Class Schedule

The Mission of the Urban Church (June 25-28, 2012 | Portland, OR)

Exploring Portland's Artisan Culture and Developing a New Framework for Urban Mission

A course dealing with the life and mission of the new urban church. As cities continue to recalibrate and revitalize due to urbanization, immigration, and globalization they aren't the same places they were even just 20 years ago. Urban is now associated with cool and hip. The class explores the urban process and the urban way of life, emphasizing how the new urban church both shapes and is shaped by the urban environment. In the class we'll take a street-level look at such issues as gentrification (and the "other side" of the gentrification process), the burgeoning Creative Class (bohemians, hipsters, artisans), place, a city's built environment, transportation realities, and how to form an urban missiology around these emerging dynamics. We will focus on the special challenge of the new urban church and the most effective urban church models today both in North America and globally.

To let us know if you're coming click on Epoch to go to our event page on Facebook. 

Course Texts:

  1. A Theology as Big as the City by Ray Bakke
  2. View From the Urban Loft by Sean Benesh
  3. The Rise of the Creative Class by Richard Florida
  4. Brew to Bikes by Charles Heying
  5. Sidewalks in the Kingdom by Eric Jacobsen

This will be offered in partnership with Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary (PNWC). You can take it through Epoch or if you're a seminary student and/or want to take it for credit you can do so through Golden Gate.

 

Introduction to Church Planting (Beginning January 30, 2012 | Vancouver, WA)

Starting January 30, 2012 Sean Benesh will be teaching a class at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary (Pacific NW Campus) called Introduction to Church Planting. This will be a 3-hour credit class. More information to come. Here are the course textbooks:

  1. Global Church Planting by Craig Ott and Gene Wilson
  2. Planting Urban Churches by Harvie Conn (ed)
  3. Viral Church by Ed Stetzer and Warren Bird
    Metrospiritual by Sean Benesh