Encounter Bible 10
Fourth Quarter Assessment Project Parameters
CHURCH
Focus:
This project is designed for you to explore what it means to be church. Your group will simulate the creation and life of a church. Your decisions will be your own, but will be based on the material we cover in class, the book of Acts, one of the New Testament Letters that your group chooses to reference, and several references to the writings of Ellen White that speak about church and ministry.
Steps:
- Groups will be randomly assigned. Remember, you seldom get to choose who is with you in a church!
- The first set of tasks are listed below and should be done in class the day or two that these instructions are handed out. Afterwards, there will be 5 more tasks that will be assigned over the next few weeks to do in class.
- Discuss and list 3 things your want your church to be known for and 3 things you want your church to avoid. Describe your discussion and your conclusions. How did you arrive at your conclusions-consensus, vote, etc.
- Discuss and decide on 3-5 ministries you want your church members to engage in-describe how you decided these ministries are important and describe what you hope to accomplish through the ministries.
- Discuss and decide on how your church will worship. What are the key elements of worship that are important to your group. Describe why they are important and how you made your conclusions.
- Discuss and decide on 3-5 core beliefs you wish to emphasize in your church. While there are more you would affirm, which ones do you think are most important and why? Describe how you made your decisions.
- Discuss and envision who will be attracted to be part of your church. Why do you think they will come? Is there anyone who will not want to come to your church, why? How will you invite people to come be part of your church? Describe how you made your decisions.
- Develop a budget using only percentages and not actual dollar amounts. Show and explain your values through the percentages. For example, youth ministry may get 15% of the budget and church building 50% or not… Be sure to explain why you are giving priority to certain parts of the budget over others. Consult any verses in your NT letter that apply
- Come up with three issues you feel would need discipline in your church. Explain how you would approach the decision to discipline and what course of action you would take and why. Then come up with three issues you feel would be of concern but up to the individual conscience of the believer and not needing church discipline. Explain how you would raise awareness on the issues without making them disciplinary or prejudicial for the church. Consult Matthew 18:15-17 and any verses in your NT letter that apply to discipline.
- Lead Pastor selection process. Discuss and describe your church’s Pastoral leadership philosophy. Develop a Job description. Describe the Selection, interview, and decision process. Use scripture from your church letter and Acts.
- Design your church building. All churches buildings will be designed for 400-500 members and any other types of community activities and ministries. At this point, try to integrate scriptural principles, your values, ministry goals, and congregational vision and personality into your building plans. Be specific about floorplan, function, beauty, and purpose. Be reasonable with expense-be able to give your reason and rationale for the significant items in your plan.
- Design a worship service. Again, the context should be a 400-500 member congregation. Also, again, try to integrate scriptural principles, your values, ministry goals, and congregational vision and personality into your worship plan. All elements of your worship service should respectfully and functionally lead your congregation to worship God. Be specific about elements of worship such as music, prayer, giving, teaching/preaching, participation. You may mix traditional with innovation as you see fit but be able to give your reason and rationale for each element in your worship service.
- It is important for each group to take careful notes on each task. The final expression will include each task and the group’s discussion and conclusions. Your responses to these first five tasks and the following five tasks should be revised and edited as we go along and new information is discussed.
- Choose a New Testament Letter that you wish to focus on in your church project. The range is from Romans to Revelation. I caution against using the really small letters like Jude and 2 John or 3 John. You may choose Revelation, just be aware that some of the interpretation of symbols may be challenging - while you may pick and choose in Revelation I do expect an overview of the general themes of the letter. Be sure to consult commentaries as you work through your letter.
- Remember to reference the book of Acts as you work through your tasks. You may also reference other materials online and in the Bible as you wish.
Expression:
The final product of this project will be a paper that includes the following:
- Names of group members
- Each of the ten tasks listed as headers with detailed write ups under each task. Answer all prompts and add extra information that you feel is important to the task/topic.
- A group summary of the experience that reflects some of the main things you all experienced as a group: things you learned from the project, from each other, and about church. (a separate journal entry will give each individual a chance to reflect on the experience individually).
- A Bibliography that includes the biblical books consulted, Ellen White books consulted, and commentaries consulted. Other sources too.
- Present to the class during finals period:
- Highlight 3 of the 10 tasks.
- Talk about what you learned as a group about church through this project.
- Highlight one thing in your project that you feel in unique.
- Share finished product with Pastor Skoretz. Be sure it is well designed and formatted.
All research and discussion may be done in class, but your group may want to create a shared document that you can work on outside of class for the final product.
*Please email or talk with me at any time to get feedback on your project!
New tasks for church projects:
No comments:
Post a Comment