Tasks

Active attendance. You will attend class sessions and group meetings and participate in discussions. 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 passive, off-topic, or checked out, you aren't participating or attending. Likewise, in the 'real world' 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.

Our weekly rhythm will tend to look like this:

Mondays: Learn-and-tell
Wednesdays: discuss that week's text together and/or learn a skill
Fridays: Discovery Bible Studies; practicing skills; teaching

On Mondays and Fridays when we have no class (for instance, Easter weekend), you can still do the activity with family, friends, or neighbors where you are.

Participation in course practices in and out of class. 'Theology' that isn't rooted in personally knowing God is a pale imitation of the real thing. "I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:5–6 ESV). 'Theology' that only examines God without following God is counterfeit: "Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves" (James 1:22 ESV). So participation in our tasks in and out of class is essential for our theology's legitimacy. Course participation in whatever form it takes (or doesn't take) for you goes into your final grade.

Reading and viewing. Here are the texts we will all read together (* available through Slingshot). I am okay with you using e-books.

*Steve Addison, Acts and the Movement of God, 100 Movements, 2023.
Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s, or Ours? GLH, 2011 (free on Amazon Kindle) OR Roland Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church: and the Causes that Hinder It, Jawbone, 2011 ($0.99 on Kindle).
Victor John, Bhojpuri Breakthrough, WIGTake, 2019.
*Christopher Wright, The Mission of God’s People, Zondervan, 2010.
*Patrick Robertson and David Watson, The Father Glorified: True Stories of God’s Power Through Ordinary People, Nelson, 2013.
Chris Galanos, From Megachurch to Multiplication: A Church’s Journey toward Movement, Experience Life, 2018.
David Coles and Stan Parks, eds., 24:14–A Testimony to All Peoples, 2019, free at 2414now.net/resources

You should read all required material before the class sessions that follow them.

You will also spend time in other sources from the following list as you find them fruitful, and sharing what you find with others in and out of our class, in person and in writing. I especially appreciate the *asterisked ones. If I can supplement this list to help you, just ask.

*Steve Addison, The Rise and Fall of Movements
Steve Addison, Movements that Change the World
*Jackie Pullinger, Chasing the Dragon: One Woman's Struggle against the Darkness of Hong Kong's Drug Dens
*Roy Moran, Spent Matches
*other selections from 24:14
Curtis Sergeant, The Only One, free from theonlyonebook.com
Roland Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church
Simon Chan, Grassroots Asian Theology: Thinking the Faith from the Ground Up
Jerry Trousdale and Glenn Sunshine, The Kingdom Unleashed
Jerry Trousdale, Miraculous Movements
Jean Johnson, We Are Not the Hero: A Missionary's Guide for Sharing Christ Not a Culture of Dependency
Vincent Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered
selections from Harley Talman and John Jay Travis, Understanding Insider Movements: Disciples of Jesus within Diverse Religious Communities
selections from Warrick Farah, ed., Motus Dei: The Movement of God to Disciple the Nations
Lausanne Movement: Lausanne Covenant, Manila Manifesto
David Kinneman, Unchristian
Mike Breen, Building a Discipling Culture
Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret
training series such as Zumé, T4T, David Watson lectures, etc.

Field work. Disciple-making movements are fundamentally practical as well as cognitive, so there will be regular things to do outside class, especially obeying what you have learned and sharing it with others who need it. We may even schedule a field trip.

Learn-and-tell. Theology is proven and spread as God's people testify. What have you been learning, perhaps in your own reading and doing, that the others in class should know too? People are wired to learn from one another, so we will spend class time sharing what we're learning. Feel free to bring handouts if they're helpful.

Mentoring. Since Jesus' disciples make disciples, you need to be passing on what you've learned as you learn it. In one of several ways of doing this, you'll identify a mentor from whom to learn more about God, and at least one 'mentee' (a horrible word for an apprentice) to show how to learn and pass on skills for knowing God. Reporting on these will at least figure into one written exercise, as well as your participation grade.

Written exercises. You will write occasional exercises on readings and other tasks. You can find each assignment from a link on the syllabus. These are like 'problem sets' meant to put the material to work. You will review and discuss these with peers and occasionally in class. As you write, please refer to my suggestions for writing papers for helpful suggestions, cautions about Internet "research", ultimata regarding late papers and plagiarism, and so on.

Peer review. You will peer review the written work of other students, evaluating the writer's style, organization, use of sources, and strength of argument. Refer to my peer review guidelines and use my peer review form (in HTML or Acrobat).

In-class presentation. Students will give in-class presentations on that week's reading. The point is to facilitate a productive discussion. Here you will

remind us of the reading,
provide helpful context and analysis,
make observations, and
raise questions for us to discuss.

Your grade owes to how well and accurately you do this, with whatever format is best suited to the content and course goals. Each presentation will count as one written exercise. All participants, but especially presenters, will want to consult my list of pointers for presentations, bearing in mind that those pointers pertain to classic formal 'seminar presentations,' which may not be best suited to the week's material. As you write, please refer to my suggestions for writing papers for helpful suggestions, cautions about Internet "research", ultimata regarding late papers and plagiarism, and so on.

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 essay or in an e-mail. So I'd like you to meet with me one-on-one at least once during the semester during my office hours. This is an opportunity for you and me to get to know each other better, address concerns, tailor the course to your particular interests and needs, and give each other direct feedback. Make an appointment on Google Calendar, using the link on the syllabus' front page. If you forget your appointment, grovel a little, apologize, and make a new one on my office door. If I cancel your appointment unilaterally, make me grovel, please accept my apologies, and make a new one.

Discussion Questions. Everyone who is not presenting that day will submit at least one brief question on each section of that day's reading. These questions should have the same value as discussion questions as the questions in class presentations. We will read some of them at the beginning of some class times to train our class discussion. I will spot check them in the same way I spot check written exercises, grading them '+' (adequate), 'U' (unacceptable), or '0' (absent). Your discussion questions go into your participation grade.

If I find these questions inadequate to feed a productive discussion, I will change a student's requirement from discussion questions to reading notes:

Reading notes. A student who is not presenting or submitting discussion questions will bring a 1 page (maximum) typewritten brief that (1) summarizes the reading, and (2) asks at least one thoughtful question for discussion. These should be in prose-outline form (see my rationale and example), well written. If your briefs do not conform to the requirements, I will hand them back and you will need to resubmit them. I do not normally accept late briefs, though I do accept briefs ahead of time for absences. I will collect these after class, and I may spot-check them and grade them as '+', '-', 'U' (unacceptable), or '0' (absent). They will count as up to three written exercises.

Late work. Work that is late will be penalized unless I have excused it. If more than a week late, you may just want to move on rather than getting bogged down.

Grading. Here is how tasks are likely to figure into your final grade:

*factor ( = final grade penalty if incomplete)**	weight of grade
participation* (attending, sharing, tasks, office hour visit, etc.)	heavy
written assignments*	moderate
peer review*	light
?	?

You probably want a rubric with precise percentages, but after twenty years of teaching I'm unsatisfied with those and especially with the way the grading process distorts the learning process. Some students' understanding is best reflected (for better or for worse) in written work; others, in test scores; still others, in oral communication. Your grade will be whatever in my judgment best reflects your understanding at semester's end. You may appeal if you think the results are inaccurate.

So your course grade reflects the final product more than the process, while the process is what produces the product. The course's vision page describes both. I consider lectures, readings, written assignments, and even mid-term tests to be preliminary steps along the way of our course. They give you exposure to material, experience processing, and some feedback. They are for getting you ready. So use them that way!

I am not using grades as rewards along the way to direct the process. If you are the type of learner who needs such incentives and is unlikely to adapt, you should either work out an accountability structure for yourself or reconsider taking the course at this time.

You will not engage in academic dishonesty (as described in the student handbook). Students who do will fail the course.