Spring 2024 Cohort Opportunities
Baltimore Spring Break
Hayley Meyers
Baltimore Urban Studies is a “study away,” experiential learning program, designed to teach, mentor, and train Christian college students in spiritual formation and public health while providing urban global health internships. As a program, they invite students from any major to dialogue across multiple disciplines, grapple with complex issues and questions, and integrate this learning with their faith through Scripture engagement. Through a fall break trip, students will get a taste of the sights, sounds, and culture of Baltimore, visit several organization sites, and dialogue with BUS faculty about what it looks like to promote holistic wellness.
Boundary Waters Class
Matt Miliner, Dan Haase
The course is known as Boundary Waters, and it takes place alternately at Honey Rock and on Wheaton’s campus. This course also includes dialogue with Native American communities, seeing that Ignatian spirituality is the first form of Christianity that interacted with Midwestern Native Americans. The course therefore combines our own penitential journeys with a regional penitence based on the injustices of American history. The key feature of the Honey Rock version of the course is therefore engagement with Christian Ojibwe at the Bad River reservation on Lake Superior. We are applying for a grant so that we can include this component in the on-campus version this Spring as well.
Women's Bible Study
Desteni Battles
We’re proposing an intergenerational Women’s Book Study for Wheaton College Undergraduates and Graduate Students will meet in Spring 2024 on a bi-weekly basis for study, discussion, fellowship and mutual encouragement. Our tentative curriculum will be: “Live Your Truth and Other Lies: Exposing Popular Deceptions That Make Us Anxious, Exhausted, and Self-Obsessed” by Alisa Childers. Our intergenerational Women’s group will also gather together once a month for a dinner (catered or off campus) fellowship event to further cultivate love and unity as sisters in Christ and daughters of God. Biblical literacy and Scripture engagement will be fostered as lies, deception and falsehood are identified, rejected and hearts are cultivated to receive the Word of God and walk in light of the Truth.
Purpose-Driven Life Book Study
Dr. Kim
Our project is to form a cohort consisting of 5-20 students and do a book study on The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?, written by Rick Warren. We will have a weekly meeting to share our reflections on a chapter or two from the book, which is infused with lots of Scriptural messages and references. Once a month we will visit College of DuPage or Harper College to evangelize students and help them discover the meaning of life and the purposes in God. In the spring, we will have a bible conference and invite students to attend.
DSG Coaching
Donna Struthers
Our DSG Coach’s Group would like to put in practice the compassion of Jesus that we have been studying in the Book of John this semester. We would like to provide tangible items of encouragement to the homeless and immigrant communities in Chicago. Items might include food items, feminine products, blankets, gift cards and handwritten notes. We are asking for funds to cover the cost of supplies to be distributed to the homeless as well as an honorarium for a speaker to help prepare students for distribution.
Journey to Joy: Hope and Healing for Hurting People
Esther Carlson
Do you feel discouraged? Are you deeply hurt and struggling to regain your sense of identity and self-worth? Discover the God who LOVES you, UNDERSTANDS your pain, has a GOOD PLAN for your life, and can do the IMPOSSIBLE. This study offers HOPE, HELP and HOW TO’s from God’s Word to help you grow deep in your faith. With God’s help, you can choose to Change, Forgive, Believe, Hope, and Dream. It is never too late Begin Again!
Faculty Retreat
Sharenda Barlar, David Sertan, Nadine Rorem
The purpose of this proposal is to pilot a faculty weekend “sabbath retreat” at the conclusion of the Advanced Faith and Learning Seminar: Spiritual Formation under the direction of David Setran. The twelve disciple-faculty participants will implement the spiritual rhythms studied throughout the year in the seminar with the intention of developing a future sabbath retreat for Wheaton faculty.
Family Groups
Andrew King
Family Group is a culturally AAPI small group. It is for students to commune and fellowship with one another, grow in their Asian identity, and become more like Christ. This small group is open to Asians and non-Asians alike. Students who participate in Family Group can expect to experience an intimate community, fellowship around meals, prayer, and conversations around the Scriptures.
Female Strongholds
Ashley Christopher, Ella Wickim
We are engaging in regular trainings with Female Strongholds leaders and coaches as well as combined trainings with Male Strongholds throughout the year. It is our goal trough these trainings to help promote biblical literacy through speakers, discussion, and curriculum to help our leaders grow in their understanding of biblical sexuality. Furthermore, it is our desire to share this knowledge with the rest of the Wheaton community through a campus conference and panel put on by Male and Female Strongholds surrounding biblical sexuality by bringing in a speaker prominent in the field.
Reading While Black Book Study
Gloria Yoon
Our project entails having a cohort of students read Dr. Esau McCaulley’s critically acclaimed book, “Reading While Black” throughout the spring semester. Psalm 89:14 tell us that “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of [God’s] throne, love and faithfulness go before [him],” yet these seem to be some important Biblical themes that are not engaged with as much. Our project seeks to promote Biblical literacy by using “Reading While Black” as a lens through which our participants can thereby engage with Scripture in a new perspective that is still profoundly Biblical.
Gospel Choir
Victory Adams, Tanya Egler
The plan we are proposing is to host a dinner with our prayer partners, local community, and people on campus. We want to invite Pastor Tim Quainoo to give a sermon after we have fellowship surrounded by music and food. We would like to end the night by collecting prayer requests to keep people lifted in spirit and have a deeper bond within Christ to draw them near to him.
GPS Study Abroad
Hannah Ting, Terri McCully
For years, GPS has lacked a spiritual formation resource for semester study abroad students, especially for those participating in non-Christian partner programs. Our goal is to develop a biblical curriculum that sensitively engages and supports the student’s cross-cultural adaptation experience during their semester off-campus. Through self-reflection prompts, asynchronous group discussion, and local service opportunities abroad, we seek to deepen students’ love for God, the global church, and the world. While studying in various places around the globe, scripture-based fellowship with other study abroad peers could foster an extension of Wheaton’s Christ-centered community beyond campus.
Landscape Operations
Tom Trayser
We would like to include a two-hour design presentation for participants that covers the fundamental design principles we’ve found that describe The Father’s handiwork in the natural landscape. With that understanding, we can now apply it everywhere! It’s basic and easy to understand yet profound in how the concepts apply to everything from getting dressed to designing a kitchen to landscaping a home. Ideally, we would include all in the design process for this particular landscape.
How Not to Read the Bible
Les Barker
A six-to-eight-week exploration of memes and negative stereotypes of Scripture in our culture… and ways to understanding those scriptures in historical and cultural context. Based loosely on five questions posed by author Dan Kimball (in the book of the same title) this course provides opportunity to discuss these memes, address our own scriptural literacy, and explore resources and avenues for growth. The result will be greater confidence in the Scriptures, a deeper desire to abide in Scripture, and confidence to engage with others about those topics.
Male Strongholds
Micahel Walmer
Male Strongholds engages in weekly trainings where leaders, coaches, cabinet, and staff members gather for 90 minutes to invite a speaker to speak to an aspect of sexuality in Scripture. We are proposing to use funds to help support our weekly training sessions through various speakers and build a foundational understanding of Biblical sexuality within our ministry. The growth in love for Scripture will culminate in a service project in the form of a conference to promote daily discourse and awareness of Biblical sexuality campus-wide and in the greater Chicago area.
Cost of Discipleship Group
Melissa Doogan, Greg Anderson
The goal of this group is to give graduate students an opportunity to engage with Scripture personally and devotionally alongside their pursuit of academic studies. Our weekly meetings will include readings from and study of the Sermon on the Mount as we read The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, which is Bonhoeffer’s work based on the Sermon on the Mount.
The SEND Conference
Pam Hittee
I would like to prepare students to go to The Send (https://thesend.org), a conference that trains college students on how to live a missional lifestyle, and then then continue to meet with these students to implement the things they learn at the conference. This will lead to a topical study on what the bible says it means about being missional.
Refuge DSG
Eric Larson
Refuge Discipleship Small Group (DSG): a group of about 15-20 undergraduate students who are wrestling with their sexuality and/or gender – and seeking to follow Jesus as their Lord and Savior. This group is already organized, but is under-resourced. On a weekly basis, we meet as a group, share devotional words with one another (from Scripture), share life together, dig into God's Word, and pray for the Lord's wisdom and strength to steward sexuality in Christ-honoring ways by the power of the Spirit.
Skivangelisim
Josh Winnes
Our mission is to show people that evangelism belongs in the ordinary spaces as much as it belongs in the extraordinary ones and we carry that mission out by bringing the gospel to the ski slopes here in Illinois. A key facet of doing life with God together is finding his heart in our everyday lives, so our vision closely parallels that of LWGT. Seeking out and finding God’s heart requires an intimate understanding of his Word which can only come from engaging with it. Thus our mission not only aligns with but actively practices biblical literacy and Scripture engagement among the Wheaton College Community.
Student Missionary Partners
Hannah Mullins
SMP is offering 6 Spring Break trips and 10 Summer trips in 2024, connecting with missionaries and organizations across the globe. To facilitate the holistic education related to missions, SMP holds orientations that include lectures from Wheaton faculty members on topics such as the spiritual posture of traveling well in foreign and non-Christian contexts, healthy team dynamics, and missiology. Site-specific book studies engage with biblical themes and challenges relevant to the specific spiritual context teams will be entering.
TESOL-World Relief + Refugee
Alan Seaman
This Life with God Together grant proposal focuses on ministry to refugees in the Wheaton area, with an emphasis on gaining a biblical perspective on refugees through reading, discussions, and participation on local ESL classrooms. Specifically, the members of this cohort (MA TESOL students on campus) will read a book by Wheaton BTS professor Dr. Danny Carroll, (The Bible and Borders: Hearing God’s Word on Immigration), meet weekly for prayer and discussion about the book, and serve as classroom assistants with refugee students in a project sponsored by World Relief DuPage Aurora (WRDA).
TESOL-Theological Perspectives on Language and Education
Pam Barger
This project is aimed at deepening the integration of faith and learning for our TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) graduate students. For our inaugural graduate intensive course, Theological Perspectives on Language and Education, which meets on August 12-16, 2024, this project aims to supplement the course by providing graduate students more mentoring and application of biblical components to think theologically and intentionally about their vocations as teachers. The goal for this cohort is to develop an articulate project examining their roles as Christian educators in the local and global context.
Voice for Life
Rachel Burtness
The LWGT initiative is a wonderful opportunity to ground our club's mission more firmly in the Word. Voice for Life is devoted to protecting and nurturing the flourishing of life as God designed it in all stages and for all people. We specifically seek to provide students with a biblical basis for the human rights issue of abortion, as well as to further our club's call to equip men and women to choose life in a variety of contexts. The LWGT initiative would ground the VFL cabinet in God's Word as we plan events, witness at Planned Parenthood, serve at Waterleaf Women's Center, attend pro-life marches and summits, and plan a Women's Conference.
The Women's Conference focuses on Romans 12:1-2. See more details under budget proposal.
Men’s Conference
Justin Heth
The goals of the conference are fivefold: 1. Worship the King; 2. Encourage the hearts of men; 3. Empower men to new levels of personal growth and responsibility; 4. Develop men who help those around them flourish; 5. Affirm the heart of God for men and their value in our society. These goals will be accomplished through hearing the word of God preached, designing worship sets led by students, and through offering eight breakout sessions that focus on specific topics pertinent to college men.
Women’s Conference
Rachel Burtness, Jared Falkner
We are planning a Women’s Conference titled “Embodied Faith: Navigating Womanhood in a Post-Modern World. Our project aligns with the LWGT goal because, centered on Romans 12:1-2, this conference will explore how we as women can use our bodies to glorify the Lord. The way we relate to and view our bodies is of growing importance in a culture giving many mixed messages to young women. What does it look like to give ourselves to God as living sacrifices? Following Jesus’s example of self-sacrifice and love, how can we offer our bodies and lives as women in the 21st century?
Civil Rights Group
Gloria Yoon
Over President’s Weekend, our group will be departing on our annual Civil Rights Tour. Our project aligns with the initiative’s goal of promoting biblical literacy and Scripture engagement by offering space and time for rich learning and discussion. Graduate students come from all walks of life and bring so much knowledge from their different disciplines, and we are excited for the ways that this opportunity will help them challenge and push each other in the ways that they see Christ and His work throughout the Civil Rights Era.