STUDENT NEWSLETTER: 31 March 2011

Overseas Council Survey Confirms Popularity of DE

In September 2010, Overseas Council International, in collaboration with VisionSynergy, created and distributed a survey on distance education which was completed by 116 institutions. The results have just been released and confirm the move towards distance education. More than three-quarters of respondents (76.5%) believe that distance education will have a significant effect on theological education in the future. By far the leading positive aspect of distance education was its ability to provide better access, allowing for greater affordability, ability to provide training to Christian professionals, and ability to reach younger students. A second major category of positive perceptions related to educational practice, with significant numbers of institutions pointing to distance education's ability to allow students to learn while serving in ministry.

New edition of Conspectus now available

They are some of the countries from where delegates have registered for our exciting 4/14 Window Conference to be held at the Edenvale Baptist Church from 11-13 May.

Apart from the plenary sessions where our guest speakers will highlight the 4/14 Window Movement, Child Theology and Play Therapy, they will also be conducting practical workshops.

Daniel Sweeney, for example, will do the following:

- Recognising the signs and symptoms of sexual abuse

- Play therapy with sexually abused children

- Play Therapy with Foster/Adoptive children

- Trauma and Brain Treatment considerations

- Causes, Symptoms and Treatment of Attachment Disruption.

Dan Brewster will do three sessions on Child, Church and Mission.

Keith White's sessions are:

- Biblical Exegesis of Psalm 8

- Biblical Exegesis of Matt 16-21

- An example of Applied Theology: The Growth of Love

- Toddling into the Kingdom: a Radical Challenge for the Church.

Other workshop speakers include Robert Botha (An innovative funding model in support of holistic child development for children at risk), Thea du Plessis (Children's Spirituality; Children's Church: Doing Things Their Way), Gerhard Botha (Children's Prayer Network) and EE3 for Kids.

The plenary on day 3 will include testimonies from children.

In order to take advantage of the Early Bird price you need to book and pay before 15th April.

This is a conference you simply cannot miss! Go to http://www.satsonline.org/node/7212 for more detail or email jenny@sats.edu.za

Annual Graduation Ceremony

On Saturday 16 April, 223 students will be graduating from the South African Theological Seminary. This is a proud moment for us because it sees the largest number of graduates in the history of the seminary.

The guest speaker will be Professor Arthur Song, who will sadly be retiring this year. He has faithfully served SATS for many years and made an invaluable contribution. We will sorely miss him.

In the next newsletter we will publish some of the noteworthy thesis titles from our MTh and PhD graduates.

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The latest edition of Conspectus, our internationally peer-reviewed journal, which of course is free, will be published on Friday 15th April. It boasts an array of articles which will attract a variety of theological readers. Here is the list:

•  Asumang, ‘Resist him' (1 Pet 5:9): Holiness and Non-Retaliatory Responses to Unjust Suffering as ‛Holy War' in 1 Peter

•  Brodie, The Anointing or Theological Training? A Pentecostal Dilemma

•  Howell and Lioy, Employing Speech Act Theory as an Exegetical Tool on the Matthean Beatitudes

•  Lioy, An Evolutionary Creationist Process for the Origin of Humanity

•  Scarborough, Deconstructing ‘Transformational' in Christian Transformational Leadership

•  Peppler, Review of Brian McLaren, A New Kind of Christianity

•  Smith, Review of Roger E Olson, Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities

•  Woodbridge, Review of George Barna, Transforming Children into Spiritual Champions

From Friday they will be available at http://www.satsonline.org/content/theological-research-conspectus