Graduate Course Descriptions
Home > Academics > Course Description Overview > Graduate Course Descriptions


MAGL 5315   (3-3-0)   Leadership Practicum (S-L)
The course consists of supervised experience in a challenging work environment under the guidance of mentoring relationships provided by a proficient veteran in the field and an academic advisor. Students improve leadership skills in field experience that stretches and tests their abilities. Students learn to identify and utilize personal strengths effectively and to manage weaknesses in real life settings.  This course contains a field-based service-learning component.
Prerequisite: None.


MAGL 5316   (3-3-0)   Global Leadership Practicum (S-L)
The course places students in a challenging cross-cultural situation where it is necessary to show ability in managing different customs, norms and expectations produced by inter-cultural encounter. Special attention will be given to developing effective strategies for enhancing understanding among people of vastly different cultural backgrounds.  This course contains a field-based service-learning component.
Prerequisite: None.


MAGL 5330   (3-3-0)   Introduction to Missiology
An introductory study of the theory and practice of Christian missions, examining the challenge of adapting how the gospel is best communicated to specific cross-cultural situations. The course is designed to orient students to the challenges of giving a coherent cross-cultural witness to the gospel, but it will be of special interest to prospective missionaries and those who anticipate a ministry in a multicultural context. The course will include the biblical foundation for missions.   
Prerequisite: None.


MAGL 5331   (3-3-0)   Cross-Cultural Living and Ministry
The course is an inter-cultural exercise in learning how to personally engage a new population with the good news of the gospel, the course focuses on the role of the individual who serves others in a cross-cultural environment and analyzes issues of cultural adaptation, language acquisition, and contextualization of gospel witness. Helpful insights are given to improve inter-cultural skills because of the multicultural nature of modern society and of most local church settings.   Online.
Prerequisite: None.


MAGL 5332   (3-3-0)   Strategies for Missionary Work
An in depth study of strategies and tactics for missionary work; reviews the history of strategic approaches in missions, culminating with current strategies for reaching unreached people groups (UPGs); includes overview of the development and nature of the UPG paradigm. Students use current case studies, existing strategy plans, and contacts with field-based missions teams to develop a thorough understanding of the UPG approach to missions.   
Prerequisite: None.


MAGL 5333   (3-3-0)   Local Church on Mission
The course teaches practical steps to developing a “missional” church devoted to sharing the gospel in positive terms in its own community, region, nation, and world. The course provides tools for church workers who desire for their church to have a global agenda. Attention will also be given to planning and conducting local and international volunteer missions projects.   
Prerequisite: None.


MAGL 5334   (3-3-0)   Chronological Bible Storying
The course helps students learn to communicate more effectively to non-literate oral learners by using stories and narratives to communicate an essential Christian message. Students will come to understand that most of the world's population does not learn by literate, but by oral methods, so that our communication style must reflect their preferred manner of learning. Worldview issues determine the precise choices of key Bible stories so that the Christian message can engage their cultural understandings at deep levels.  
Prerequisite: None.


MAGL 5335   (3-3-0)   Biographies of Outstanding Missionaries
The course consists of reading biographies of inspiring examples of Christian living and ministry from the history of missions. Biographies from the early church, medieval missions, the modern missionary movement, and recent missionary leaders are read. These personal models for kingdom work are instructive in learning personal habits that can achieve greatness in servant leadership and provide case studies by which missiological principles and strategies may be arrived at inductively. The class considers how examples of lives lived to honor God have made significant contributions in very different settings around the world.  
Prerequisite: None.


MAGL 5340   (3-3-0)   Strategic Christian Witness in the Global Marketplace
A study of emerging trends in mission strategy for creative access and developing platforms that unite global business, cultural and educational interchange and effective cross-cultural witness. The course integrates entrepreneurial business methods with inter-cultural communication of the Christian message.  
Prerequisite: None.


MAGL 5341   (3-3-0)   Perspectives on the World Christian Movement
The course reviews recent and best thinking on the advance of world evangelization by reviewing the biblical basis for missions, the history of worldwide expansion of Christianity, cultural adaptation and competencies required for work among remote peoples, and missionary strategies. Students read from an anthology of top missiological thinking by evangelicals prepared by the US Center for World Mission. Students learn where missions has taken Christianity today and where global evangelization efforts should be going.   
Prerequisite: None.


MAGL 5342   (3-3-0)   Ethnography, Cultures, and Worldviews
The course introduces students to applied ethnography, where they will learn the essentials of how to conduct interviews with persons from a different cultural identity to ascertain customs, values, and worldview understandings. Students learn to "read" a culture and to understand its way of viewing reality. Principles from social sciences such as sociology, anthropology, and demographics enrich the methodology used to analyze how people from a different cultural background think, feel, act, and relate to one another.  Online.
Prerequisite: None.


MAGL 5343   (3-3-0)   Understanding Islam
The course is an introductory examination of Islamic faith and practice, designed for those with little previous understanding of Islamic culture and its doctrinal beliefs. Students will learn to describe the principle features of Islamic religious beliefs, and to identify differences between sects and groups within Islam. They will analyze Islamic influence upon Middle Eastern culture and consider how this fast growing religion will influence the shape of global geo-politics in the future.  
Prerequisite: None.


MAGL 5344   (3-3-0)   Strategies for Urban Ministries
The course provides tools to engage the urban setting around the globe as metropolis, inner city, and suburban area. Students learn skills for civic and personal transformation that grow out of Christian ministry and witness. Biblical models for addressing the needs of urban dwellers and sociological analysis of the changing urban panorama provide the background for examining creative strategies and consideration of effective models where churches make a difference in the city.  
Prerequisite: None.


MAGL 5351   (3-3-0)   History and Culture of East Asia
This course will explore the historical background of China, Japan, and Korea; analyzing the East Asian culture and the current dynamics of social issues in these three countries.   Fall, Spring, Online.
Prerequisite: None.


MAGL 5352   (3-3-0)   History of East Asian Philosophy and Religion
This course will explore the history of East Asian philosophy, religious beliefs, and practices from the area's prehistory to the present.  Spring.
Prerequisite: None.


MAGL 5353   (3-3-0)   Fine Arts in East Asia
An overview of the visual and performing arts of East Asia. Field trips to art museums and cultural events will be required.  Spring, Online.
Prerequisite: None.


MAGL 5354   (3-3-0)   Literature of East Asia
This course will explore selected masterpieces of China, Japan, and Korea from the earliest periods through the 19th century.  Fall, Online.
Prerequisite: None.


MAGL 5355   (3-3-0)   Leadership in East Asia
A comprehensive introduction to and survey of the principles of leadership in East Asian culture will be covered. This course examines the topic of leadership issues in East Asia and how the leadership style has been developed in the East Asian societies. Students will study the historical and cultural backgrounds of leadership in China, Japan, and Korea and examine how the cultural values influence the methods of leadership. Emphasis is placed on the comparative study of leadership philosophies and practices between East Asian culture and American culture. Students will become familiar with past and current leaders in East Asia, and study development of leadership skills in a cross-cultural environment to enable them to become effective business and organizational leaders in East Asian culture.   
Prerequisite: None.


MAGL 5356   (3-3-0)   Business and Finance in East Asia
This course examines the topic of successful business in East Asian countries. Students will study the historical and cultural backgrounds of each country and examine how these backgrounds impact current business practices. Emphasis is placed on the analysis of financial issues in China, Japan, and South Korea. Students will survey the economic development of these countries focusing on the development of financial markets. The course also examines the current financial issues these countries are dealing with.   Spring.
Prerequisite: None.