Thirdmill Seminary

This course prepares the student to teach and preach the Word of God faithfully. It teaches biblical, theological, and practical guidelines for these activities. The first half of the course provides guidelines for Christian education and the second half focuses on preaching. The student selects a Bible text and prepares notes for a Bible study and sermon.

Worship Practicum (MIS501) – 1 credit hour

This practicum explores the scriptural elements of Christian worship, the history of its theological development, and its practice in a variety of cultural contexts. While the ministry of Word and Sacrament lies at its core, corporate worship reenacts the Gospel in other ways as well, including confession of sin and assurance of pardon, and our offer of ourselves, our gifts, both spiritual and material, and our praises and prayers back to God. This course uses graduate level readings, discussion forums, faculty tutorials, mentor meetings, and ministry activities to provide you with opportunities to worship God in different contexts and to reflect on practices of worship through the lens of Scripture, theology, and the history of the Christian mission where you serve. 

Modern evangelical theology is flooded with conflicting viewpoints. Many of these disagreements arise between denominations, while others arise within denominations and individual churches. The apparent hopelessness of reaching theological unity has even led some Christians to deny the value of theology altogether. With so many different ideas competing for our loyalty, how are followers of Jesus to determine what to believe? And how committed should we be to specific doctrines and traditions? This course is based on the lecture series, Building Your Theology, produced by Third Millennium Ministries and hosted by Dr. Vincent Bacote with contributions from a variety of professors.

The first five books of the Old Testament are commonly called the Pentateuch. They tell the story of the nation of Israel from creation to preparation for the conquest of the Promised Land. But is the Pentateuch simply the historical account of God’s chosen people, or is it something more? This course explores the opening section of this book, Genesis 1-11, examining why they were written, what they meant to their original audience, and how we should respond to them today. This course is in part based on the lecture series, The Pentateuch, produced by Third Millennium Ministries and hosted by Dr. Scott Redd with contributions from a variety of professors.