Theopolis Junior Fellows Program

Alastair Roberts

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Theopolis Junior Fellows Program

April 12, 2019

Alastair Roberts

For more information on this program and application:

https://theopolisinstitute.com/events/in-residence-program/

Since 2013, the Theopolis Institute has been training imaginative, courageous Christian leaders to meet the challenges of our time. We have erected scaffolding for the work of rebuilding the house of God.

And this summer, we are making it easier for you to join this band of dedicated leaders, when we inaugurate our revised Junior Fellows Program.

Theopolis will admit up to thirty men and women as 2019-2020 Junior Fellows. Junior Fellows will meet in Birmingham, Alabama, for a two-week session in July, and regather for a week-long session the following January.

Junior Fellows will learn how to read the Bible, master the fundamentals of liturgy, and engage with critical cultural problems and thinkers. Each day will be punctuated by worship and Psalm-singing.

Transcript

Welcome back. Today I want to tell you about something that's coming up that I'm going to be involved in and I'd love to see some of you attend. It's the Theopolis Institute's Junior Fellows Program for 2019-2020.

The Theopolis Institute exists to give students a deeper understanding of the Scripture's witness to reality, to help them to inhabit and become attuned to that reality in the Church's liturgy, and to bear faithful, intelligent, and creative witness to that reality in a reality-starved world. The Junior Fellows Program is our flagship program and it intends to give students a more comprehensive handle on the Scriptural witness, new skill and confidence in its interpretation, to develop familiarity with and understanding of liturgy, and to give you greater wisdom in addressing the culture. It's been redesigned to make it more accessible to seminary students and others who would not have the time for a long in-residence program.

The course is split over two in-residence periods. The first is in July, the 18th to the 26th of 2019, based in Birmingham, Alabama. That's the Trinity term, and that focuses upon biblical theology.

The second, Epiphany term, that session focuses upon liturgical theology, again in Birmingham, Alabama, from January the 13th to the 17th of 2020. There will be these two in-residence weeks. They will consist primarily of lectures and liturgies, and there will be required readings to complete prior to those sessions.

Between these periods, there will also be online seminars and discussions. Each day in the in-residence course is punctuated by liturgy. We begin in the morning with matins, at noon we have sext, and then in the afternoon we have vespers.

The time is one in which you will be challenged and stimulated to think in a new way. You'll have opportunity to interact with the lecturers, with other students, to spend time together in conversation, sharpening iron together. The Trinity term focuses on giving students a firmer grasp of the Bible as a whole, greater skill in interpretation, and an increased ability to relate and address scriptural witness to pressing cultural issues.

We will be providing students with a fuller understanding of liturgy and its purpose on a theological level in the second session, in-residence session, and most of the time for that particular session will be devoted to practical training in participation and leading of the liturgy. We'll have trained musicians and pastors to be able to teach you and talk you through stage by stage what it looks like to participate in and to lead a liturgy. In between these sessions there will be an online Pesha group and these seminars, which will be twice monthly between August and December, focus upon biblical theology.

Students for these periods will be required to read a small book or article and to study one of a selected group of biblical passages and to report on the results of their exegetical study to a group. Most of the program will be taught by Peter Lightheart and me. We will be assisted however by various others, including pastors and professional musicians.

This course is one that I'm very excited about. I've been involved in Theopolis intensives before, but this is a Theopolis intensive taken to a new level. It's designed to give students by the end of the course a much firmer purchase upon the world of the scripture, a greater skill in interpreting the word of God, an experience in and understanding of the practice of liturgy, and finally increased capacity to address a culture that is in terrible need of the word of God addressed to it thoughtfully and biblically.

If you would be interested to attend, the details to sign up are below. Follow the link and join us. It would be wonderful to have you there.

Thank you very much for listening and God bless.