Guidelines For Lecturers

After you have read these guidelines Go to our lecturer application form

Welcome! GlobalChristians.Org wants to assist the equipping and training of pastors and Christian leaders in Asia. GlobalChristians.Org is primarily a venue for seminar-style, in-service training, equipping Christians in particular areas of ministry.We want to have as many high-quality courses online as possible with a wide range of lecturers interacting with and developing students.

The course you take must be both biblical and useful. The course must be offered free of charge - though of course you may charge for materials and you are free within reason to recommend your books, seminars, church or training institution - though blatant salesmanship would be frowned on.

Expectations

You must be a born-again, bible-believing, evangelical, charismatic or Pentecostal Christian who has been saved for at least five years.
You must be able to demonstrate a good grasp of the Scriptures and be able to subscribe to our aims and beliefs.
You must agree to work interdenominationally and in unity with students from a wide range of Christian beliefs. [For instance if you are a Baptist and one of your students is an evangelical Anglican you will not push believer’s baptism upon them. Or if you are strongly Reformed you may not deny the gifts of the Spirit and the beliefs of your Pentecostal brothers and sisters.]
You must be professional in your approach to your subject striving for excellence in content and in teaching methodology.
You must have the appropriate qualifications and experience for your subject area.
You must be committed to your course and to completing the teaching and marking the assessment.

There are four levels we are trying to minister on, each with its own style of instruction they are:

Wisdom For Living: The sort of training given in the book of Proverbs, marriage and family material, encouragement to godliness. Specific help with life problems such as budgeting, finances, work and career, conflict , friendship, personal boundaries etc. The target audience here includes overseas foreign workers, and Christian leaders in business, government, academic and cultural life. Lecturers at this level should be mature Christians preferably with some professional qualifications (such as psychology) in the area concerned. No formal assessment of students is expected at this level.

Bible and Theological Training: Similar to conventional bible colleges – OT and NT overviews, eschatology, theology, apologetics, etc. The target audience are new pastors, deacons, elders, missionaries and those seeking bible and theological knowledge to equip them in ministry. Lecturers at this level should have done some formal theological training. Assessment should consist of exams, assignments, personal journals etc and be consistent with the length and level of the course. Some audit students are welcome but the course should be assessable and have a definite lecture outline. Online multi-choice tests that are marked by computer are acceptable and time-saving methods of assessment here.

Specific Ministry Skills: Such as “Children’s Ministry” or “How To Share The Gospel With Buddhists”. Training in a specific area of ministry for people who are already practitioners or wish to take up that area of ministry. Should be solidly biblically based while imparting the necessary practical skills and knowledge. Lecturers at this level should have considerable experience in the area of ministry they are training others in. Skills-based assessment based on participation in that ministry area is preferred. For instance a Children’s Ministry course may be assessed by requiring students to report on their involvement in ministry to children and asking them to design a program for their Sunday School or Children’s Ministry.

Ministry Formation: For those who have been in ministry for a while and who need a forum to reflect on their theology and practice and to develop a deeper knowledge of God, themselves and their ministry. Lecturers at this level should possess post-graduate qualifications and have at least ten to fifteen years experience in ministry and generally be in mid-life or older. Works of deep reflection such as term papers, a small thesis and participation in journaling and online discussion forums could be part of the assessment methods used here.

The Course Content

Within this you are free to be creative and even provocative (the right kind on non-contentious provocation that stretches students). Close reference to Asian culture and world-views is encouraged as are creative approaches to presentation and assessment bearing in mind that many students will be viewing your materials on slow connections. Very large graphics and large audio or video files are not encouraged though some use of these tools can be very helpful.

Generally speaking the Bible should be the main “textbook” employed. Many students simply cannot afford expensive Western textbooks. Lecturers are encouraged to give students website URL’s where they can access needed content for free and you are strongly encouraged to put your lecture notes in an ebook that students can download. If you do not know how to do this visit www.keeboo.com or email me. Generally 20 or more lectures can be zipped into an ebook file and this can downloaded in 3 minutes or so thus saving students a lot of time and hassle. See our ebooks section for examples of these. We do not expect lecturers to be computer experts and when you come on board as a lecturer we will assign a member of our technical staff to help you with details such as compiling ebooks and setting up a student database and online assessments. You are strongly encouraged to recruit lecturers and tutors to help you with your course.

Copyright

Lecturers will retain copyright and all intellectual property rights over the course material that they personally produce. However they will give GlobalChristians.Org written permission to use it for free during the time the course is being run through GlobalChristians.Org. They shall allow GlobalChristians.Org to put the material in ebook format for students to download.

Policy Guidelines

We appreciate that our lecturers are Christians of high integrity however in the modern environment policies are necessary so the following guidelines have been put in place.

Theological Balance Lecturers shall abide by the letter and the spirit of the Aims and Beliefs of GlobalChristians.Org. Extreme views of any kind are unwelcome, these include non-Trinitarian views, baptism for salvation, speaking in tongues for salvation, keeping the Sabbath for salvation, extreme prosperity teaching, extreme legalism such as condemning all make-up, liberal theology, liberation theology, occult practices and beliefs, hyper-faith, requiring Christians to keep Jewish laws and festivals, and syncretism with pagan cultures and practices. If you are in doubt about an aspect of your teaching please check in either Millard Erickson’s Christian Theology or Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology - these are well known and trusted standard theologies.

Professionalism: Lecturers will be professional in their course delivery, have a clear lecture and course outline, and supply the necessary materials or links to them. Lecturers shall respond promptly to student queries and return student assessments within 14 days of the completion of the course.

ESL: For many students English is their second or third language so lecturers should not penalize students for errors in spelling or grammar unless it is extensive and rewriting is needed. However students should be encouraged to use a good word-processor with a spell-checker and grammar-checker.

Bribes: Lecturers shall not ask students for money or imply that grades will be given in return for favors of any kind.

Relationships: Lecturers will not enter into inappropriate friendships or sexual relationships with students or send them unwanted personal emails.

Bias: Lecturers will be free of personal, cultural and denominational bias in their marking.

Unity: Lecturers shall not be divisive in their remarks, their theology or in creating a contentious personal following. Lecturers shall act interdenominationally and in unity.

Culture: Lecturers should not be so anti-Western (or anti any culture) that it becomes an issue.

Appropriate Content: Lecturers shall not overly promote a viewpoint unrelated to their course content. A lecturer in Healing Ministry is of course free to promote a charismatic view of healing but a lecturer in Greek who used the course to push a charismatic view of healing would be out of line. Its not the topic as such (I have a charismatic view of healing personally) but whether or not it fits the course content and student expectations.

Recruiting Students: Lecturers will not promise positions in ministry to students during the time of the course. After the course is over lecturers are free to recruit promising students for their church or mission.

Direct Criticism: Lecturers shall refrain from direct criticism of persons or ministries even if they strongly disagree with them. It is fine to criticize the practice but not the person or the organization. For instance its Ok to say: “Strong emotional evangelistic appeals in crusades aimed at young children are an inappropriate and manipulative form of children’s ministry” as long as you do not say “Organization X led by Miss Y is doing it all wrong”. Students need to know the right and wrong approaches to ministry but they do not need to learn how to label and criticize other ministries.

Relationship To GlobalChristians.Org: Lecturers shall not attempt to represent GlobalChristians.Org to outside organizations or involve GlobalChristians.Org in unwanted controversy. You are a much-cherished volunteer with GlobalChristians.Org not an employee of GlobalChristians.Org. The title of senior lecturer is a functional title for use within GlobalChristians.Org not a proper academic title that you can use on your resume.

Divisiveness: Lecturers should not promote a particular bible version as the only correct version or a particular form of the Christian lifestyle as the only correct lifestyle for Christians. Neither shall they imply that their church, mission or NGO is the only one doing that kind of ministry with integrity or that it alone is “God’s anointed ministry” for today or similar views.

Still interested in being part of GlobalChristians.Org? Then go to our lecturer application form and we will get talking about putting your course online ASAP!

Blessings in the Lord,

John Edmiston

GlobalChristians.Org President