Learning Outcomes

In our Community Transformation programs, we pursue learning outcomes in the following six areas:

  1. Spiritual and Vocational Formation

    Students demonstrate growing communion with God, discipleship, commitment to God’s global kingdom, wholeness, character, and vocational discernment.

  2. Biblical Worldview and Lifeways

    Students understand and inhabit a biblically-based approach to faith, life, and thinking, including its foundational narrative, later history, worldview, theology, formational practices, intercultural mission, and means of promoting the flourishing of diverse cultures and various aspects of society.

  3. Foundational Knowledge and Skills 

    Students grow and demonstrate competence in critical thinking, systems thinking, creative thinking, interdisciplinary problem solving, global awareness, oral and written communication, ethical reasoning, and research.

  4. Critical Understanding of Community Transformation

    Students are familiar with and able to critically assess the main theories and best practices in the field of Community Transformation in its various dimensions and the interrelationship of those dimensions within the Kingdom of God.

  5. Community Research and Engagement

    Students demonstrate engagement with diverse communities in appropriate research and assessment of community problems, together with effective and gospel-rooted service, collaboration, and advocacy.

  6. Vocational Knowledge and Skills for Community Transformation

    By means of pursuing an Area of Focus (emphasis), students will develop, in varying ways, specific disciplinary understanding and related hard skills and experience that will empower them in a particular area of professional development and calling for the purpose of Community Transformation.

 Courses for Community Transformation

  • Integrative Theology and Mission

    This class integrates insights from the fields of theology and missiology with reflecting on a biblical view of God’s mission to redeem the whole creation. The course walks through the whole biblical story from this perspective, laying a foundation for a lifestyle in which we join God in his mission.

  • Community Development

    In this course, students will be exposed to the foundational theories and practices of Community Transformation, based on the interdisciplinary field of Community Development and on biblically-based holistic missiology. Students will have the opportunity to implement simple community Seed Projects.

  • Movement Dynamics

    This course covers the essential foundations of Movement Dynamics, the individual and group dynamics that promote movements to Jesus and that bring God-glorifying transformation. The course will address students holistically as potential movement catalysts and leaders, cultivating the qualities of mind, heart, and practice that have been found in movement catalysts and leaders around the globe.

  • Social Business

    As the foundational, opening course in the Social Business Area of Focus, this course introduces the biblical principles, transformative business paradigms, and best practices of business and entrepreneurship that empower positive transformative impact in communities and societies.

  • Discipleship and Mentoring 1

    This course pursues discipleship towards Christlikeness together with mentoring towards a God-honoring personal calling. The course consists of Bible study, a group discipleship meeting every two weeks (6x per term), and one-on-one (or couple-to-couple) meetings with a discipler/mentor (2x per term).

  • Spirituality and Wholeness 1

    This course integrates spirituality and wholeness through a biblical framework (the relational diamond), with an emphasis on intimacy with God, identity in Christ, abiding in Christ, internal/inner healing, and hearing God’s voice.

  • Applied Learning in Community Development

    In this course, learners will engage a community or a community organization through research, service, organizing, or other development activities. Learners will systematically report on their learning and service experiences and receive coaching and feedback from experienced development practitioners.

  • Applied Learning in Movement Dynamics

    In this course, learners will go through the systematic “PEOPLES” planning process for engaging in a less-reached community and catalyzing a movement to Jesus among them. Students will systematically reflect and report on their experiences and receive coaching from experienced movement practitioners.

  • Applied Learning in Social Business

    In this course, learners will be expected to implement an existing business idea and plan, typically one that they developed within the Foundations of Social Business course. Students will systematically reflect and report on their experiences and receive coaching from experienced, kingdom-minded business practitioners and instructors.

  • Discipleship and Mentoring 2

    This course emphasizes the life of a disciple in a community with fellow disciples and the responsibility to make disciples in the way that Jesus modeled and commanded. The course includes group discipleship meetings every two weeks and occasional individual or couple meetings for tailored mentoring.

  • Spirituality and Wholeness 2

    This course integrates spirituality and wholeness through Christ-centered character formation (focused on self-denial and humility), practicing classical spiritual disciplines, and pursuing honoring and healthy relationships with others in the Christian community.

  • Transforming Truths

    This course introduces the main teachings of the Christian faith as they are taught in Scripture and have been developed throughout church history. In studying these truths, a significant focus is placed on their application to the Christian life and to global Christian mission. The course will show how theological truth leads to God-glorifying transformation towards shalom in all of life. In addition, the course equips learners to think theologically from the Scriptures, with relevant contributions from tradition, experience and reason.

  • Intercultural Studies

    This course introduces the field of intercultural studies with an emphasis on the whole-person formation of reflective practitioners. The “head” is formed through intercultural and missiological theory, the “heart” is shaped through cultivating appropriate attitudes toward other cultures, and the “hands” are equipped through skill-building experiential learning exercises. A particular learning emphasis in this course is the application of innovation principles and processes to understanding intercultural challenges.