Missiology Course „From Jerusalem to Manus, the Mission of the Church”
In the spring semester of 2012 Dr. Kool taught a mission course at the Faculty of Theology of the Károli Reformed University. Altogether 7 Theological students took part in the course, one from the 5th, the rest form the 1st and 2nd years. The course was held regularly on Thursday afternoon at the premises of CIMS. The topic was divided into two parts: during the first six weeks of the semester the students examined the major steps in mission history of the universal church as well as the mission of the Hungarian proterstant churches through studying the biographies of selected persons. The students had to work in pairs: each pair had a period of Christian History and in that each individual had to research on the life of a missionary of that era. As part of their research students had to reflect on the given misionary according to some criteria:
• What was his or her motivation for mission?
• What was the focus of his/her mission?
• Where was he or she serving?
• Through which organization did the missionary go to the mission field and how did he/she kept contact with the sending churches?
• What conclusion can we draw from the life of that misionary to our lives and to today’s church?
At the second part of the semester students in the same pairs as before were asked to visit some of the mission organizations who have active missionaries from Hungary serving somewhere in the world. The task was to present the mission organization and for each student to make an interview with a present missionary.
As a result of that course first the students have gained an overview of the Christian misssion since the apostolic age until today. This overview is far more than information, but a reflection on the necessity of mission and on the different forms of mission. Second, by visiting the mission organizations the students not only got a picture of the mission work and service opportunnites of today but also have gained enthisuasm for mission.
Some comments form teh students:
• „As a result of the course now I gained a mision historical vision in addition to the Biblical and missiological understanding.I could se that the mission command of Jesus has been taken seriously by many people in the history of the Church and their work gained fruit.”
• „I have learnt a lot about mission organizations in the course and gained a broad vision on mission.”
• “Through the course we gained new knowledge and got a more open prospective on the topic of mission. Besides it is building our faith, as the topic of the course was the work of God in the world.”
• “We got a good overview on mission history.”
• “We learnt about mission organizations and possibilities for world mission.”
• “The course was not to give us information only, but we were studying a topic that we can include in our daily prayer topics and it was for the edification of our faith.”
• “I learnt a lot more about the missionary field and I hope to take part in a mission’s trip one day.”
