Restoring the Paradigm of “Delight-centered Education”
We will help you develop
a specialized training experience consisting of courses and practica built around the love and delights of your heart.
We believe
that if you delight yourself in the Lord and operate in the arena of your heart’s desire, God will raise you into leadership and His anointing will flow.
Your education will continue
while you grow in leadership because you will discover more and more gifts which you must cultivate in order to take the next step in your life.
As you cultivate these gifts
by studying appropriate courses in conjunction with the rigors of real-life learning, you will acquire multiplied talents. They will be honed through the interaction of life’s pressures, the call within you to fulfill your destiny, and the academic instruction you receive as a student.
On the other hand,
when students are pushed through a program which was designed to meet the lowest common standard of the masses and which does not take into account the students’ special gifts, motivations, and callings, they seldom become successful, fulfilled, anointed leaders. Instead they struggle against the God-given inclinations of their own particular life’s destiny.
Using the Leader’s Paradigm, each student should solidify the current call of God upon his life and intensely pursue training and experiences that prepare and equip him for the next step (or next several steps) he must take.
His call and direction are likely to change as he goes through life. The Apostle Paul first served as a teacher or prophet (Acts 13:1) and later as an apostle (Gal. 1:1). Be prepared for your call to grow and change as you grow and change.
CLU encourages all students to take courses at the time they have high interest in them. When either the pressures of life or the call of your heart require that you grow in a certain area, you are most apt to integrate the truths of that area. So we encourage you to let the stimuli of life and the desires of your heart (confirmed through the six pillars of the Leader’s Paradigm) lead you in your course sequence and selection.
Education Is to Serve the Student
Remember, you are not created to serve the educational system; the educational process is to serve you. Do not become confused about this. You do what releases God’s anointed destiny for you.
Delight-centered education asks that you:
- Begin with a clear vision of what God is developing in your life (confirmed through the six pillars of the Leader’s Paradigm).
2. Pursue the fulfillment of that vision, beginning to work and gain experience in the areas set before you.
3. Add to this formal training and education that expands your consciousness and understanding of the areas.
4. Be constantly open to ongoing re-direction and/or confirmation, by listening to God’s voice through the six pillars of the Leader’s Paradigm.
This, then, becomes an example of delight-centered education. All six pillars of the Leader’s Paradigm are used to guide you in the process of your educational career. This is a shift in thinking for many people. If it is for you, stop and think and pray about the ramifications that the paradigm of delight-centered education will have upon you. Let the significance of this adjustment sink deep into your consciousness so it transforms your approach to education.
You generally will not see the whole of your life’s destiny until you have lived a good many years. It will be an unfolding drama and revelation. God’s lamp lights the path before our feet, not the entire highway for thousands of miles to come. So begin where you are, and let the mastery of one delight after another develop you into a multi-gifted, Spirit-anointed leader in the area(s) to which God is calling you.
Use of Practica
To our academic program, we add individualized practica because we believe this is the example set by Jesus. As a child, He was apprenticed by His earthly father in carpentry. As an adult, He discipled the twelve whom He gathered around Himself. Being discipled is the fastest and surest way to develop skill in a particular area. It is also called apprenticeship, mentoring, or internship. I find that other countries use apprenticeship more than America does at this time. For example, in Switzerland about 80% of the 16- to 18-year-olds are apprenticed into the trade of their choice. They spend half the week in the classroom and half the week working in the vocational area for which they are being trained. I think it is time we return to the proven method which Jesus used. We offer a course on mentoring, which describes what it is and how it is to be worked out in practical settings. CLU requires practica throughout your college career.
Christian Leadership University espouses the non-traditional educational approach and philosophy
Differences between |
||||
|
Traditional Education |
Non-traditional Education |
|||
| 1. | Awards degrees on the basis of time served and credit earned. | 1. | Awards degrees on the basis of competencies and performance skills. | |
| 2. | Bases degree requirements on the medieval formula of some generalized education and some specialized education. | 2. | Bases degree requirements on an agreement between the student and the faculty, aimed at helping the student achieve his or her career, personal, or professional goals. | |
| 3. | Awards the degree when the student meets certain numerical requirements. | 3. | Awards the degree when the student’s actual work and learning reach agreed-upon levels. | |
| 4. | Considers the years from age 18 to 22 as the period when a first degree should be earned. | 4. | Assumes learning desirable at any age, and that degrees should be available to people of all ages. | |
| 5. | Considers the classroom as the primary source of information and the campus as the center of learning. | 5. | Sees any part of the world as appropriate for some learning. | |
| 6. | Believes in printed text materials as the principal learning resource. | 6. | Believes the range of learning resources is limitless, from the daily newspaper to personal interviews; from videocassettes to microcomputers to world travel. | |
| 7. | Faculty must have appropriate credentials and degrees. | 7. | Faculty are judged on competency and personal qualities, in addition to credentials and degrees (take note: a non-traditional faculty must still be academically qualified). | |
| 8. | Credits and degrees are based primarily on mastery of course content. | 8. | Credits and degrees also take into consideration learning how to learn and the integration of diverse fields of knowledge. | |
| 9. | Cultivates dependence on authority through prescribed curricula, required campus residence, and required classes. | 9. | Cultivates self-direction and independence through planned independent study, both on and off campus. | |
| 10. | Curricula are generally oriented toward traditional disciplines and well-established professions. | 10. | Curricula reflect the student’s individual needs and goals and are likely to be problem-oriented, issue-oriented, and world-oriented. | |
| 11. | Aims at producing “finished products” – students who are done with their education and ready for the job market. | 11. | Aims at producing lifelong learners, capable of responding all through their lives to their own evolving needs and those of society. | |
| 12. | To adapt the old Chinese saying, gives you a fish and feeds you for a day. | 12. | Teaches you how to fish, and feeds you for life. | |
| Rick L. Walston, Walston’s Guide to Earning Religious Degrees Non-Traditionally (Longview, WA: Persuasion Press, 1997). pp 8,9 | ||||