Calvin Miller at Opening Retreat Aug 6-7

We'll begin the 2009-2010 academic year for the Master of Ministry program with a student-faculty retreat on Thursday and Friday, August 6 and 7, on the Anderson University campus. It will begin with lunch on Thursday and conclude about 3:00 pm on Friday.

This will be a valuable time of orientation, getting to know one another, and preparing to receive maximum value from the coming year of study. We'll be posting additional information and schedules on the auministry.com website soon.

I'm excited to report that Calvin Miller, a well-known preacher and writer (and a member of our M.Min. strategic faculty), has agreed to be with us as a featured leader for the retreat. He'll be our worship speaker Thursday evening, will lead us in a discussion of ministry issues on Friday morning, and will be our closing speaker that afternoon.

Calvin recently retired as Professor of Preaching and Pastoral Studies at Beeson Divinity School; prior to that he taught at Southwestern Seminary. From 1966 to 1991 he served as senior pastor of Westside Church in Omaha, Nebraska, which grew from 10 members to more than 2500 during his pastorate. He has written more than 40 books, including his classic work The Singer. His book Preaching: The Art of Narrative Exposition, was the Preaching magazine Book of the Year in 2007. The retreat will offer a unique opportunity to meet and visit with this gifted ministry leader.

We look forward to our new students participating in this great event, which will be held each fall just prior to the beginning of the fall term. (In future years, we'll encourage M.Min. alumni to come back and join us, with special programming for them as well.) So if you are applying to the M.Min. program, be sure to mark your calendar for Aug 6-7 -- you won't want to miss this special event.

Preaching Boot Camp news

A good story on Preaching Boot Camp appeared in the most recent issue of the Baptist Courier, the publication of South Carolina Baptists. Here's the link: http://www.baptistcourier.com/3196.article

Registration is underway for the week-long event, which will offer practical guidance in planning a year's preaching. For more info go to www.preachingbootcamp.com.

Online degree begins in August

As 2009 dawns, we have settled on a shift of strategy as we launch the Master of Ministry degree this year.

The original plan had been to begin the classroom-based version of the degree in August, and at the same time to begin two off-site centers in SC. Then we would begin the online degree in spring 2010.

However, as part of an institution-wide commitment to accelerating online education, we have decided to launch the online M.Min. in August 2009 simultaneously with the AU campus program. Because it's not wise to try to do too much at one time -- I can affirm that from bitter experience of attempting it once too often -- we will delay the beginning of the online centers until 2010.

So this August you'll have two ways to participate in the M.Min. program at Anderson: either in a classroom program at AU, or through an online degree. Degree requirements will be the same for both programs, though they may not offer the same courses in the same order.

I'll be sharing more information about both programs in upcoming blog posts. I'm particularly looking forward to telling you about the amazing line-up of faculty who are committing to be part of the M.Min. at AU. Coming soon!

Checking out tech options

Last week, Peter Harvin (AU's Chief Information Officer) joined me on a trip to New Orleans, where we spent a day with our friends at New Orleans Baptist Seminary, checking out their use of Compressed Interactive Video (CIV) for delivering instruction to multiple locations. NOBTS has a great system going, and they can link as many as 12 sites together to provide access to a single course.

Our little old Master of Ministry program won't need as extensive a network as that -- we're planning sites in Columbia and Charleston to be linked to the Anderson classroom. But it was really helpful to see how our colleagues are handling these issues. Thanks to Jerry Barlow and the gang at NOBTS for being so gracious in showing us how they use CIV to teach.

Keep checking back -- new announcements coming, including some major Baptist leaders who have agreed to be part of our program!

Trustees approve M.Min.

The last on-campus step for approval of Anderson's Master of Ministry degree was completed with today's overwhelming affirmation by the university's Board of Trustees.

Now the last stage of approval is with the Southern Association of Colleges & Schools (SACS), which will soon receive documents relating to the new program. Once the program receives affirmation from SACS, then we'll be official and can proceed with seeking and receiving applications for enrollment.

We're looking forward to that first class in August 2009!

Faculty approves M.Min.

This week the AU faculty voted to approve the Master of Ministry degree. Next week the degree program will be presented to the university's Board of Trustees. And after that, the last stage of approval will be with SACS, our regional accrediting agency.

At Catalyst this week in Atlanta, I had the chance to speak to a number of people about the new M.Min. degree, and there is growing interest in what we'll be doing in fall 2009. More to report soon!

Another step along the way

Our Master of Ministry degree moved one step closer to reality when, earlier this week, the APPC committee of the University faculty approved the proposal and moved its recommendation to the full faculty, which meets October 6.