Cloverdale University
Fall 2008 Offerings

We provide opportunities for adult education on Sunday mornings in classroom settings, and throughout the week in various small groups.

Classes offered on Sunday mornings meet at the 9:30AM and 11AM hours. Each service time has different classes and activities available for the children and youth. Therefore, if you as a parent attend a class and a worship service, you do not have to worry that your children or youth are doing the same things for both hours.

The fall 2008 adult Sunday classes currently offered are:

 

At the 9:30AM hour–

• Understanding the Bible
• Effective Parenting in a Defective World
• Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage

At the 11AM hour –

• That the World May Know
• Created To Be God’s Friend – How God Shapes Those He Loves

At the 3PM hour –

• Financial Peace University

Class Descriptions

Foundations for Growth

This is a group of classes that we encourage everyone in the Cloverdale family to take:

Understanding the Bible – 8 week study that looks at:

Where and how we got the Bible?

How the political and geographical context affects how we read and understand scripture

How the literary context affects how we read and understand scripture

Supplementary tools for Bible study – what are they, where you find them, and how to use them

Putting it all together by looking at a couple of sections of scripture

Becoming a Contagious Christian:

An 8-week study that is designed to equip believers for effective evangelism in today’s world. It avoids stereotyped approaches that feel intimidating to many Christians. Instead, it shows ordinary believers how they can share the Gospel in a natural and powerful way while being the person God made them to be. Each session’s exercises, discussions, self-assessments, and video vignettes give step-by-step guidance to help participants become effective communicators for Christ to those around them. There’s even a section on everyday answers that will help believers respond to difficult questions regarding Christianity.

Networking:

A 6-week study to help Christians understand who God has uniquely made them to be and guide them to a place of meaningful service at Cloverdale Church. During the class each participant takes three different assessments to help them identify the three elements of your unique Servant Profile: Spiritual Gifts (“what” you’re equipped to do to serve competently), Personal Style (“how” you can best serve to serve authentically), and Ministry Passion (“where” you’re motivated to serve enthusiastically). You will also better understand God’s design for the church and your role within it.

The Truth Project:

Focus on the Family’s The Truth Project – 13-week DVD-based study is designed to equip believers with a comprehensive biblical worldview. Practically and personally, participants are reintroduced to the truth claims of God. Each lesson discusses in detail one aspect of God’s design for living out the Christian worldview in daily life. Most importantly, it addresses the need to marry our actions with our core beliefs.

Family/Couples Studies

Effective Parenting in a Defective World:

A 9-week DVD-based study designed to help parents become effective parents no matter how defective the world is we live in. Sessions 1-4 are over-arching principles that will change your understanding of the role of the parent and the role of God in the process. Sessions 5-7 are practical lessons on discipline – when and how to use it – and the all-important attitudes that parents must maintain. Sessions 8-9 are the Five Smooth Stones for Parenting. These sessions give parents simple keys they can cling to when the going gets rough.

Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage:

A 12-week DVD-based humorous look at love, life and marriage. Experience hilarious, practical and no-holds-barred advice about relationships. Laugh and learn as you explore the underlying dynamics of male/female relationships and practical solutions to common relationship woes. Learn honest and hard-hitting insights and make real positive changes in your marriage.

Love and Respect:

A 14-week DVD-based study. Researchers and counselors affirm it, and the Bible has been saying it for ages. Cracking the communication code between husband and wife involves understanding one thing: That unconditional respect is as powerful for him as unconditional love is for her. It’s the secret to marriage that every couple seeks – and that hundreds of thousands of couples are just beginning to find. This study explores what unconditional love really means to a woman and what unconditional respect really means to a man. Practical, useable, solutions are provided throughout the study.

Sustaining Love Through the Passages of Marriage:

An 8-week study. Every marriage hurts at key times in its development. By taking a long view of marriage - every marriage consists of four “marriages within a marriage” - and by recognizing these distinct stages, you can realize why the transitional times can be so turbulent. Knowing what to expect and when to expect it, you can make it through those passages without losing hope. And by making it through, you’ll experience the riches that can only be found in the next “marriage” that awaits you.

Other Classes

Financial Peace University

This 13-week DVD-based study features nationally syndicated radio personality and author, Dave Ramsey. Each week Dave humorously and poignantly covers a different area of personal finance. After the video lessons there are times of discussion and personal accountability. We have been offering this class twice a year for the past three years. Many families within our church have been able to pay off all their debt, other than their house, since going through the class. We also have a Dave Ramsey Certified Counselor on staff (Pastor Gary). We offer free one-on-one counseling to those who have taken the class or are currently enrolled.

That the World May Know Series  

This DVD-based series features the dynamic teaching of Ray Vander Laan. He has taken over 5,000 people on educational tours to the Holy Land and other Middle Eastern countries. There is nothing like talking about history and having a Biblical scholar like Ray Vander Laan guiding you through the historical sites and explaining the importance of the Biblical sites and how the Jewish context affected the Scriptures. Each lesson also features personal application faith challenges. Once you go through this study you will never read the Bible the same.

Created to Be God’s Friend – How God Shapes Those He Loves

No Christian need live without a keen sense of purpose. And no believer need give up on finding daily closeness with God. But how do we open ourselves to the intimacy with God so evident in His friendship with Abraham? How can we experience more?

This exciting and challenging study is based on Henry Blackaby’s book, Created to Be God’s Friend…How God Shapes Those He Loves. In this study of the life of Abraham, Henry Blackaby leads us on a discovery of how God shaped Abraham to be His friend. The Bible’s amazing portraits of Abraham, Blackaby tells us, show how God can make a follower a true friend, and how faith and obedience lead to a lifetime of joyous blessing.

Sometimes God uses difficult times and our own faithless choices to lead us on to spiritual maturity. Abraham’s story rings with such assurance. Created to Be God’s Friend demonstrates that God can be trusted to take us to a new place of purified character, growing love, and untold benefits.