Bob & Gracie Ekblad

Training for Transformation: Upcoming webinar courses from The People’s Seminary

Now during this time of ongoing global pandemic, racial tensions, global heating, mass incarceration, addictions, mental health crises, and growing wealth inequality, global poverty and so many others distressing realities, it is important to prepare ourselves to face the questions and challenges of our age with vibrant, informed faith.
Beginning this September The People’s Seminary is offering our “Certificate in Transformational Ministry at the Margins” as a webinar, and two new Guerrilla webinar courses (“Mental Health: Therapeutic and Jesus-teaching-informed Pastoral Accompaniment” and “Recovering: From Brokenness and Addiction to Blessedness and Community”), as part of a forthcoming Diploma in Transformational Ministry. See details below.
Our Certificate in Transformational Ministry at the Margins (CTMM) is designed for those already serving (or feeling called to pioneer work) amongst poor and marginalized communities. In this training we seek to deliberately bring together Word, Spirit, and Street/justice perspectives (see video), in order to encourage and further equip practitioners wanting to live and share a liberating, prophetic, and empowering Gospel in poor, marginalized, and under-reached communities. 
The CTMM normally consists of three, four-day trainings offered over nine to twelve months in a host country. We have completed CTMMs in the USA, South Korea, the UK, France, Morocco, Kenya, Zimbabwe, New Zealand, and Canada, and are in process in Sweden, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda.
We are now offering Module One of our CTMM, “God’s Identity and Mission and Ours” over fifteen weeks beginning September 8 as a weekly training via Zoom– with ten supplemental video or audio teachings and suggested readings. Module Two will be offered beginning in January and Module Three in April, 2021.
The teaching will be done by Bob and Gracie Ekblad, with help from other Tierra Nueva staff and collaborators from around the world.  
When: Tuesdays, 12:00-1:30pm (PST)
  • September 8: God’s Mission and Ours in Genesis 1
  • September 15: Departure and Re-entry into the Garden (Genesis 2-4)
  • September 22: Abraham’s Call and Ours in Genesis 12
  • September 29: Exodus: Hearing God for Liberation and Mission
  • October 6: Mission According to Isaiah 1-39
  • October 13: Mission According to Isaiah 40-55
  • October 20: Jesus’ Baptism and Ours
  • October 27: The Ministry of Jesus in the Gospels
  • November 3: Healing in the New Testament and Today
  • November 10: Kingdom Identity 1, Nationalism and the Powers
  • November 17: Advocacy in Biblical Perspective
  • November 24: Reading the Bible at the Margins
  • December 1: Mission According to the Acts of the Apostles
  • December 8: Mission According to the Apostle Paul
  • December 15: Bible Study on John 4

Cost: $225 – $60 of which goes to cover CTMMs in the global South. Partial and full scholarships are available.

For more information and registration, click here.
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Mental Health: Therapeutic and Jesus-informed Accompaniment is an eleven-week webinar course beginning September 14, 2020. 

Our world is witnessing a spiritual and psychological emergency of mental health issues, dual diagnoses, self medication and self harm. This course aims to equip us to see mental health sufferers as an under-reached people group waiting to hear Jesus’ message of healing and liberation. 

We will combine therapeutic and theological ideas to address the individual, social, biological, and spiritual roots of mental illness. We aim to provide participants with a general understanding of mental health labels so we can accompany people as they get to know Jesus who gives us our authentic adopted title. We will explore how to accompany people prophetically, pastorally, and therapeutically in their journey to freedom. 

Each class session will consist of Heidi Basely’s teaching on mental health disorders, followed by a Biblical reflection led by Gracie or Bob Ekblad on Jesus’ encounters and teachings.

When:  Mondays, 11:30am-1:00pm (PST)

  • September 14: Introductions to Mental Health Models for Holistic Healing and Liberation 
  • September​​​​​​​ 21: Anxiety, Depression, and Bipolar Disorder
  • September 28: Personality Disorders
  • October 5: Eating Disorders—Bulimia, Anorexia, Binge-Eating
  • October 12: Psychosis and Schizophrenia
  • October 19: Obsessive Compulsive Disorders and Phobias
  • October 26: PTSD and Trauma
  • November 2: Dissociative Disorders
  • November 9: Narcissistic/Family Systems: How Our Roots Influence Our Lives
  • November 16: Suicide Awareness and Prevention
  • November 23: Therapeutic, Pastoral, Prophetic Accompaniment

Cost: $150 – $50 of which goes to cover CTMMs in the global South

Partial and full scholarships are available upon request

For more information and registration click here.

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Recovering: From Brokenness and Addiction to Blessedness and Community is a ten-week webinar course taught by Aaron White beginning September 17, 2020.​​​​​​​

This Guerrilla Webinar course will examine the widespread phenomenon of addictions and attachments—not only related to drugs and alcohol—that threatens to steal away our created purpose in Jesus. 

It will help participants explore the root causes of addiction; the danger of attaching our passions to anything other than God; the general failure of Church and society to help people through their pain; and the invitation Jesus makes to live together in holistic freedom. Jesus’ antidote to the pain and isolation that leads to addiction is Beatitude Community with him and with each other. We will look at how the Beatitudes speak to our deepest human condition and offer us hope to overcome our attachments and disordered desires.

When: Thursdays,12:00-1:00pm (PST)

  • September 17: Broken
  • September 24: Blessed
  • October 1: Poverty of Spirit
  • October 8: Mourning
  • October 15: Meekness
  • October 22: Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness
  • October 29: Mercy
  • November 5: Purity of Heart
  • November 12: Peacemaking
  • November 19: Persecution
Cost: $135 – $35 of which goes to cover CTMMs in the global South. Partial and full scholarships are available upon request

For more information and registration, click here.