Do You Need to Get Trained to Live Out the Gospel Better?

I am a copy cat. I just got home from church tonight and saw Angela had written a little promotional blog post about the upcoming Get Trained semester that is about to start at Stone. Sounded like a good idea, so I'm doing a little push myself... Classes start 2 weeks from today! Yeah!

Austin Stone's Get Trained Ministry exists to stir the heart and renew the mind in order to move you to ACTION... Classes cover all kinds of topics, but the underlying heartbeat is to help you get educated, inspired, and motivated to LIVE MISSIONALLY outside the four walls of the church. For the full list of 29 classes click here, http://www.austinstone.org/what/gt_fall08_classes.

But to whet your appetite, here are just a few highlights from the roster...

Sovereignty of God in Salvation (women's class), taught by Angela Suh & Amber Gentry... a 7-week class that not only teaches you about the Biblical, right-thinking about how God calls people to saving faith in Jesus, but also gives you some how-to-share motivation for those in your life who do not yet know Jesus.

Mercy Ministry, taught by Logan Gentry... this 6-week class will be half learning about and half practical application of ministering to broken lives through word and deed. If you find God has been starting to stir in you an awareness of "the last" and "the least", this class will help show you how to respond.

Crossing Cultures, taught by Joey Shaw, Troy Alexander, & Hilary Pepper... a 9-week class that focuses on building skills for cross-cultural interaction in your neighborhood, your workplace, or around the globe. Look around you-- if you know someone economically different, ethinically different, religiously different... those are all cultural differences you can learn how to more easily bridge in conversation and relationship.

Gospel Christianity, taught by Todd Engstrom & Kevin Peck... a 10-week class that examines how the gospel is not just about our receiving salvation, but how it also has implications and applications for our daily life as we represent Christ and fulfill His commands to the world around us.

Encountering the World of Islam, taught by Joey & Krystal Shaw (& me)... a 10-week class that both educates you about the religion of Islam and inspires you to be a beacon of love through relationship building with the Muslim people. With almost 2 million Muslims living in the United States, we need to learn about these neighbors so that we can love them well.

All of the classes I have highlighted above help you to simply make FIRST STEPS in each of these topics. You don't have to know anything about the subject, you just have a learner's heart and a willingness to grow and be stretched. And there are 24 other classes to choose from if those didn't jump off the page at you.

SIGN UP soon, they fill up quick!! http://www.austinstone.org/what/gt_fall08_classes