Program, Structure & Vision
SEM is a carefully-structured holistic, experiential and transformational equipping course. The SEM program guides students’ spiritual formation in four crucial areas: mind formation, heart formation, relational formation, and lifestyle.
Most regular, church-going Christians have never walked through a process of comprehensive “discipleship” that includes:
- a solid foundation of a Jesus-centered worldview
- personal healing
- dynamic connection with God
- solid biblical and theological training for everyday life as a life-long disciple-missionary of Jesus
This kind of discipleship is impossible to accomplish through weekly sermons and periodic classes alone!
SEM’s purpose is to equip future leaders who can expand and carry forward the vision of a Jesus-looking God, forming Jesus-looking communities, who impact their world in Jesus-looking ways.
Enrollment & Course Completion
Prospective students apply for acceptance into the three-year program and then enroll for each year of the program. Yearly enrollment involves committing to the nine-month program (September-May). Successful completion of each year’s courses is a prerequisite for students being eligible to enroll in the subsequent year.
Those who successfully complete the three-year program will be “certified” in Kingdom Missional Theology by Woodland Hills Church. This is not currently an accredited degree program. Certification may qualify participants for a number of possible future relational or leadership roles within Woodland Hills, or as an affiliate partner ministry of Woodland Hills.
Each of the three years of the program involves a different focus, and these can be taken in any order. In any given year, students will be in a cohort with others who are either in their first, second, or third year of the program. The focuses of each year are:
Worldview and Narrative Formation
- God’s Grand Story – meta-narrative
- Discover the Kingdom
- Upside-Down Kingdom
- Repenting of Religion
- Being Church
- Covenant Relationships 1
- Spiritual Warfare 1
Personal and Relational Formation
- Gospels Immersion – life and teachings of Jesus
- Mind-renewal – imaginative prayer, practicing the presence
- Soul-Shaping – spiritual disciplines
- Covenant Relationships 2
- Becoming Whole Hearted – inner healing
- Spiritual Warfare 2
Biblical and Theological Formation
- New Testament Letters / Exegesis
- Bible 101
- Theology 101
- Radical Church History
- Creation Care
- Gift-Based Ministry
- Racial Reconciliation – Justice Journey
- Spiritual Warfare 3
Instruction
Instruction will involve a combination of live, in-class teachings and online video teachings outside of class. SEM teachers include Greg Boyd, Kevin Callaghan, Paul Eddy, and other guest teachers.
Supportive SEM Community Connections
Students will connect with each other and SEM leaders outside of class to support their learning and growth journey:
- Each fall begins with a long weekend retreat in Minnesota. Students will meet or reconnect in-person with each other over three days. The retreat will include times of worship, prayer, brief teachings or experiential activities, recreation/game times, and “down-time” to get to know each other and build relationship. Costs for travel, food and lodging are incorporated into the SEM tuition.
- Students will be helped to form monthly cohort groups of 3-4 students, meeting on Zoom. These groups provide informal connection, processing, support and prayer throughout the three-year journey.
SEM Statement of Theological Values & Beliefs
We believe that …
- …the essence of God is a triune community of agape love (Father, Son, Spirit),
- …Jesus is God-incarnate who perfectly reflects the loving character and heart of God and whose birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension to the throne results in salvation: the defeat of Satan’s power, freedom from sin’s power, healed and reconciled relationships between us, God, and each other, and restoration of humanity to our original created dignity and mission as God’s image on earth,
- …humanity has fallen-away and strayed from intimate relational union with God and trusting obedience to God’s will, and as a result is in bondage to sin, which is anything that falls short of God’s loving will and our true calling and identity,
- …evil has its origin not in God but in the spiritual warfare being waged against God and humanity by fallen principalities and powers and in the free wills of human agents who choose to act in opposition to God’s loving will…
- … salvation is not merely forgiveness from guilt and rescue from future punishment, but deliverance and freedom from sin, Satan, the flesh, reconciliation to right relatedness with God, ourselves, others and creation itself, and restoration to our true identity and calling as God’s image-bearing children,
- …the Church is the community of those who bow their knee pledging full allegiance to Jesus as King, enter into the New Covenant family of God through new birth by God’s indwelling Holy Spirit, are forgiven and freed from sin’s power, reconciled and intimately reunited with God, and empowered for transformation and obedience, and are given gifts for ministry within the church and for mission to the world,
- …the Kingdom of God is God’s wise and loving rule manifested through the visible community of Jesus actively living out the counter-cultural, non-violent and reconciling ways of Jesus among and for the sake of the nations,
- … the return of Jesus where the future fulness of the Kingdom of God will be established and where he will bring about the resurrection of the dead and the restoration and reconciliation of all creation,
- …and that all these truths are grounded in the Bible, which is the inspired, trustworthy, and therefore authoritative revelation about who God is, who we are, and what he is up to in the world.
- And we believe that biblical faith is both the heart-conviction of the truth of all these things and the faithful, obedient commitment to actively live them out in daily life.
