The General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of The United Methodist Church is pleased to introduce an Online Continuing Education Consortium in collaboration with the 13 United Methodist theological schools and the University Senate approved seminaries.
Courses are listed by their start date. Click on a course title for more detailed information. To register or find out more, please follow the instructions in the listing.
Wesley Theological Seminary
Dates: January 23, 2013 – May 10, 2013 (Regular Spring Term)
Origins, critical methods, outstanding theological ideas of selected portions.
Tuition: $624
CEUs: 3.0
Register here. For more information contact Rev. Dr. Joe Conte.
Wesley Theological Seminary
Dates: January 23, 2013 – May 10, 2013 (Regular Spring Term)
Various exercises in ecclesiology (e.g. naming the marks of the true church, searching for the “soul” of the congregation, unfolding the ministry of all Christians) for the sake of uncovering a contemporary vision of hope for small churches.
Tuition: $624
CEUs: 3.0
Register here. For more information contact Rev. Dr. Joe Conte.
Class description: The application of this vision to the fiscal, sociological, cultural, and denominational challenges facing small churches. Includes leadership and administration topics such as starting out, discerning direction, time management, and the character of the called.
Pacific School of Religion
Dates: February 4 – May 24, 2013
We are hungry beings, for without food we perish. But human hunger is not only for food, but for the other as well. Hunger reveals a fundamental desire, appetite for the other, and the need of interdependence. Both in the Hebrew and Christian biblical narratives food is a symbol of God's desire to be near humanity, responding to hungers of all sorts.
Tuition: $700
CEUs: 4
For more information contact Laurie Isenberg.
Class description: In the Eucharist, God becomes food and drink, sharing divinity and inviting people to become nourishment to others-particularly those who are materially and spiritually hungry. The Eucharist mediates a divine initiative to intimate with creation, to attend to our hunger, caring and preparing an all-inclusive banquet. From a theological horizon, God gives Herself to us as food to be shared, performing divine caritas: a space and time where divine power is self-giving, yet paradoxically does not turn into lack or competition, but into superabundance and plenitudinous sharing. The theologian has a prophetic vocation to become what she eats, participating of God's own gift, and transforming theology into a practice of an all-inclusive table fellowship. This course is divided in three sections. Each section separately explores theological themes related to hunger, food, and the Eucharist. However, these three themes-though independent-are interconnected, and complement each other. The assigned readings are mainly taken from theological works, yet there are texts that come from various disciplines, such as anthropology, cultural theory, body and gender theories, politics and economics. The goal is to create a space for interdisciplinary dialogue, and thus nourish theological thinking.
Pacific School of Religion
Dates: February 4 – May 24, 2013
This course examines the practice and theory of ethical leadership of nonprofit organizations serving the LGBT community.
Tuition: $700
CEUs: 4
For more information contact Laurie Isenberg.
Class description: Students will engage core concepts from ethics, sociology, history, organizational theory, and queer studies in order to better understand the knowledge and skills needed to lead nonprofit organizations serving the LGBT community. Students will gain an understanding of nonprofit organizations as ethical agencies at which theologically trained Christian leaders can make significant impact for the public good. Through readings, discussion participation, and case study analysis students will consider how to leverage their theological education in service of the LGBT nonprofit sector.
United Theological Seminary
Dates: February 4—March 1, 2013
This course will define proven learning strategies using a systemic learning approach to course development.
Tuition: $350. (Registering for the whole series at one time is $1625.)
CEUs: 2.0
To pay for the class online, visit the payment website.
For further information about this course, please contact Dr. Marilyn Evans via email.
Instructor: Johnathan D. Messer, Adjunct Instructor for Online Teaching and Learning Certificate, United Theological Seminary (Dayton, OH)
Class description: This course will define proven learning strategies using a systemic learning approach to course development. Learning theories will be discussed to utilize the best strengths of online delivery and provide a foundation for course structure.
Pacific School of Religion
Dates: February 4 – May 24, 2013
This intermediate level course will survey racial/ethnic minoritization in the US and explore how various minorities groups and persons negotiate with the New Testament through their racialization and with their racialization through the New Testament.
Tuition: $700
CEUs: 4
For more information contact Laurie Isenberg.
Class description: We will also investigate how different minority groups employ different reading strategies to approach the New Testament, and how those strategies also change over time.
Pacific School of Religion
Dates: February 4 – May 24, 2013
Sport culture claims a dominating place in American life but a diminutive role in religious discourse, which should be reconsidered in light of the facts that: religion is commonly invoked within the arena of sport itself; sport culture represents a living sphere where moral issues involving gender, race relations, sexual orientation, class, and economics are played out; and pro and amateur athletes often understand their participation as a spiritual practice.
Tuition: $700
CEUs: 4
For more information contact Laurie Isenberg.
Class description: We will explore sport culture broadly as a spirituality site using a multidisciplinary approach through history, sociology, theology, and spiritual practice.
Pacific School of Religion
Dates: February 4 – May 24, 2013
This course will engage Swedenborg (and his influence) in history, beginning with his sources in such various specific contexts as radical Pietistism, neoplatonic Christian thought, Enlightenment empirical science, and Western hermeticism.
Tuition: $700
CEUs: 4
For more information contact Laurie Isenberg.
Class description: This course will engage Swedenborg (and his influence)in history, beginning with his sources in such various specific contexts as radical Pietistism, neoplatonic Christian thought, Enlightenment empirical science, and Western hermeticism, and continuing through a diverse reception that includes artistic movements in English and German Romanticism, the French symbolist writers, Transcendentalism, Spiritualism, early American pluralism, as well as the sectarian churches around the world that bear his name. We will explore how these various cultural, aesthetic, and intellectual receptions have occurred and what ideas or concepts have been appropriated.
Pacific School of Religion
Dates: February 4 – May 24, 2013
This class will be a study of the text, context, and influence of Swedenborg's "Heaven and Hell."
Tuition: $700
CEUs: 4
For more information contact Laurie Isenberg.
Class description: We will give a close reading of Swedenborg's text against the backdrop of classical depictions of heaven and hell--including those of Augustine, Dante, Milton, Boehme--and alongside the contemporary interpretations of Pagels and Walker-Bynum.
Pacific School of Religion
Dates: February 4 – May 24, 2013
Building on the overview presented in the first semester, the course will examine segments of the biblical narrative of incrementally shorter length, concentrating on a single book during the first third of the semester, next on a single chapter, next on a single parable, and finally on single verses.
Tuition: $700
CEUs: 4
For more information contact Laurie Isenberg.
Class description: In the course of the semester students will be exposed to relevant selections both from Swedenborg's own works and from the extensive collateral literature that has been developed by Swedenborgian authors. By the close of the course, students should have control of the basic elements of an exegetical methodology that appropriately blends Swedenborgian theological values, intellectual discipline, and personal intuition with a view to pastoral and homiletical ends. Students should be aware of the extensive Swedenborgian collateral literature and of the skills necessary for its responsible use. [BS 2741 or 8250]
HiRho Park
Director of Clergy Lifelong Learning
Phone: 615-340-7409
Email: hpark@gbhem.org
Joshua Hestand
Coordinator
Phone: 615-340-7432
Email: clergylifelonglearning@gbhem.org
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