Thanks to technology and the quick work of the Equipping Division staff, Dwell continues to offer great classes to equip you to understand the Bible and accurately apply it to your life. Over the last few weeks the division has been offering a reduced schedule of 6 classes, and is now preparing for 5 additional classes for the second half of the spring quarter.
Just added this week: Reasons to Believe with Doug O'Malley and the Confluence of Character and Competence in Leadership with Josh Benadum. Doug will explore common objections to Christianity and some responses. Josh's workshop dives into the connection between character and leadership, and how pursuing character often leads to greater effectiveness in serving God.
Registration is now open for these classes, and 2 others (Mike Sullivan's 6-week class on Daniel, as well as Lee Campbell's 5 week class on the minor prophets.) You can read more about these classes and register at xenos.org/classes. There is also a class on creating a great ministry house.
Class Registrar Kim Phillips says the COVID-19 restrictions started just as they were finishing up winter quarter classes and preparing to launch the spring quarter schedule. Kim says they quickly evaluated the classes they were planning, and decided to postpone or cancel several classes that either had low registration or wouldn't work in an online format.
Kim says, with so much uncertainty at that time, they made plans, but had to continually change those plans as new information came in. The move to an online format created a number of obstacles--creating an online payment portal, modifying class documents, arranging Zoom and Google Classroom links, and training teachers and assistants on remote technology--that the staff overcame in a short period of time.
While not ideal, Kim says the online arrangement has allowed a blessing: people around the world are taking these classes. She says people are participating from South America and Africa, as well as cities in the U. S.
Marie Claude Bastres is the mother of Dwell Missions staff member Canco Casassa. She has been taking a class from Chile, and shares this encouragement: "We are so delighted to be able to take the classes on line. The Yahweh course with Jim Leffel has been wonderful. And the difficulty of the language has motivated us to search for translation tools, and then once we read the assignments we meet through Zoom each Saturday and discuss the articles. We are scattered through Chile as well. Our DRCongo brothers (joining the class from Africa) are very happy as well, even though they attend at 2:00-5:00 am. The quality of the courses are amazing--something we don´t have nearby. Each class is like our mind blows up with deeper knowledge of God! Thank you so much for this opportunity."