Global Evangelism / Communicating the Gospel in a Pluralistic World at NBC
Video welcome and FAQs page
Note: The course web pages on the official Nazarene Bible College site will contain
expanded written instructions including rubrics for each assignment
"This class has reset my thinking and challenged many of my previous thoughts
about missions." -- Thom Fish, pastor
FAQs about the courses Global Evangelism and Communicating the Gospel in a
Pluralistic World
Frequently Aked Questions -- world missions course
"Does submitting our brief autobiography and responding to our classmates personal
stories in Week 1 count toward the attendance requirement of being present 5 days each
week?"
Yes
"I do tend to be a bit of a night owl. However, in terms of the cut-off time each
"day," should we aim for what time it is in the Mountain Time Zone where NBC is
located?"
Some professors go by the date on the time stamp on the actual
submission. I do not. I know there are night owls out there. So, I figure that anything in by 3 or 4
a.m. was actually written at the end of someone's day rather than at the beginning.
I guess you could say I use a modified Jewish definition of day. Whereas the Jews calculate days
from sundown to sundown, I tend to count from sunup to sunup!
"Is it OK to submit assignments a little early? There are times when I might have
to submit the reading report by late Monday since I am often away on Tuesdays. Some
facilitators are OK with it and some are not."
Yes, the reading reports can come in early. In fact, having some
in early helps discussion get going.
The only thing I don't really like coming in early is the end-of-the-week summary. The problem
with it being done that early is that it's not really an end-of-the-week. So, I'd prefer that those
not come in until at least late Friday afternoon.
"Will postings made this week under last week count or do they need to be
responses to material in the current week for them to count?"
I count postings by the date they are posted. So, a conversation
that began last week can
continue into this week with your contributions being counted for this week.
"Why are we required to read every single posting in Scribe? Posts by other
students are sometimes repetitive and just take up my time."
Scribe is a classroom. In the classroom you are expected to
listen attentively to what other students say -- even if you disagree or even if you think they're
saying "dumb" things. Each intervention adds to and carries forward a discussion. Not reading all
your classmates posts would be like coming to a classroom with a book or cell phone in which
you bury your head and only emerge occasionally to say something before turning back to your
book or cell phone. That wouldn't be good traditional classroom etiquette. Lack of attention to
what others in the classroom are saying is not good online classroom etiquette either.
It is not considered proper classroom behavior to speak one's peace and then "check out" by
putting on headphones or getting out a book to read. For this reason I ask that you not post your
end-of-the-week summary until AFTER you have read everything submitted by other students
and the professor that week. I started asking students to be completely up-to-date in their reading
of other students' posts by the time they post their end-of-the-week summary when a student
openly said he wasn't bothering to read any of the contributions of several of his classmates
because they never had anything significant to say.
"How does the Reading Response differ from the Weekly Summary?"
The reading response is due early in the week prior to much
class discussion. It focuses upon the reflection of the required reading (text, professor's lecture,
and other articles). The weekly summary may look at the text but it could also center on what
other students had to say in class discussion or even on insights gained from doing the special
project of that week. Thus, the Weekly Summary is much broader-based than the Wednesday
reading reflection.
Among other things, having you wrap-up to the week gets you to: (1) Delving back into
the textbook. Sometimes class discussion strays away from the central topic of the week. So,
looking back at the text or other reading will help fix things from that reading in long-term
memory. It could even be that after a week of thinking about a particular topic in the reading,
you realize that someting may be more important than you had originally though.
"Does the NMI Central report in week 3 have to be over a the Nazarene
publication? Can it be any other regular email publication about missions?"
One objective of the assignment is for you to look at material
available for promoting missions in local Churches of the Nazarene. Therefore, if you are part of
the Church of the Nazarene, you should report on
NMI Central. If
you are a member of another denomination, you may choose a similar regular publication about
your own church's overseas missionary work (or you can look at an evaluate what the Nazarenes
are doing).
"Does the missionary we interview for the Week 6 assignment have to have been
a Nazarene missionary?"
No. Someone who has served with another mission board will
enable you to fulfill the objectives of this assignment.
"As I understand it, day seven is on Sunday and we can post any five out of the
seven days Monday - Sunday. Is this correct?"
That's correct, the "5 out of 7" can include Sunday.
"If we have until Sunday to submit all of our responses, how can we read all
responses/postings before we submit our reflection?"
What I was trying to ask is that you have read all the posts
submitted up to that point in time. For instance, the first person to post their end-of-the-week
summary will not have read any other person's end-of-the-week summary while the last person to
post that assignment will have had the opportunity to read everybody else's end-of-the-week
summary.
"I haven't been able to get a copy of the Basic Bible Studies for New Believers for the
Week
3 end-of-the-week assignment. What shall I do?"
Here's an
online
pdf copy of that material. Remember that the object of doing this is not to learn the material.
The object is for you to evaluate this as a discipleship tool for churches to use with new
converts
"I posted something on five different days of the week. Why did I get credit for only
three days of 'participation'?"
You did get attendance credit for being "present" five days out
of the week. The participation score refers to reply posts. Therefore, there are actually two "five
days out of seven" requirements. One is for attendance (sumitting either an assignment or a reply
post). The other is for participating in class discussion via reply posts. You submigtted reply
posts on three different days, so you received participation credit for three days.
"How thoroughly would you like us to investigate the links you supply in your
lectures? For example, devotional studies on Jonah, Mrs. Fitkin, biblical examples of world
evangelism, and so on?"
Think of those resources as additional if-you-have-the-time
enrichment material. How thoroughly you investigate them will depend on the time available
and the level of interest you have in deepening your understanding of course content.
"The instructions for the weekly reading reflections say that our submissions must
contain at least 250 words. Is that for each of the two parts of the reflection or just one part or a
total of the two parts?"
Good question. It refers to a total of the two parts. However,
students usually go beyond that number since they must answer one question of their choosing
from the textbook in addition to their reactions to the material they read that week. I also
recognize that some of us are wordier than others. Some can give meaty, thoughtful and succinct
responses in 250 words. Others may take 400 or more words to say basically the same thing.
More important than the number of words -- whether it contains 250 or 500 words -- is that your
reading reflection indicates you are grappling with the ideas expressed in the reading rather
than it being something off the top of your head that could have been written before the reading
was ever done.
"Will an "incomplete" in a course affect my Grade Point Average (GPA)?"
An "incomplete" grade means you are not getting any academic
credit for that class. So, it so is not included in any way in the grade point average. However, if
you do not meet the agreed-upon deadline for turning in missing work, then the "I" will turn into
whatever default grade you had at the end o the course. That grade will be included in your
GPA.
"Are "incomplete" grades bad?"
No. They give you a chance to recover from unforeseen issues
that stymied your ability to complete some assignments on time. They are, in a sense, a kind of
"grace" extended to you. If, on the other hand, you fail to complete the missing assignments then
you have only postponed the inevitable and will get the letter grade that was in the grade book at
the end of the course. The two times they might be "bad" are: (1) if your impending graduation
from NBC depends on your successfully completing that particular course. In that case, it will
delay your graduation. (2) If your financial aid is dependent on your completing all the courses in
which you are enrolled in that quarter, then your aid will be held up until the "I" grade is
removed.
"This is a great coarse that opened my eyes to the struggles Christians face around
the globe. It gave me an understanding of the real need for missionaries around the world. It's
still hard to fathom that there are over two billion people who have not heard about Jesus.+ --
student on course evaluation
What kind of online student are you? Do others think
of you as Busy or Wordy or Disconnected Dan? Do you sometimes come off to others as
Oblivious or Trite-ly or even End-times Edith? . . [ more
]
