LEAD 692 - Christian Leaders Initiative on Human Trafficking
Introducing a special series of electives to address issues where we, leaders can be salt and light in this earth.
Jamie Williams, a lawyer with extensive experience in Indonesia, India, and the U.S. is teaching this free elective course, which may be applied to any concentration in the LEAD program and other programs, with permission from your program director. The focus will be on us as Christian leaders who must take critical initiatives on issues where Christians need to act as salt and light in a world that oftentimes benefits from the unseen slavery of vulnerable people. Exploring Human Trafficking addresses a modern-day crisis that needs us Christians, to drive change in governments, businesses, non-profit organizations and faith-based communities. We will explore how leaders can address human trafficking both locally and globally. We will cover issues of labor exploitation, child labor, forced marriages, prostitution, human smuggling, and the role of globalization, consumerism, and business supply chains as we examine this issue. In addition to examining case studies, we will hear from practitioners in the field who are addressing causes, working to stop trafficking, and giving a voice to victims to bring healing to brokenness. We use Biblical principles to analyze solutions, and study data reliability, international treaties, legislative advocacy, and socioeconomic and cultural factors.
LEAD 647 - The Best and Worst of Christian History
In the course LEAD 647 - The Best and Worst of Christian History: Key Insights for Today's Leaders (2), John Dickson in his inimical, urgent but very personable manner takes you on a sweeping survey of Christian history with a special attention to the first thousand years. He leads you on an exciting exploration of the many and varied ways Christian leaders both embodied and betrayed the way of our Lord Jesus Christ. While heavily informed by the relevant primary sources and historical best-practices, one studying this course will be led to draw out tentative lessons for contemporary ethics, worship, mission, social engagement, and, especially, Christian leadership. You will explore the church’s greatest achievements and its most grievous failures. From the birth of the first hospitals to the forced “conversion” of the Saxons under Charlemagne’s sword, you will cover it all. By examining both the best and worst of Christian leaders during our history, you will be challenged, as a leader, to reflect on these ancestors life and work—and the lasting impact they may have, for good or ill. Anyone with responsibility in the world, i.e., you have something to learn from history’s triumphs, missteps, and failures. This course offers both inspiration and caution—above all, reminding you to lead with humility.
LEAD 645 - Mental Health and the Leader
David Van Dyke leads you in examining the theological, psychological, and practical foundations for effective mental health ministry in the local church and marketplace. Leaders will look at the history of pastoral care and the nature of persons to gain an understanding of the essentials of mental illness. We want you to be conscious of your mental well-being as we’ll start from the head—if you are not feeling well, you’re going to be leading from a place of deficit. You will get an understanding of how important relationships are for you as a leader and how that leads to not only the “inner life” of you as the leader but also of those who work alongside you as your team. You will realize what initiatives to take to structure and foster positive relations as this course takes a systems mental health perspective—i.e., it is more about the team than the individual. You’re prompted to step back and reflect on how your organization functions and then how you’d re-structure processes in the organization to foster mental health and how you yourself, as leader, will model mental health to your colleagues and subordinates.
I attended the modular 3-day intensive course (LEAD 652: Strategic Management) during Spring break at Wheaton College. This was my fourth in-person modular-intensive course in my graduate LEAD program. As I was continuing in higher education after completing my undergrad baccalaureate degree straight into the Grad school’s M.A., I thought that I would be accustomed to in-person classes. However, the graduate program offered a whole new experience to residential face-to-face learning.
