Disciple-Making Strategies among Diverse Communities – CHMN 852

Course Description

This course is a practical guide to healthy disciple making in impoverished settings and ethnically diverse communities. Emphasis will be placed on indigenous disciple making strategies, spiritual formation among Black and Hispanic communities, and case studies on multi-ethnic church ministry. This course will help students cultivate a multi-ethnic ministry consciousness for city ministry.

For information regarding prerequisites for this course, please refer to the Academic Course Catalog.

Rationale

This is the final course in our Urban Ministries cognate. Students in this final phase create plans for the disciple-making process of a diverse community, from the macro lens of the Sunday morning service to one-on-one engagement with an individual.  Students will also know the significant church leaders and movements in multi-ethnic ministry and compare and contrast those ministries with their own ministry paradigms. Based upon this foundation, students will be equipped to make disciples cross-culturally in dense and diverse neighborhoods.

Course Assignment

Textbook readings and lecture presentations

Course Requirements Checklist

After reading the Course Syllabus and Student Expectations, the student will complete the related checklist found in the Course Overview.

Discussions (4)

The student will complete 4 Discussions in this course. The student will post one thread of at least 400 words. The student must then post 2 replies of at least 250 words. Sources used must be documented in current Turabian format. (CLOs: A, B, F)

Book Interaction Assignments (2)

The student will write 2 Book Interactions in the course on the textbooks DeYamaz and Loritts. Each Book Interaction must be between 7–10 pages double-spaced, and address the student’s current understanding of the subject prior to reading the book, the general thesis and argument of the book, and the areas of agreement and disagreement the student has with the book. (CLOs: B, D, E)

Multiethnic Church Immersion Assignment

The student will visit a multiethnic church (one that by definition meets the 80/20 principle, where no one ethnicity makes up more than 80% of the total church) for at least two Sundays and write a reflection paper chronicling his or her experience and observations while at the church. The student needs to document the ethnic makeup of the church and leadership. The student will also spend time focusing on what elements of the worship experience contributed heavily to the church being diverse. This paper should be a minimum of 10 pages double spaced. (CLOs: B, D)

Personal Essay: The State of the Multi-Ethnic Church Assignment

The student will write a 6 page essay, double spaced, with a minimum of 1500–1700 words concerning the Multi-Ethnic Church process. This assignment must use 6 scholarly sources and a minimum of 10 scholarly citations in current Turabian formatting.

Project Assignments

For this assignment, the student will imagine a scenario where he or she desires to pastor and lead a multiethnic church. However, as the student is leading this church in his or her city, he or she has realized that after 2 years of doing ministry 90-95% of everyone in his or her church is of the same ethnicity. To re-align to the vision that God has given the student, he or she will go to the drawing board to develop a holistic disciple-making strategy from conversion through evangelism to church leadership for an ethnic population that is not his or her own ethnic group. For this final project the student will communicate his or her strategy to evangelize other ethnic groups within his or her city (Project: Evangelism), his or her strategy to disciple and grow these individuals within his or her church (Project: Discipleship), and his or her strategy to mobilize these individuals into church leadership (Project: Church Leadership). (CLOs: C, E, F)