Course Review: Women Speak of God

 Information about the Course

This is an advanced Lay Ministry course offered by BeADisiciple.com called Women Speak of God. This is a course offered as part of the Wesley Academy for Advanced Christian Studies, created in partnership with Wesley Theological Seminary and BeADisciple.  The course instructor is Pamela Deck and it is based on material written by Dr. Amy Oden.  The course is eight weeks long. Each week involves a short reading from the book In Her Words by Oden,  viewing a video of with Dr. Oden, posting answers to 3 or 4 questions on a Discussion board, a journaling question and exercises that are completed but not shared, and participation in online discussion. 

The course can be part of a certification called Certificate in Advanced Christian Study.  The certificate involves completion of six courses such as this one.  The course can also be taken as a stand alone option.

Summary

From the website: The workshop is about how Christians in different cultures, different time periods, and different social locations have told their faith stories. Amy Oden, professor of the History of Christianity and Dean of Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC, presents video lectures on six Christian women who wrote about their faith. The workshop explores how we, as members of the Christian family, tell our “family stories.” It also helps us to examine our own faith and to articulate our own experiences of God.

Lessons include: Perpetua, Macrina, Juana Inez de la Cruz, Susanna Wesley, Jarena Lee, and Georgia Harkness.

Impressions

I chose this particular course because a friend who was in seminary (at the time) had talked about Perpetua. I wanted to learn more. Besides that, I was interested in hearing about and reading voices of women of faith.

The basic theme of the course is how we tell the story of our faith.  I think we often fail to do that, and that sometimes we are not equipped to do that. It was enlightening and inspiring to read how six women over the history of Christianity, had told their stories. They were women who had faced difficulties - from execution because of their faith to discrimination because of their gender. The course explored how women illustrated what it means to have the identity of a Christian and how we have worked out what we believe.

From a big picture standpoint, it was enlightening to watch how the focus of the women’s testimony changed throughout the time period covered. Perpetua was helping people understand what it means to be a Christian – a follower of Christ – what is our identity. Macrina’s purpose changed. She knew what it meant to be a Christian, but helped her brother understand more about what Christians believe – how closely we are known by God. Juana Ines de la Cruz and Jarena Lee had different purposes, too. They demonstrated what it means to have a calling from God, gifts from God, and how we are to use them.  Susannah Wesley and Georgia Harkness spoke of the “now what?” You have an identity, you have beliefs, but now what? What is faith and what does that mean?  I loved the progression through them, but more than that, I hadn’t thought about how our stories would have developed over the centuries.

While I worked through the course, I read the book In Her Words by Amy Oden. I would recommend doing this if you have the time. It adds more dimensions to the course - although the course would stand alone without it.

Great course - I recommend it.

Posts about the Class

Posts about the class will have the tag WSOG