Steve Kohnert, Coordinator for Hispanic Church Planting at Mission Gospel Ministries International on his experience at Maranatha in the Cross Cultural Studies MA program:
While serving as an assistant pastor and music leader in our church and Christian school, the Lord began leading me into cross-cultural work with our local Hispanic population. While I had Spanish language skills and a Hispanic wife, I found myself lacking the training and education necessary to pastor our outreach efforts as we began to grow into a church. MBS offered the exact program to meet my needs: the Master of Arts in Cross-Cultural Studies. In this program, I was able to take classes online, in one week modules on campus, and in virtual classroom settings from my laptop while sitting in my office or my living room. I was taking courses with professors who had experience in mission work and who encouraged me to apply course papers and projects to my local setting and interests. The rest of my life’s responsibilities never slowed down or lessened during my seminary training, but thanks to the leadership and provision of MBS, I fulfilled a lifelong dream and graduated from seminary!
Have you looked recently at the fields? Is God calling you to serve in them full-time? Is He calling you to serve overseas in a vocation outside of full-time ministry?
At Maranatha, we know the fields are everywhere, including restricted-access countries. If you want to be as prepared as possible for this biblical challenge and mandate, consider the Master of Arts in Cross-Cultural Studies. This program emphasizes the theology and practicality of missions topics like church planting, inner-city ministry, and inter-cultural communication, applied from a strong biblical and theological framework . Missions courses are taught by experienced missionaries and mission directors, and you’ll have opportunities to minister in various fields through summer missions trips and internships.
Objectives
- To demonstrate the validity of a Fundamentalist and Baptist approach to theology and the practical Christian life.
- To develop and promote a confidence in the Bible as God’s inspired Word and our authority for faith and practice.
- To instill a value for the work of the ministry through developing an understanding and appreciation of the various opportunities and challenges common to the Lord’s work with an emphasis on ministry in the local church.
- To inculcate students with biblical truth, a methodology for doing theology, and instruction in the use of appropriate tools for theological and ministry-related research.
- To equip students with interpretive skills, based on a dispensational approach to hermeneutics, for life-long ministry and personal spiritual growth.
- To develop within students the skills necessary for public/private communication of scriptural truth.
- To equip missionaries for ministry in cross-cultural situations.
- To develop an understanding of current trends and theological issues in missions today, with biblical answers to those trends and issues.
