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline to learn from a theological giant how thoroughly theology centers on Jesus Christ.

  Robert Barron, And Now I See for lovers of literature and Roman Catholic theology to learn 'soul-doctoring.'

  Stanley Grenz, Created for Community for a straightforward, thoughtful tour of the standard topics of Christian systematic theology.

  Lesslie Newbigin, selected writings (on Canvas) for theology grounded in God's cosmic mission respected in contemporary contexts. Read a decent selection as it interests you. If you prefer something more structured, I recommend the book The Gospel in a Pluralist Society—a masterpiece.

  Michael S. Heiser, Supernatural: What the Bible Teaches About the Unseen World–and Why It Matters for highlighting the Bible's (and especially the OT's) 'spiritual cosmologies' and how biblical passages reflect them.

  Simon Chan, Grassroots Asian Theology: Thinking the Faith from the Ground Up for an Asian appraisal of contemporary Asian Christian theologies.

  Jerry Trousdale and Glenn Sunshine, The Kingdom Unleashed for a movement-oriented, theological and historical treatment of God's Kingdom and respecting its character, power, and purpose.

  Steve Addison, The Rise and Fall of Movements for historical, theological, missional perspective on the trajectories of Christian institutions we tend to take for granted.

Lectures (uBlock Origin is a good ad blocker on a laptop or desktop):

• Live adapted summaries of longer online lectures on key doctrines in the Christian tradition that developed in light of the primary biblical sources you're discovering.
• Online (YouTube playlist here) surveys and analyses of those key doctrines, expanding upon the in-class summaries. You will choose at least three of interest to watch in order to follow up on what was done in class: one before the midterm, and two after.

Examinations (~30% total). We will have one midterm and one final exam. These will cover up to the day of that exam. Some may consist of group oral exams.

Active participation (~35%). Participation is qualitative as well as quantitative, and is not just awarded proportionately. The word 'attendance' is related to the word 'attention': If you're in class but not of it—passive, off-topic, or checked out—you aren't participating or attending. IRL, if you miss a day of work every week, or just show up and sit at your desk doing nothing, you don't get 80% of your pay; you lose your job.

If you miss a class because of illness or an unavoidable conflict, look for students who also missed that class and find a time to have the discussion together. It's not the same as being there, but it's closer. Students who miss a number of class because of illness or athletic, music, or other curricular commitments will need to participate actively outside class in other ways, in cooperation with your squad captains and me.

Read or watch assigned material before class in the order specified on the schedule. Assignments and tests draw on these sources as we have processed them in and out of class rather than just measuring your recall of the content.

Squads, their leaders, and five-minute meetings. These are large classes, and people work better in smaller groups—and tend to self-organize that way anyway. This course formalizes that into squads of 4-5 participants. This will help you equip one another, MAWL duckling discipleship, remain accountable, and facilitate feedback to and from me. Each squad appoints a peer leader for accountability and encouragement in meeting their goals for the course. I will meet with each squad leader for five-minute meetings every week to see how squads are doing. Leaders will switch at the middle of the semester. Directions for squad members as well as leaders are here.

Not preparing, trying to draft on fellow students, and procrastinating will hold back your whole squad (as it does IRL, at least before you get fired from a job or dropped from a team). Grade-wise, your participation will suffer as well as your exams and written assignments.

Duckling discipleship. Our topic is intrinsically relational: "what you have heard ... entrust to faithful [people], who will be able to teach others also" (2 Tim 2:2 ESV). Each student will identify someone for whom you are an IRL influencer—a younger sibling, a peer, a teammate—to mentor, duckling-discipleship style. This primarily involves teaching them both how to discover and to become guides. (David Watson: "mentors make mentors.") I do not set the agenda for your relationship; God and you do. You'll also follow a guide of your own—a parent, teacher, coach, older sibling, etc., preferably from outside college who already influences you—and seek to discover more truly and equip yourself as a duckling. Squad leadership does not replace this activity.

Multiplication. Our topic is intrinsically missional: "freely you have received; freely give" (Matt 10:8 NIV). When the time comes, you will begin a discovery Bible study (DBS) in a group of your own that includes people near or far who are not in our class. You have several great options for 'curriculum': (1) The 'creation to Christ' sequence (on the Waha app) is used among disciple-makers worldwide in introducing new audiences to the Bible's grand story and Jesus at its heart. (2) Lists of six-week 'story sets' (relevant Bible passages) are here for you to use. (3) The '7 Journeys' story sets in Roy Moran's book Spent Matches are on Canvas. Your groups are of course welcome to continue with different topics, and I urge you not to give up meeting together (Hebrews 10:24–25) after the semester but to encourage members to start their own groups.

Short (mostly) written exercises (~35% of your grade total) (submitted on Canvas): These will help you reflect on course activities and material to increase their fruitfulness. You choose a number of these from the available options you will find linked from the schedule. Submit at least three of the following:

• at least one of the following:
  • either do-and-tell report or new discovery group (seven journeys or Waha story sets) report
  • either duckling (guidance/'mentoring') report or, for squad leaders, half a semester of five-minute meetings
• either prayer and worship analysis or worship service analysis and DBS comparison
• love's way exercise
• either stereoscopic Bible log or frontier theology log
• a book-specific exercise (prompts are here)

Written assignments have no formal length requirements; if you insist, aim for roughly 1000 words. They of course require proper citation and quotation of any sources you draw on, the absence of which is academic dishonesty. Do not use any AI tools, which constitute academic dishonesty and will shortcut your learning process.

Let me anticipate the inevitable question: "What are you looking for?" I'm not looking for a command performance; I'm looking for you to have done what the assignment asks you to do. That will involve substantive engagement with the course material, primarily scripture and also both lectures and readings. I'm looking for signs you are really wrestling with and assimilating the course concepts.

Many of my assignments include practical aspects, especially applying/obeying and sharing. Here are two common ways many students miss:

• Academically proficient students who are locked into traditional academic writing don't do or share that well. They talk about what it would look like, because they have adapted well to the theoretical nature of so much school work. But I want to know what happened when you did it.
• Students who find academics a challenge often clutter up their answers trying to sound academically proficient, and then ignore or avoid the assignment's clear questions. I just want to know what happened when you acted on what you learned, as clearly as you can tell me.

The ones who triumph are the earnest students who cut through playing or faking the academic game and just answer the questions, because they are motivated to learn and act on it. Whatever your academic aptitude or experience, be like them and you'll do better.

A follow-up question, less often stated, is "Why are you making us do this?" It's a good question; I've dropped a lot of questions where the answer wasn't compelling enough. Each assignment is crafted with an aspiration that's mentioned in its prompt. That's what I'm after.

I keep using the word exercise, to help counter the high-school baggage associated with 'essay,' 'assignment,' 'writing,' 'paper,' and the like. These exercises are like problem sets, meant to give you practice working with the stuff. So just exercise! Write them in sweats or yoga pants if it helps.

The schedule lists due dates. Since I'm giving you a choice of assignments, ignore due dates of assignments you're skipping.

The following are guidelines to give you an idea of how I will be evaluating these. But please please bear in mind the 'college value paradox' I will describe: some of the highest-level performance, while good and fruitful and a proper part of a college education, can actually be much less fruitful in the long run than basics.

• Consistently excellent quality (something like "A"): all assignments complete, on time, full responses to question(s), uses sources broadly and appropriately, demonstrates unusually insightful or sophisticated grasp of the material, clearly written.
• High quality (like "B+"): complete, on time, full responses, uses sources broadly and appropriately, demonstrates sound and sophisticated knowledge of the material, clearly written.
• Consistently good quality (~"B-"): complete, generally on time, adequate responses, works with sources, demonstrates basic knowledge of the material, mediocre writing (some grammatical and spelling errors, not that clear).
• Acceptable (~"C"): basic grasp and application of the material, but occasionally missing or late assignments, repeated failure to do what is assigned (e.g., not using sources well enough, tangential topics), poor understanding or misunderstanding of more complex concepts, or poor writing.
• Poor (~"D"): somewhat incomplete, generally late, consistent failure to do what is assigned, poor or no grasp of the concepts.
• Inadequate (~"F"): largely incomplete, failed to do what is assigned, or academically dishonest.

Office hour appointment. I consider time spent with a student in person a much better investment for both of us than the same time spent writing comments on an assignment that may never be read. So I encourage (but do not require) you to meet with me one-on-one, or with the rest of your usual discussion group, at least once during the semester during my office hours. We can get to know each other better, address concerns, tailor the course to your particular interests and needs, and extend what you are learning. Make an appointment over Google Calendar. If you forget your appointment, just apologize and make a new one. If I cancel your appointment unilaterally, please accept my apologies, and make a new one.

I have no agenda for these appointments, but common questions you could think about beforehand include

How is the course going for you?
How are things in your DBS's, your duckling relationships, and so on?
Do you have comments, criticisms, objections, or questions about specific topics, texts, or class sessions?
How is your faith?
Have a question about interpretation of a particular Bible passage?
How is it here for you at Westmont right now?
Can I help you with any upcoming assignments?
Are there theological issues you would like to chase down on your own with additional reading or alternative assignments?
Do you have thoughts or questions about disciple-making, future work in ministry, theology, religious studies, or other majors?

I especially encourage office-hour visits if you are feeling discouraged by test results, committed to passing on what you are discovering and starting discovery groups, eager to learn more about any of our course topics or key practices, intimidated or overwhelmed by the material, or unsure in your faith.