John accepted for doctoral program at Fuller

The acceptance letter throws Sarah and John into a spin, having been hoped for earlier in the month, it arrives by snail-mail in time to leave only three days for a transatlantic snail-mail response to be received by Fuller!

Having gained a few days grace, the future is mulled over, the cost counted, options considered... and a decision made: John accepts his place on the Doctor of Missiology — Contextual Theology Cohort Program, with Fuller Theological Seminary.

The four-year DMiss degree program 

...is organized around a cohort format in which the students meet together each year for a two-week seminar. Each group of 8-12 students build community as a cohort and pledge to loosely center their studies around a theme that enables each to contribute to maximizing their research for God’s Kingdom. Ideally, each member will contribute to the collective interests of the cohort. Each cohort will be structured to meet strategic purpose, goals, and significance that are of mutual benefit to all members of the cohort.

It is being lead by Dr Wilbert Shenk and "is concerned with the issues involved in developing missiological approaches that engage each context effectively." Including:

• theological foundation for contextual missiology
• the Enlightenment trap
• models of culture
• role of outsider in developing contextual missiology
• dependence, independence, and interdependence
• healthy contextualization vs. unhealthy contextualization  

... which hopefully suggests something near to an ideal fit with the 'Train the Trainers' project in Burkina, upon which the application was based.