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One Year Gospel Leader Track

The chief end of being a gospel-centered leader is the glory of God. We are not concerned with training up leaders for the sake of anyone’s name and fame other than Jesus Christ’s. Because we are passionate about Jesus, we are eager to see disciples made, leaders trained, and churches strengthened and multiplied. We have structured the One Year Gospel Leader Track toward this end.

The One Year Gospel Leader Track is designed for men and women who want to grow as learners, missionaries, servants, and part of a new people in God. This program places great emphasis on growing in gospel identity, intensity, fluency, and legacy and has been designed to serve and equip a broad range of emerging and current leaders. Any individual who desires to serve as a gospel-centered leader in the life of the local church, as servants of their city, and disciple makers in the home and beyond are strongly encouraged to apply.

Content Overview

Every participant will utilize and learn from theological, missional, and gospel-centered content through the BILD and Porterbrook course materials.

The One Year Gospel Leader Track features 3 BILD courses, 1 Book Study, and 4 Porterbook modules.

BILD Course Overview:

  • Acts: Keys to the Establishment & Expansion of the First-Century Church
    Determine the fundamental biblical principles regarding the mission of the Church and its role in missions and develop guidelines and strategies from these principles for local church involvement.
  • Pauline Epistles: Strategies for Establishing Churches
    Determine the fundamental biblical principles for growing and strengthening (establishing) a church to maturity and developing a strategy for implementing the biblical forms and functions of a church necessary for making and keeping it strong.
  • The Essentials of Sound Doctrine
    Build a contemporary didache—an Early Church manual to establish believers in the essentials of the Apostles’ teaching. This contemporary didache must be founded solidly upon the faith delivered by the Apostles; seasoned by the historical effort of the Church; and be eminently relevant to our present cultural situations.

Porterbrook Module Overview:

  • Gospel Living
    Starting from the position that all life is for the Glory of God, this module looks at what it means to live a life for that glory. It will mean loving God and loving others, shaped by the cross and looking to the future glory that we will share with Jesus. Having laid this foundation the module then examines how this impacts daily issues such as decisions, friendship and possessions.
  • Reading God’s Story: Introducing Exposition And Biblical Theology
    This module will help you get a handle on the basics of understanding and teaching from the text of the Bible itself and seeing how the Bible as a whole fits together.
  • Missional Community Life
    It’s all about Mission… and this module shows you how.
  • Apologetics
    Traditionally apologetics has been the attempt to show the Christian faith to be rational. However this makes the mistake of thinking that the rejection of Christianity stems from a rational argument. The Bible begs to differ. The problem is not rational, but the human heart. The heart needs something more than arguments to change it. What role then has apologetics? This module examines this question.

Additional Text:

  • You Can Change by Tim Chester
    This book shows how we are saved by grace and change by grace through the Gospel.

Cost

Materials for the One Year Gospel Leader Track: $385.00 Est.(Scholarships are available as needed.)
If you already have any of the texts or materials involved in this track please notify us. We can adjust the cost accordingly.

One Year Track Calendar

The One Year Gospel Leader Track will run from October to June with weekly two-hour cohort meetings on Sunday afternoons. Cohort meetings will be the primary content time in which participants and their cohort coach discuss and process the material covered each week. The content learned and discussed during cohort gatherings will be applied weekly during participants’ hands on engagement in the life of the local church. In this way, the cohort gatherings fuel and drive participants’ hands on experience throughout each week.

During the course of the year, there will be some weeks off from cohort meetings. However, regular attendance at cohort meetings is expected though there will be some flexibility for excused absences as needed.

View the tentative one year course calendar

FAQ

I haven’t had any formal theological training or formal ministry experience. Would I still be a good fit for the DCC One Year Gospel Leader Track?

Absolutely. The 1-Year track is designed broadly for emerging gospel-centered leaders and requires no formal training or experience. The DCC One Year Gospel Leader Track is designed to teach, train, and equip you whether you have been a Christian for a few months or for a few decades, or whether you are twenty years old or fifty years old. The 1-year track is for current or emerging gospel leaders of all kinds and is structured to work for men and women who want to grow theologically and missionally as people who desire to serve as leaders in the life of the local church, as servants of their city, and disciple makers in the home and beyond.

What is the weekly time commitment? What exactly makes up this workload?

The majority of the workload for the DCC One Year Gospel Leader Track consists of these weekly tasks: theological reading, study of Scripture, and various writing assignments.

Participants will also meet weekly in their cohort to learn and discuss course materials with their cohort coach through Socratic discussion.

We estimate that for most participants that are already involved in a community and serving, the weekly commitment will average around 6 hours. This includes 2 hour weekly cohort meetings, and approximately 4 hours of reading and writing assignments (varies by week). All participants are asked to be involved in a Cornerstone Community as well as various forms of participation and service within the church as a means of hands on involvement in order to provide holistic training that prepares participants theologically, personally, practically, and experientially.

How are the participants’ work evaluated in this program? Are participants’ writing assignments graded?

This program has been designed to keep cohorts small so that participants will constantly be in relationship and contact with each other and their coach. As a result, the cohort coach will be able to frequently give verbal feedback, direction, and encouragement on the participants’ learning and understanding of course materials and principals.

The participants’ writing assignments will be evaluated on a “Pass/Fail” basis and participants can expect specific feedback on their individual writing assignments.

I’ve read the content overview, but what is the Porterbrook and BILD material like?

Both BILD and Porterbrook feature content that is designed to develop the participants’ biblical and theological understanding while equipping them to live in light of such truth.

BILD features a more academic, seminary-based approach and has been specifically designed to provide an accessible theological training in the context of the local church for people with or without a theological or academic background.

Each respective BILD course is comprised of various theological articles and excerpts pertaining to the particular course themes. The typical structure of a BILD course is to have students study biblical texts, read the corresponding theological articles, complete the corresponding writing assignment, and engage in Socratic discussion to culminate the week’s work.

The Porterbrook Network originated in Sheffield, England and was developed by Steve Timmis and Tim Chester, church planters and co-authors of Total Church, in order to provide accessible content designed to help people grow theologically and missionally in their everyday lives.

The typical structure of a Porterbrook module is to have students read the module’s content and the corresponding biblical texts, complete the assigned informal writing exercises and reflections, and engage in discussion to culminate the week’s work.

For more information on Porterbrook visit: www.porterbrooknetwork.org

For more information on BILD visit: www.bild.org

Additional Questions?

Check out this post for a list of additional FAQs: Discipleship Training | Frequently Asked Questions

If you have any additional questions regarding the content of this track, registration, cost, etc, please email .

 

Pre-Registration

If you interesting in taking the One Year Gospel Leader Track please complete the pre-registration form below. Upon completion, you will be emailed links to the application documents that will need to be filled out and submitted prior to 9/15.

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