Quick Info:
Number of weeks: 3
Price: $45
CEUs: 1.0
Required books?: No
Live video session?: Yes, optional
Part of a certification or series of courses?: Yes (Timothy Circle series)
New to BeADisciple?
Read how BeADisciple courses work
Churches worry about staying relevant to young people. But they are already experts in a topic that young people today care about – discerning a spiritual and vocational calling. Unfortunately, many churches don’t make a consistent effort to talk about the power of Call and create an environment that celebrates and nurtures Calling.
Helping youth and young adults connect and respond to God’s call is a powerful way to cultivate energy and faith within your congregation – both in young people and in adult laypeople. It helps young people see how Christianity has relevance to their lives and inspires adult laypeople to live into their own calls from God, putting time and energy into both new and existing ministries.
Developing a church that encourages actively seeking and following God’s call takes intentional planning. This course teaches you how to create a church environment that actively talks about and encourages a sense of calling in young people.
By the end of this course, you’ll know specific practices that encourage others to expect and be excited about God’s call, how to encourage a move from passive to active faith in your congregation (even if you aren’t the pastor), and how to make it clear to young people (and adults!) that God is speaking to them.
You’ll also learn how to form relationships with Christian camps and campus ministries in your area to ensure that your church’s young people are supported by the incredible spiritual and vocational work done in these ministries outside your church’s walls and amplify your work.
You can make a difference in your church and community! Start here.
There will be an optional video gathering during this course. We plan to hold these meetings at 9:30 PM EST during a weeknight to help those in other time zones but will do an initial poll to establish availability.
This course is eligible for 1.0 CEU.
About the Timothy Circle
This class is a part of the Timothy Circle. The Timothy Circle is a sister program of BeADisciple and is focused on helping connect young people with opportunities that will further their understanding of their call. You can learn more about the Timothy Circle on the Institute for Discipleship website or by watching the video below:
About the Instructor
Teryl Cartwright is a teacher and writer. She is excited to be a Culture of the Call Coordinator, teaching three very different “Helping Young People Hear God” modules for Churches, Camping, and Campus Ministries and the Mentoring Young People in Faith course, all part of the Timothy Circle initiative at the Institute for Discipleship. Teryl has interviewed over 50 people including bishops, conference leaders, local church pastors, authors, camping directors and campus ministers to bring the most complete and diverse thinking to Culture of the Call and Mentoring courses.
She recently earned her Discipleship Coaching certificate and will start serving a term on the Susquehanna Conference’s Board of Ordained Ministry in June, 2020. She has an M.A. in Critical and Creative Thinking, and B.S. in Education. For ten years she worked as a freelance curriculum writer for Group Publishing and then served as Director of Adult Ministries in a thousand member church for seven years. She has taught various other online courses including “Conference Call,” a personalized “design as you go” curriculum offered by the Susquehanna Conference E& I Committee for those attending a “God’s Calling” workshop on discernment. She loves the “iron sharpening iron” opportunities to learn from her course participants.
She is a member of Spry Church (UMC) in York, PA. Her teaching is based on reflection, discussion, and activity-based learning. She feels blessed to have piloted several unique Bible studies within the local church on bioethics, humor, creativity, and service learning. Some of her hobbies include origami, game creation, pottery throwing (making bowls not breaking them), and Christian fiction writing. An advocate of lifelong learning, she thinks the best part is seeing the wonders God reveals daily!
Past Students Said…
“I learned from the other class members how they perceived their own call from God. It was helpful for me to hear the various ways the Lord can work. But as much as anything, I simply enjoyed the fellowship of the daily discussions on the online board.”
“The online discussions were the best part for me. Each day we would receive a topic to write about, then each one would write a brief essay. We would read each other’s essays and comment on them, making it an interactive experience.”
“The online discussions were my favorite part of the course. Learning from each other was a great experience.”
“I would recommend this course to anyone who is a youth leader in the church.”
