Greenville University’s School of Adult Studies and the Andrews Chair for Christian Unity are pleased to announce a May travel-based course, “Justice Ministry: The Gospel and the Politics of Race,” with renowned Christian leader Lisa Sharon Harper.
Harper will serve as a visiting professor for the course. She is the founder and president of Freedom Road LLC and the author of “The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right,” which Englewood Review of Books named the Book of the Year for 2016.
Flexible Design
This travel-based course in justice ministry is a pilot course that helps students explore a series of immersion educational experiences to sharpen the ministry of Christian practitioners and educators today. The course includes readings, lectures, discussions and a tour of historic locations in the South during a weeklong pilgrimage. Participants arrive Sunday evening, May 13, for an early Monday morning start for the course, which concludes at noon on Saturday, May 19.
Learners will choose the depth of study and credit they earn by electing to take the course as continuing education or at the undergraduate or graduate levels.
Heart of the Gospel
As a Free Methodist institution in the Wesleyan movement, Greenville University is committed to God’s justice – God’s love in action — as being at the heart of the gospel and, thus, at the heart of the university’s training for ministry. In the spirit of Jesus’ inaugural hometown sermon, the gospel is good news to the poor, release for the captive, sight for the blind, and freedom for the oppressed. God’s favor is good news for the whole world.
By partnering with Harper and Freedom Road, Greenville University offers Christians a unique experience to learn from one of the church’s best. Harper is an internationally regarded Christian justice leader, having served as the co-founder and executive director of NY Faith & Justice (2007-2011) and most recently as the chief church engagement officer with Sojourners (2011-2017). Her work has taken her to Croatia, Australia, Germany, Ireland and South Africa, and she will soon travel to Brazil. Harper has produced fruit in raising up wise and courageous leaders who embrace the whole gospel of Jesus Christ, which is nothing less than shalom for the world.
Pilgrimage With Purpose
Through this course, participants will embark on a pilgrimage of discovery, discernment and discipleship as they are introduced to the intersections of the biblical concept of shalom, the breaking and mending of shalom in history and the current-day implications concerning witness in our world today.
Tuition will cover course costs and travel during the week.
Students are responsible for traveling to the starting location and from the ending location of the pilgrimage.
The three-credit course can be taken at three levels of engagement: continuing education credit, undergraduate credit or graduate credit.
This course is appropriate for pastors, justice ministers, worship leaders, leaders of nonprofits, justice advocates and social workers. Students who have completed at least 90 college credits can also take the course.
Space is limited. For more information, email ben.wayman@greenville.edu.
Dave Holden serves as the dean of graduate and adult studies at Greenville University. Ben Wayman, a Free Methodist elder, holds the James F. and Leona N. Andrews Chair in Christian Unity at Greenville University.
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