Week of...

Well this marks the beginning of ALL that has been planned. This Thursday morning at 9a we embark on year one of the official eSOM. We have had over a year run at having 6-8 interns who have been HUGELY successful. I look back over the last year and see so much that they have been responsible for. They have allowed me to concentrate on ministry in a very focused effort.

I am currently finalizing all the material for the class I am teaching, Evangelism. I have assembled about 150-200 pages of information for sharing your faith. I also am finishing up the last few details to the course syllabus that will be both challenging as well as rewarding for the students. In order for any reward to truly be worth it, I believe that one must be challenged first.

I am excited to say that we will have 10 students from the start. This includes all but one of our interns and then we have added one adult form our church and had a couple additions including my cousin who moved from the west valley to Mesa to join us for the eSOM.

I will begin building eSOM as a full package that can be relocated and planted in different regions of the state and country. It is the vision and providence of God that eSOM begins to be mobile and meet people where they are and join in churches that are willing to team up with Western Bible College and eSOM as well as RMCC. This is exciting as well as provides it's own challenges.

Evangelism and Evangelism Internship

I will be teaching Evangelism the first semester in the morning session for eSOM as an adjunct instructor of WBC. I am very excited. I have come to accept that as an eikon of God one of my purposes that God has given me and one of the few that ALL Christians share is that I must be evangelistic in life. The main textbook is "The Art of Personal Evangelism" and the second book is by Bill Hybels, "Just Walk Across The Room". I have heard that Bill Hybels book leaves out some important aspects of evangelism. I think

Another class that is complete parallel to this one is the Evangelism Internship that is 3 credits. This will be a great resource as a requirement for eSOM. We will be using our Causes as the main substructure. Currently 6 of our 7 Causes are already intern lead. The only one that isn't lead by an intern is our Special Needs Cause and that is lead by an amazing leader, Alice. Each Cause is evangelistic in it's approach through loving in action selflessly. Each of the leaders organize events for each of the Cause and meet with students at the events. I will be meeting with them in the first session of their Evangelism class to discuss what the internship will consist of and how to build their portfolio that will be required. I will help them figure out how to plan over the year to be building the portfolio. It will be a great semester as an opener.

Finalizing Detail Meeting

I met today with Barb Schulz, the president at Western Bible College, Ray Schulz, her husband and instructor for WBC, and Rick Oller who is a pastor and Dean of Students for WBC. We finalized all the details for this coming spring semester for ESOM.

We got all the classes laid out for the Spring semester '09. Looks like I will be teaching PS213 Evangelism from 830a-12p. The first half hour will be our chapel service. Then from 1-430p will be BI103 Bible Study Methodology, and that will be lead by Rick Oller. These classes will be 7 weeks, then we will start Spring II. The classes will be Acts by Ray Schulz and Synoptic Gospels by Pastor Wendall Clark.

We set up our Orientation night for Thursday, January 8th at 7p where we will have finger food and drinks. I have invited the president, faculty, administrator of WBC, then students and their parents and some RMCC staff. That night the students will fill out all their paperwork and register and begin the future!

Detailing Schedule

This morning I met with Barb the president of WBC and her husband Ray to talk about calsses and the schedule and then Ray wanted to talk with me. I always allow Ray to speak into my life, he is a very smart person with a lot of experience and understanding. I wrote this blog after we met with some of the things Ray said that challenged me.

Barb and I discussed a lot of the details for the different classes I wanted to offer our students to be able to fast track them to get their certification done in their first year. She made a couple phone calls and got a couple intructors lined up. She asked Wendall Clark to teach Spring II Synoptic Gospels, he does a great job with that class. She also got Rick to teach Spring I Bible Study Methodology.

It was a great meeting. There was some talk about creating the ESOM for 'export', build it be able to plant it somewhere and the program to be able to reproduce. They have a couple leads in Florida and Indiana that this could eventually venture. That is VERY exciting.

We have a meeting schedule again for December 4th with Rick Oller, the Dean of Students. Look forward to that meeting.

Personal Investment

I visited my family for Thanksgiving and was talking to my cousin Tyler. I have been on him for the last couple years about the calling of God in his life. He feels called to ministry, mostly worship and singing. From what I have seen and heard he is a great vocalist. He also has some things going on in his life that would be huge for him to get away.

I told him in depth about ESOM and he loved it and felt it would be exactly what he would want and need. Since then he has been praying and seeking God for this next step. He is trying to find an apartment but also a job that can pay for living expenses and ESOM.

I really hope he can make it.

Explaining the Schdule

I got to sit down with Barb from WBC to go over my proposed schedule for ESOM and layout some ground work for the involvement of RMCC and WBC. We got a lot of distance in this meeting and have the basic premise laid out for the schedule.

ESOM Premise:

• 45 hours required for credited classes
• 7 weeks for 3.5 hours each class = 24.5 hours
• 21.5 hours research time and study
• two tracks all year long and two classes per track per semester.
• 8 classes year 1, 9 classes year 2
• a couple internship classes
• each class is 3 credit hours
• 12 hours each semester plus internship credits, 1.5 each semester
• 27 credits each year
• Instructors from WBC and Krisann and Myself so that students would have a wide range of voices
  

Met with Team Church - TMC

Again part of the heart of ESOM is to partner with other churches where we can use our resources to help train and equip leaders and be able to send them back to their church for service. So for their weekend service and mid-week service they will be at their own church then for intern training and schooling they will be at RMCC for training.

Today I met with Dave Beach, the lead pastor at Tempe Metropolitan Church. He has a college aged guy named Jonathan that will be leading their youth. We met with him to discuss his future involvement in ESOM. We laid out the guidelines and expectations for being in one church for service and leading and in another church for school and leadership training.

He agreed and is planning on attending.