Take the opportunity to learn, grow, and gain further skills to serve your community through a Laidlaw College Course. These courses are all available to study by distance wherever you may be. You can do any of these courses for credit towards a qualification or for interest only.

This coming Semester, as well as the continued options to enrol for interest only or credit, we also have the pleasure of offering a further option to enrol as an attendant, for feature courses. This means you can come along to the class but won't have access to resources. We hope this makes learning even more accessible!

Take a look at the feature courses we have on offer below. You'll find application options at the end of the course list.

NIGHT CLASSES

ENGAGING THEOLOGY

Rev. Dr Myk Habets 25 July - 14 November | Tuesday evenings | 6:30-9:30pm Henderson & Christchurch Campuses, Distance Learning

We all want to flourish in our faith and in our relationship with God. Engaging Theology teaches Christians what theology is and how to do it well and through this, how we can know God more and know more of his will for us. Engaging Theology provides tools and resources for Christians to navigate their way through a world of competing claims, ideologies, and values, giving Christians a greater confidence in their faith and skill in communicating it to others.

This course is also available through Laidlaw At Large as an offering for church groups. Find out more here!

INTRODUCTION TO PREACHING

Ps Reuben Munn
25 July - 14 November | Tuesday evenings | 6:30-9:30pm Henderson & Christchurch Campuses, Distance Learning

Today God is raising up women and men who will proclaim his Word in the power of his Spirit with clarity, care and courage. Will you be among them? Through this course you’ll explore the core competencies that go into preparing and delivering life-giving, biblically-grounded, Spirit-filled sermons in your church context. You will come to see that preaching really is doable—it doesn’t rely on some secret, hidden knowledge revealed to only the elite. Yes, there is gifting, but preaching is also based on skills and practices that can be learned and honed. Preaching is a precious gift that God has given to his church; a gift that we should cherish and carefully cultivate in ourselves and in our congregations.

BLOCK COURSES

MAKING DISCIPLES THAT LAST 

Matt & Zara Maslin
16-18 August & 18-20 October | 9:30am-4:30pm
Henderson & Distance Learning

It is an undisputed fact that many youth and young adults drop-off from church life. In Making Disciples that Last, we endeavour to explore just that – how to make disciples THAT LAST. How curation of community, participation in practices and telling a story that makes sense of the world can support young people to thrive in their relationship with Jesus beyond siloed ministries and for the rest of their lives.

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE FOR MINISTRY
postgraduate

Rev. Dr Maja Whitaker
21-25 August | 9:30am - 4:30pm
Henderson Campus, Distance Learning

The capacity to reflect on our experience is a key skill that enables us to develop as practitioners in any field of vocation, including Christian ministry. This course is for people who are active in ministry, in either churches or community organisations, who want to deepen their practice and flourish in ministry. Students will learn to critically evaluate their ministry context, to develop practices of discernment and habits of mind that produce resilience over the long-term, and to understand what they bring to their ministry role from their own personality and as a participant in community. The course is delivered through a range of seminars, workshops, reflections and fieldwork activities, and all learning is grounded in the student’s own ministry context.

READING THE OLD TESTAMENT

Dr John de Jong, Dr Richard Neville
26 July - 15 November | Wednesdays | 1:30-4:30pm
Henderson & Christchurch Campuses, Distance Learning

The Old Testament can seem at times strange and unfamiliar: laws, genealogies, histories, and plenty of complex characters and situations. Yet it is the Old Testament that Jesus comes to fulfil – it is the frame for understanding who Christ is, and the significance of his life, ministry, death and resurrection. This course will ground and deepen your understanding and appreciation of these rich Scriptures – showing how they unfold God’s redemptive story coherently, and how we can interpret and apply them better in church, mission and community contexts.

CHRISTIAN HISTORY: OUR STORY

Rev. Dr Stuart Lange
25 July - 14 November | Tuesdays | 9:30am-12:30pm
Henderson & Christchurch Campuses, Distance Learning

The story of Christianity is the story of the unfolding impact of the Gospel of Jesus Christ on history, and also the story of how people have tried to live as Christians across cultures and time. It is a story of saints, scholars, martyrs, reformers, humanitarians, missionaries, and so many more complex men and women who have imperfectly sought to work out the implications of the Gospel in their own time and place. This course explores how Christianity and the Church has changed dramatically over 2000 years, paying particular attention to the lives and thought of key individuals as Christianity has grown from a handful of believers in first century Judea, to a global Church spread across multiple traditions, denominations and cultures.

FORMATION

Rev. Dr Maja Whitaker & Ryan Lang
27 July - 16 November | Thursdays | 9:30am-12:30pm
Henderson & Christchurch Campuses, Distance Learning

This course aims to help learners reflect on personal and communal spiritual formation, through engagement with Scripture, theological understandings and a variety of Christian spiritual traditions. This reflection will include (1) evaluation of key aspects of their own formation, (2) evaluation of their experiences of personal and communal strategies intended to facilitate spiritual growth, and (3) the development of spiritual practices which will strengthen their contribution to enhancing human wellbeing within their own social and cultural contexts.

PENTATEUCH

Dr Richard Neville
28 July - 17 November | Fridays | 9:30am-12:30pm
Henderson & Christchurch Campuses, Distance Learning

(English or Hebrew exegesis) Pre-requisite: 120; Pre/Co-requisite: 111 Pre-requisites for Hebrew option: 106 and 107

The Pentateuch or Torah sets the scene for the entirety of the Biblical narrative. In these, the Law of Moses, we begin to learn who God is, what it is to be God’s people in this world, and how God is working to redeem his good-but-broken world. If you’ve ever been confused by Deuteronomy, this course will open your eyes to the vital importance of these ancient texts to understanding the whole of the Bible, and living well in the world as twenty-first century Christians, through engaging in detailed exegesis of the original Hebrew [and English] text.

SPECIAL TOPIC: THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS

Dr Phil Church
24 July - 13 November | Mondays | 9:30am-12:30pm
Henderson & Christchurch Campuses, Distance Learning

This course focuses on the exegesis of the Epistle to the Hebrews – as relevant now as it was to the communities across the ancient Mediterranean to who it was first addressed. It places the book in its setting in the first century and as part of the New Testament and helps students to gain a thorough appreciation of its background, content, argument, and theology.

CHRISTOLOGY

Rev. Dr Myk Habets
27 July - 16 November | Thursdays | 1:30-4:30pm
Henderson & Christchurch Campuses, Distance Learning

Pre-requisite: 201

The central claim of the Christian faith is that in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, we have the pivot-point of human history – and more, we see God revealing himself fully to his creation, fulfilling the promises of the Scriptures. For Christians, truly understanding who Jesus Christ is, and what God has accomplished in him, is both necessary and transformative. This course focuses on that central question, that Christ asked his disciples – ‘who do you say I am?’ – examining the history of how people have thought about Jesus, and considering again a theology of Christ as God’s revealed Word.

MERCY, JUSTICE, AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION

Ryan Lang
28 July - 17 November | Fridays | 9:30am-12:30pm
Henderson & Christchurch Campuses, Distance Learning

We live in a world that cries out for justice, just as we know ourselves and others to be people in great need of God’s mercy. This course identifies the theological and global realities of suffering, injustice and need. It affirms the holistic nature of God’s mission to the world and the call to express mercy and justice, seeking to bring social transformation through community, national and international aid and development. This course seeks to develop creative approaches to holistic social transformation through engagement with theology, history and contemporary interventions.

BLOCK COURSES

CAPSTONE: INTEGRATIVE PRACTICE

Rev. Dr Maja Whitaker
14-16 August & 16-18 October | 9:30am-4:30pm Henderson Campus, Distance Learning

This course explores biblical, theological, and practical studies by means of a process of spiritual formation. Students will reflect on their key learnings and faith journey over their course of study and articulate a personal ethos for their vocation in the mission of God through interaction with peers and faculty members.

DEVELOPING A MINISTRY SUPERVISION PRACTICE

Dr David Crawley, Rev. Dr Karen Kemp
2-4 August & 13-15 September | 9:30am - 4:30pm
Henderson Campus

This is the second of two courses which comprise a Postgraduate Certificate in Theology, designed to equip graduates to offer professional supervision in a range of ministry contexts (understanding ministry in the broad sense of Christian vocation). Through the integration of theory, practice, and theology, it enables practitioners to develop a framework for supervision appropriate to their own cultural and professional contexts, and to engage in critically reflective practice

OLD TESTAMENT NARRATIVE: ITS METHOD AND MESSAGE

Dr John de Jong
14-18 August & 16-20 October | 9:30am - 12:30pm
Henderson Campus, Distance Learning

This course offers a transformative journey into the world of Old Testament narrative. The stories of God’s interactions with his people offer rich material for deepening our understandings of the world, our humanness and God’s mission of redemption. Delve into content, form and application, exploring the theological issues raised by reading the Old Testament as story, how these stories interact and cohere, and how we can use narrative form in preaching, ministry and Christian living.

THE CHURCH FOR OTHERS

Rev. Dr Joe McGarry 4-8 September | 9:30am - 4:30pm
Henderson Campus, Distance Learning

The church’s social advocacy is increasingly recognised as a central aspect of her witness in the world. And yet, a call to social action can often be cast aside or seen as just one priority amongst many. This course presents biblical, theological, and historical investigations into the self-emptying existence for others which rests at the heart of Christian existence. Beginning with the biblical witness regarding the community’s posture towards the vulnerable, the course then uses Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theological work to guide our discourse. We will hear Bonhoeffer ask, “Is the church the church if she does not exist for others?” and consider the significance of moving social action from the register of mission (something the church does) into the register of being (something the church is). The course will conclude by investigating historical case studies, illuminating how social action for the other historically and consistently emerges when the church lives from her faithful identity in Christ, and how it can be applied in the varied cultural contexts that exist in Aotearoa New Zealand and beyond.

To apply for these courses take a look at the options below:

As an attendant you can attend the course
As an interest only student you can attend the course and also have access to extra resources
As a student studying for credit the course will go towards a qualification