Come Join Our Academy

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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January 13, 2021

00:03: Hello, welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.
00:07: This is a daily conversation about scripture, culture and media from a Reformed perspective.
00:15: Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to engage today's topic.
00:21: Here's your host, Pastor Keith Foskey.
00:24: Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.
00:26: My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist.
00:29: Today is January the 14th, Thursday, January 14th, 2021.
00:38: And what I want to talk about today is actually something that's going to begin tonight at Sovereign Grace Family Church.
00:45: If you are not a member of Sovereign Grace Family Church, then you might not be aware that we have at our church Sovereign Grace Academy.
00:56: Sovereign Grace Academy is a program that we began almost two years ago for the purpose of providing a seminary experience for all believers.
01:09: And what we do is we structure a two year program of learning where a person can come in and at no cost, except for, of course, the cost of the books, there's no cost to take the courses.
01:25: You take the course for two years and after two years of training, you receive a diploma of basic ministry training.
01:35: And these courses are all ones that we have constructed to try to give foundational biblical principles for people who are interested in pursuing some form of ministry, whether it be teaching Sunday school or perhaps leading some kind of Bible teaching ministry, or maybe perhaps even someone who has aspirations to become an elder.
02:03: Maybe God's calling them into ministry and this can be a first step of learning for them.
02:09: And the courses are, again, four per year.
02:14: There are two years of training.
02:16: So you end up with eight courses and the eight core subjects are Survey of the Old Testament, Survey of the New Testament, Survey of Bible Doctrines, and a Survey of Church History.
02:31: That is year one.
02:33: Then in year two, there is the Introduction to Apologetics.
02:39: Apologetics, of course, is defending the faith.
02:43: Introduction to Hermeneutics.
02:45: Hermeneutics is the science of studying the Bible and understanding how to interpret the scripture.
02:54: And then the next course is Introduction to Christian Ethics.
03:00: And then we finalize the two-year program with an Introduction to Church Life and Ministry.
03:08: And that particular course is one where the person who's been through two years of teaching is now in their final course and they're beginning to look and see how they can use their particular gifts and be used in the church with the gifts that God has given to them.
03:28: And so this is what Sovereign Grace Academy is.
03:32: And tonight at 630, we begin Sovereign Grace Academy Survey of Bible Doctrines.
03:42: Now the Survey of Bible Doctrines class, just like all the other classes, it is an eight-week course.
03:49: Every week for eight weeks, we have a one-and-a-half hour classroom time.
03:55: In the classroom, we have a lecture and discussion period.
03:59: And after the eight weeks is over, you have an additional four weeks.
04:06: So it ends up being a total of 12 weeks.
04:09: You have an additional four weeks of independent study where you are required to write a research paper, which is in the syllabus.
04:22: If you want to take the course, you get a syllabus.
04:24: And the research paper is, you have to go through all the process of a normal research paper, researching, citing your sources, providing a works cited page, all of those things.
04:39: And you present that to me as, I'm the instructor.
04:43: My name is Keith.
04:44: I'm the pastor of the church.
04:45: I'm also the lead instructor at Sovereign Grace Academy.
04:49: You would turn your paper in within that four-week period.
04:52: And provided you receive a grade of C or better, then you would earn a credit, essentially, for that class.
05:00: You get a certificate showing that you have completed that class.
05:04: And once you have completed all eight core subjects over a period of two years, you would be able to receive a certificate or a diploma of basic ministry training from Sovereign Grace Academy.
05:21: Now, we began this as a joint venture with Jacksonville Baptist Theological Seminary.
05:28: That is a seminary I attended and graduated from.
05:30: I have my doctorate from Jacksonville Baptist Theological Seminary.
05:34: And the courses do serve as credit with the seminary.
05:38: If you're interested in moving forward and actually pursuing a degree from Jacksonville Baptist Theological Seminary, you can apply these courses for credit at the seminary.
05:50: But that requires you applying to the seminary, being accepted, and also you have to pay to have the courses applied.
05:58: So that is not something that you have to do, but it is an option.
06:02: So really, we have three different types of students who come to Sovereign Grace Academy.
06:06: First, we have people who audit the classes.
06:10: Auditing means you do not intend to do the paper.
06:13: You don't intend to do the coursework.
06:15: You're not trying to earn the certificates or a diploma.
06:18: You're simply coming for the knowledge.
06:21: And auditing the class is something that a few people do.
06:25: It is certainly something that is not discouraged if you just want to learn.
06:31: Auditing the class is fine.
06:34: Other people may have interest in getting seminary credit, and that's fine as well.
06:40: But the majority are simply seeking to earn what we are producing as far as the school is concerned, Sovereign Grace Academy.
06:51: We're producing the certificates and producing the diploma of basic ministry training.
06:57: And so the majority do the work.
07:00: They're not concerned with the seminary, but some are.
07:02: But they go through and do the work and get their certificate from us.
07:10: And again, this is an opportunity for training.
07:13: It's an opportunity for learning.
07:15: It's an opportunity even for fellowship among other people who are interested in learning.
07:20: And so I wanted to take today's Coffee with the Calvinists and basically just say, if you are a person who is interested in learning, if you're interested in growing deeper in your Christian walk, if you're interested in becoming maybe a better deacon or a better elder, a better Sunday school teacher, maybe you're interested in being better at teaching your children at home.
07:46: Maybe you just want to grow in your own knowledge of the Word, how to study the Word, how to understand Christian thought and history, ethics, philosophy, all those things.
07:56: If you're interested in Sovereign Grace Academy, then I want to invite you to come out and try a class tonight.
08:04: Again, we're beginning this semester tonight, Survey of Bible Doctrines.
08:08: It begins at 630 in the SGFC Learning Center.
08:14: We have about 30 seats available, and currently we have a few of those seats that are not taken.
08:23: So if you are interested and you are in the Jacksonville area, send me a message.
08:28: You can message me at foskeyjacks at gmail.com.
08:31: That is the email I use for the class.
08:34: You can also message me through our Coffee with the Calvinists email, and that, of course, is calvinistpodcast at gmail.com.
08:42: Either one of those messages will come directly to me.
08:45: I'll be able to see it and get back with you, send you a copy of the syllabus, and give you the information that you need to know.
08:52: The course book for this particular semester is Everyone's a Theologian by Dr.
08:59: R.C.
08:59: Sproul.
09:01: And you were supposed to have read the first eight chapters of the book before we begin the class, because that is part one of the book.
09:08: And certainly, if you have not done that, please don't let that preclude you from coming, because you can always catch up with that later on in the course.
09:17: It's not something that will keep you from being able to learn in the first class.
09:21: It may keep you from being able to engage as much, but if you don't get a chance to read it, please don't let that keep you from coming.
09:29: Now, I want to add an additional thought to this.
09:33: If you are not in the Jacksonville area, if you are someone who is outside of the Jacksonville area, and you would still like to do the course, there is a way to do this course remotely.
09:48: And we will allow for that.
09:51: We have originally, we were not going to allow people to take the class remotely, but since all of the things that have been happening with COVID and all that, we have made a few rule changes.
10:02: And so you are allowed to take the class remotely, and you can either watch the live stream of the class, which we are going to have the lectures live streamed beginning tomorrow at 630.
10:15: We're going to live stream on our Facebook page, and we're going to live stream on YouTube, the SGFCJacks YouTube page, which is Sovereign Grace Family Church of Jacksonville.
10:27: So you are going to be able to watch the live stream, or once the live stream is published, it'll be videoed.
10:35: You'll be able to go back and watch the video.
10:38: So either way, you can watch the video.
10:43: Take notes if you are doing the class remotely.
10:47: You still have to take notes, and you have to show those notes to me somehow, whether it's through pictures or scanning or whatever.
10:55: I have to see that you have taken notes in the class, and you still have to do all the work in the syllabus.
11:00: The reading, the tests, the writing of the final research paper, the turning in of the final research paper, all of that is required.
11:11: If you want to earn a certificate.
11:13: So again, if you're interested and you're in the Jacksonville area, my encouragement to you is come and be with us.
11:19: You'll learn more.
11:20: You'll enjoy it more.
11:21: You'll get more out of it if you'll actually be in the classroom.
11:24: But if you're not in the classroom, or if you're not in the Jacksonville area, and you're not anywhere where you can join us in the classroom, then you can certainly join us online, and we would really enjoy having you.
11:36: So this is my call to you today.
11:39: This is the, you know, we do this program every day.
11:41: Every day it's something different.
11:43: I decided today to say, hey, we're starting a new semester with Sovereign Grace Academy, and I hope that you might consider coming.
11:51: Because I want to tell you something, and this is really the heart of all this.
11:55: What got me started in taking this idea to our elders, working through it, putting together a program and publishing material to use in this program, was there's a real, there is a real sense of biblical illiteracy that has made its way through the church.
12:18: And unfortunately, a lot of people go to church and, you know, they hear the sermons, they sing the songs, they pray the prayers, but they don't know their Bible.
12:30: And they certainly don't know theology.
12:33: It's like one pastor said, I think it was Votie Bauckham, who said that a lot of people go to church and worship the Jesus that they don't know very well.
12:43: And the reason they don't know Jesus very well is, sadly, because they have not studied their Bibles.
12:49: They have not gone through the, not just studying the Bible, but the learning of solid, sound theology and history and interpretive methods and defenses of the faith and all of these things that we are focused on training people at Sovereign Grace Academy.
13:11: So again, hopefully this will be an encouragement to you.
13:15: If you are a person who is looking to grow in your faith and you're looking for a place to do it, you do not have to be a member of Sovereign Grace Family Church.
13:24: But you do have to, if you want to join the program, you do have to fill out an application.
13:28: You have to be a believer.
13:30: We do, this class is limited to people who profess faith in Jesus Christ.
13:34: This class is for believers.
13:36: So if you're interested in joining the academy, let me know.
13:39: I will send you an application.
13:41: On the application, you'll put in your information along with your testimony telling us about how you came to know the Lord, how the Lord saved you.
13:52: So again, this is the thought for today, is that there is a seminary that is available for every believer.
14:00: And that seminary is Sovereign Grace Academy, which is at Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville.
14:08: And as the pastor and the lead instructor at Sovereign Grace Academy, I would encourage you to come and join us.
14:16: I appreciate you listening today to this overview of Sovereign Grace Academy.
14:21: And if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.
14:25: And thank you for listening to Coffee with a Calvinist.
14:27: My name is Keith Foskey, and I've been your Calvinist.
14:30: May God bless you.
14:32: Thank you for listening to today's episode of Coffee with a Calvinist.
14:36: If you enjoyed the program, please take a moment to subscribe and provide us feedback.
14:42: We love to receive your comments and questions and may even engage with them in a future episode.
14:49: As you go about your day, remember this, Jesus Christ came to save sinners.
14:55: All who come to Him in repentance and faith will find Him to be a perfect Savior.
15:02: He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him.
15:08: May God be with you.