C  L  A  S  S  E  S     a  t     L  I  F  T

LIFT students all enter the program with a desire to learn more about God's Word and how to become better 

 followers of Christ. We offer a well-rounded curriculum, taught by LIFT director Tim Trezise, MS, LIFT Associate Director Tim Owens, ThM, and Kathy Trezise, PhD.  Students are assigned reading materials, light research, short presentations/group projects, and writing assignments to aid in their learning and retention of subjects studied. While a LIFT semester involves many activities other than classes, students are given specific time periods in which they are able to complete all assignments.

We offer two different class cycles, one in the Fall and one in the Spring. Both semesters stand alone, which makes it possible for a LIFTer to doe one semester or both, and begin with either semester.

Fall Semester

In our Biblical Foundations class students are taught the story of the Bible from the beginning to the end, providing them with a view of scripture that is holistic and continuous. God's involvement in the lives of His people is clearly seen throughout the entire Book, and leads directly into His personal relationship with each of His children even now. This class enables students to gain a better grasp and understanding of the Bible as it is meant to be understood, rather than a sporadic, pieced-together mosaic of Sunday School stories or lessons in morality. Bible-study methods are also studied.

Spiritual Formation is one of our most exciting classes, and is much more about experiential learning than it is absorbing content. We actually put the Christian walk into practice. We study a wide variety of Christian disciplines, including fasting, prayer, solitude, thanksgiving, celebration, bible memory (Sermon on the Mt, James, Philippians, Colossians, etc) and more. The bulk of the workload is simply the practice of the disciplines. Every semester students comment that this is one of the most fulfilling classes they have ever experienced.

We believe God is constantly redeeming the world to Himself. This is one of the chief concepts behind Applied Missions, in which we study the history of the Christian missionary movement, all the way up to effective forms of missions today. We also prepare for our Cross-Cultural Experience. In the past we have gone to Nigeria, Brazil, China, and Alaska, and are going to Arizona and Ecuador this year. It is important to study the culture and practices of the people we are going to work with!

Everyone has wrestled with the issue of how to live like Christ and live as a part of society at the same time. Our Christ and Culture class is designed to equip young, Christian leaders with an overall Christian worldview. We learn to engage our culture for Christ, studying worldview, postmodernism (it's not all bad!), and recent cultural trends. We also strive to gain a better grasp of our own Christian culture, learning key theological concepts (such as Trinity, the nature of the gospel), and where we ourselves have come from with a module on Church History.

Spring Semester

Christianity as many of us know it, as Evangelicalism, has come into existence through centuries of Christian history. In Pillars of Faith we interact with the giants of Christianity past in order to have a better footing on the future. Some of the authors we study are Athanasius, Augustine, John Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards. Through this line line of study students become better informed believers, no longer missing out on the rich history that is theirs through shared beliefs, and able to learn from the mistakes of history as well as the triumphs.

 We believe the gospel compels us to love the world around us. Transformational Ministry embraces a holistic understanding of the gospel, studying how, through the Holy Spirit, communities can be transformed for Christ. Our desire is to minister to the world both spiritually and physically, to both proclaim and demonstrate the gospel. Missions through the perspective of community development is a core theme of this class.

LIFT classes also include studies of calling, culture, community, and other topics relevant to the Christian walk. Guest teachers also provide an excellent addition to each semester's curriculum, focusing on important issues in which they are experts - for more information on these incredible speakers, click here.