Receive Your Certification in Episcopal Catechismal Study

ChurchNext offers several certification programs for people who want to become well-versed in particular topics. For example, we already have a Certification in Vestry Leadership and a Certification in Prayer Book Studies. Today, we’re announcing a new focused area of study: a Certification in Episcopal Catechismal Study.

In this series of courses, participants become familiar with the topics covered in the Episcopal Catechism. At the end of this series, participants should be have a solid understanding of each section of the catechism. They should be able to open the prayer book to any section of the catechism and have a good sense of what beliefs and systems that section affirms.

Upon completion, either the individual taking the series or a mentor guiding their study may write hello@churchnext.tv and let us know you have completed your certification program. We will send your customized ChurchNext Certificate in Episcopal Catechismal Study.

 

Courses in this series include:

This series can be used in many ways

  • It can help any Christian refresh their understanding of the basic tenets of the Episcopal approach to faith.
  • It can help adults prepare for baptism.
  • It can help young people prepare for confirmation.
  • It can be a tool used in catechumenate programs.
  • It can help new Episcopalians gain an understanding of our denomination’s approach to familiar Christian concepts.

Please note that all these courses are formatted for both individual and group study. They can, therefore, be adapted for use in many different contexts. Here are some examples:

  • The For Groups courses can be the basis for group study, but they don’t have to be. You can combine them with other group activities.
  • If a church is doing an in-person study series and someone has to miss a session, they can take a short online course on the topic — or even just relevant sections of a course — to keep up.
  • Courses can be adapted for hybrid study programs in all sorts of ways — doing some classes at home and some in person, for example, or doing a program with at-home and in-person subgroups.
  • The list could go on, but you get the idea. Be creative! These courses are adaptable tools.

Just Launched: Updated Version of Let the Women Speak! with Lindsay Hardin Freeman

Most of you already know that Lindsay Hardin Freeman is doing our free, live Good Book Club course: Examining Ruth and Esther starting this Wednesday, January 11. As of today, we have 333 people signed up to take it, and it should be extremely interesting. (If you haven’t signed up, we encourage you to do so. It will meet on six consecutive Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. E.T. starting this Wednesday. Click here to register.)

Since Lindsay will be doing this course with us, we thought it also would be a good time to update her course Let the Women Speak! For Individuals and For Groups. The course is based on her book Bible Women: All Their Words and Why They Matter, a second expanded edition of which is coming out on Feb. 1.

The women of the Bible lived in patriarchal cultures that granted them so little power that the men who ran their world regarded them as nonentities. Yet they blaze across the centuries in all their wisdom and pain, energy and intelligence, diplomacy and passion.


Tamar goes to creative lengths to deceive Judah into taking on responsibilities his sons neglected (Genesis 38).

 

 

 

Ruth declares that rather than abandoning her mother-in-law to despair and death, she will give up her citizenship and her place in the world to care for her — and she follows up on that promise with some serious risk-taking (The Book of Ruth).

 

 

 

 

The woman at the well has one of the lengthiest, most sophisticated conversations with Jesus of anyone in the gospels (John 4).

 

 

 

 

Joanna, Mary of Clopas, Mary Magdelene, and the other women gaze in astonishment on the empty tomb as the angels tell them Jesus has risen from death (John 19).

 

 

The women of the Bible act as powerful — and often surprising — agents of God. They influenced Christian history in powerful ways, and in this course you’ll begin to see how. Lindsay Hardin Freeman’s thoughtful, reverent, and intelligent presentations help these admirable and memorable figures come alive.

Our instructor, writer and Episcopal priest Lindsay Hardin Freeman (M.A., M.Div), has studied and written extensively on women in the Bible. She and her team of researchers were the first to count and profile all the women whose words are recorded in the Bible, resulting in the publication of Bible Women: All Their Words and Why They Matter (a second edition of which will be released in 2023). We hope you’ll find time to investigate her class on Bible women and what we can learn from them.

 

What Does “Updated” Mean?

Just as books with high-quality content need to be updated occasionally, some of our earlier courses do as well. When we relaunch a course, that means we have reviewed its video content and find that it remains strong and relevant, but the accompanying materials (introductions, discussion questions, supporting materials) could benefit from an update, either to remain consistent with what we’re doing now in terms of style or content or because references we made might have started to feel dated. When we find a good course that needs a little routine maintenance, we update it and re-launch it so you know it’s been reviewed and revised to remain current and helpful.

This course is ideal for anyone interested in women in the Bible or biblical study in general. For a course preview, please click below.