Course Catalogue 2024-2025

A historical and theological introduction to the four Gospels. We will study the Gospels from a multi-dimensional perspective as a fourfold witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. We will ask historical questions: about the origin of the Gospels in Jesus’ ministry and the women’s Easter experience, the setting of the Gospels in early Judaism and in the Roman Empire, and the process by which the Gospels emerged as a fourfold proclamation of Jesus Christ. We will ask literary and source-critical questions, about the literary origins and narrative shape of the Gospels. And we will ask canonical and theological questions, considering the Gospels in their character as a fourfold and scriptural witness, reading them in relation to each other and to the OT scriptures on which they draw.

This course is Part Two of a two-part introductory survey course. It aims to acquaint students with the literary structure, rhetorical argument, and certain social issues in the Pauline Corpus, General Writings, and Revelation and help students understand the relevance of these issues for their ministry. Emphasis is placed on acquiring familiarity with the texts and ability to converse critically about the particular problems that these texts both seek to solve and have created.

Strong and effective communication and counseling skills are crucial for all helping professionals
{therapists, spiritual care practitioners, congregational pastors). This course will combine lectures with experiential learning to provide helping professionals with the foundational skills of building rapport, empathic listening, effective questioning, interviewing and responding skills, structuring a session, and spiritual care giving. The students will practice the skills of building the therapeutic relationship based on Person-Centered, Humanist-Existential and Family Systems theories. We will explore how our own values and beliefs impact the helping relationship. The sensitive integration of spiritually-oriented questions into the therapeutic conversation will be discussed as well as spiritually oriented interventions and practices that promote healing and wholeness. The principles of documentation in a variety of settings {congregational, private practice, healthcare) will be discussed.
Solution-Focused Brief Therapy {a goal-directed collaborative approach to psychotherapeutic change), a Constructivist theory, will be explored and the skills of solution-focused therapy will be applied in small groups. And finally, students will develop the skills of ending well. The

Care and Community explores the role of care expected of religious practitioners and faith communities in an intercultural context. The pastoral care capacity of a beginning religious practitioner (pastor, chaplain, minister of music, education or lay leader) requires self knowledge, spiritual formation, theory and skill. Narrative theories of care will provide the basis for the assumptions and skill development of the course. Role plays, class discussions and short practical theology papers will provide opportunity to assess a student's self ability to think theologically about pastoral care situations.

This course introduces students to the fundamentals of Hellenistic Greek grammar and vocabulary for the purpose of reading and translating the Greek New Testament. Students will move between reading and translating the GNT, learning and memorizing the grammar, and memorizing 390 of the most frequent vocabulary words, along with engaging in disciplines that will promote use of Greek following completion of the course.

This course introduces students to the fundamentals of Hellenistic Greek grammar and vocabulary for the purpose of reading and translating the Greek New Testament. Students will move between reading and translating the GNT, learning and memorizing the grammar, and memorizing 390 of the most frequent vocabulary words, along with engaging in disciplines that will promote use of Greek following completion of the course.

Families come to Canada from every society of the world, bringing their diverse relationships, roles, structures and understandings. Clergy, teachers and parish workers need an awareness of what those might be in order to serve individuals and families from diverse cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds. Whether in pastoral work, in teaching family life education or in other forms of service, awareness of possibilities and questions will be useful. Two presentations and final exam.

Explores various aspects of ministry, in particular the theology and practice of ordained ministry within the Reformed traditions. Topics include understandings of ministry, the call, functions and roles in ministry, challenges and contexts for ministry today and in the future, leadership and authority, and spiritual practices.

This course provides students, with no previous experience in the language, basic knowledge of Latin grammatical structure, including verb forms and tenses and the various types of nouns and adjectives. Familiarity with the vocabulary of Christian literature written in the Latin language accompanies the learning process. The lectures cover units 1-19 of Collin?s Primer of Ecclesiastical Latin.

This course is designed for students who have successfully completed Introduction to Ecclesiastical Latin I or the equivalent. We plan to complete studying Collins? Primer of Ecclesiastical Latin (Units 20-35) while building on the material previously learned. We will practice reading Latin out loud and more importantly translate various Latin texts from the Vulgate to the Patristic and Medieval periods. The instructor will provide texts for exercises in translation.

The course aims at a general introduction to the four families of Eastern Churches: Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Catholic and the Assyrian Church of the East. After reviewing the history of the Eastern Churches and the critical moments that shaped their development (including schisms, attempts at re-union and the impact of Islam), the course will give particular attention to the history and culture of the Assyrian Church of the East, the Coptic and Armenian Orthodox Churches, the Orthodox Churches of Ukraine, Greece and Russia, the Maronite, Melkite and Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Churches. Subsequently, the course will briefly survey the East's distinctive approaches to liturgy, art, architecture, music, spiritual life, monasticism, social service, hagiography, mission and theology. The course ends with an assessment of the current state of these Churches in North America and their approaches to inter-Christian and interreligious relations.

This course surveys the development of Buddhism in India and its spread from South Asia to Southeast Asia, East Asia, and the West. In this course, we will explore the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, and Samgha) of Buddhism, the Three Vehicles (Thervada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana) for the transmission of Buddhist teachings, and various Buddhist traditions developed indigenously in East Asia and then spread to North America, Europe, and Africa.