The School of Applied Theology offers a flexible way of studying the Bible that allows you to connect your learning and your living. We provide five high quality teaching days each year, with the option of regional mentoring and relevant assignments. A private online community will also support your learning.
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4 key principles guide our programme
ACCESSIBLE
We want the course to be within everyone’s reach – so there are no academic requirements for admission. We are simply looking for people with a heart to learn and to have their thinking, goals and lifestyle challenged and shaped by God’s word. But this course is not for new Christians; you should have a solid grounding in the basics of our faith in place before commencing this course.
Because we all have different learning styles, each of the modules will include multiple learning approaches, with at least 40% of each day dedicated to group work, research, questions, debate etc.
Child care (0-5) will be available to help young parents both attend.
AFFORDABLE
The costs have been kept as low as possible so that no one is excluded on financial grounds. Reductions are available, and your own church may also consider supporting you–please contact your pastor.
ATTAINABLE
Life is increasingly busy, and we want this training to be within the reach of everyone; so the school will meet for one full day, five times a year. You must attend all the days – just coming to occasional days isn’t permitted. Because some will want more than this, we have two tracks – AUDIT and ACCESS:
‘AUDIT’ – you just attend the days and take a full part in them – and that’s it. But we will usually suggest short videos you can watch or articles you can read before the day to help you get even more out it.
‘ACCESS’ – you attend the day but then follow up your learning with a local tutorial with our mentors. This will involve doing personal work – things like reading a book or preparing a paper that you will then join with others in your region to discuss and dig into further. We won’t be asking you to write essays however! We anticipate all this will take the equivalent of an evening a week.
You must choose at the start of the year which track you want to follow. The full course lasts three years; but you can sign up for a year at a time and take it at your own pace, taking a break between years if you need to.
APPLIED
We believe that studying the Bible should make a difference to our everyday lives and equip us to be effective in the world. So the final 90 minutes of each learning day will be given over to applying that day’s teaching to current issues or events. This will help you be better equipped to answer people’s questions and to share the gospel with them.
We will not teach you all you need to know; but we will seek to help you think in biblical and theological ways about issues we face in today’s world and give you the tools to dig into God’s Word more effectively for yourself.
What next?
The School of Applied Theology is a ministry of Taking Ground.