Alban at Duke Divinity School offers high quality educational opportunities designed to connect congregational, denominational and institutional leaders.
Online Courses
Preaching Advent
Advent, the four-Sunday season preceding Christmas, is approaching rapidly. Because you may be looking for a little help in preparing to preach Advent this year, Alban is offering a three-week online short course that will provide you with new insights into Scripture and with specific ways to engage your congregation’s imagination during this sacred season.
Course Dates: October 31 – November 18, 2016
Time Commitment: 3 hours/week
Course Fee: $200
Each week, we will explore together the rich themes of Advent through the assigned lectionary passages for the season. In the first week, we will read the Old Testament lections, hearing the voice of the prophets and psalmists as they look in hope for the coming of the Messiah. In the second week, our focus will turn to the New Testament lections, listening to the Gospel and epistles for words of challenge, comfort, and joy. In our final week, we will reflect together on teaching and preaching the themes of Advent more generally. We will watch model sermons and consider how preachers hold heartbreak and hope together in the weeks leading up to Christmas.
Throughout the course, you will be encouraged to participate in online discussion with your peers. Registration is limited; consequently, your active participation is important. How you hear the Scriptures, how you hold the tradition, and how you will mark the days – all matter. Offer your voice to this learning community — and receive the wisdom of others!
Guiding the course will be The Rev’d. Nathan E. Kirkpatrick, managing director of Alban at Duke Divinity School.
Sourcing Innovation
Capturing true need through listening and observation
Chances are good that your institution needs to change in some way if it’s to thrive (or even survive). You know it. You embrace the idea. But you don’t know what to do, or even where to begin.
Join visual anthropologist and filmmaker Marlon Hall and a community of other Christian leaders for this five-week online course as we move step by step through the process of learning from a community.
Course Dates: January 30 – February 27, 2017
Time Commitment: ~4 hours/week
Course Fee: $350 (Early Bird: $300)
Each week, you will read articles and watch short videos as preparation for some form of engagement with the community you select to observe. You will have tools to guide that engagement. Afterward, you will post written reflections and respond to other participants’ posted responses, and then discuss these ideas further during an instructor-led online discussion.