Criteria for Instructors

Who should be teaching in Perspectives classes and what are the criteria?

With the instructors' help, we are aiming to help students build a practical vision of God's global purpose and to see how their lives can play a significant part in His global mission. This is done through 15 lessons that cover a wide variety of concepts through Biblical, historical, cultural and strategic dimentions. Go to the Lesson Summaries page to view a list of lessons with short summaries. We are looking for instructors who agree with our purpose and who passion and ability to cover the material in their lesson in an engaging way that integrates with life experience. Instructors are invited to Perspectives classes either through personal connection with local coordinators or other Perspectives staff, or they may complete an application to be added to our Instructor Database (which coordinators search to find instructors each semester). Both those who apply nationally and those who are invited to a local class will be added to this Instructor Database.

Effective Perspectives instructors do the following:

Help students comprehend and recall a few of the main points of the lesson instead of attempting to restate every detail of the lesson.
Help students recognize the signifance of the ideas so that they can shape an operative paradigm or vision of God at work fulfilling his purpose, and His people at work through history fulfilling the task entrusted to them.
Present material with a blend of their lecture, small group discussion, and interaction with questions from students.
Inspire and encourage students by mentioning their own expeirneces, struggles and goals, especially as they may be relavent to the topic of the lesson.
Are gifted in speaking to groups of 40 to 150 and able to engage the audience
For Partner Agency Instructors - Are able to speak proficiently on their ministries vision, activity around the world, and how to learn more about their ministry.

To apply to be an instructor:

Contact our Instructor Coordinator, Gloria, at gloria.sewall@perspectives.org for an application.
You will be able to indicate if you are associated with a partner agency on the application.

Overseas experience is not required, although since one of the major goals in Perspectives is mobilization, instructors with compelling testimonies are sometimes the most effective.

Resources available to instructors:

The Study Guide and Reader. The Study Guide will be your primary resource for developing your teaching plan. It summarizes the main points that we want students to learn as they read. We highly encourage you to read the articles the students will be reading from the Reader as well. You will be eligible to receive a free copy of the Study Guide and Reader if you become a Perspectives instructor.
Instructor Guidelines for each lesson are currently being developed (June 2011), which include main points not to miss, helpful but not essential material, tangents and controversial points to aviod, how lessons interace with other lessons in the course, and how the distincitve missiology in Perspectives compares to conventional ideas about missions.
Resources Developed by Other Instructors. We have examples of power point presentations and audio from other instructors that you may find helpful as examples as you develop your lessons. We also have the graphics from the texts available for your use in your presentation.