INSTRUCTOR: Sherri Atwell (For teacher bio, please see Here)
EMAIL: SherriA@empowered.academy
TIME: Fall 2020 Wednesdays 10:00am CT
SUGGESTED AGE RANGE: High school
Course Description:
Did you know? In the past 100 years, more Christians have died for their faith than in all the years combined since the death and resurrection of Christ? In just the 20th century there were 26 million documented cases of martyrdom, more than in the previous 1,900 years combined!
What does this mean for us as Christians on US soil? This is a course for our times in many different ways. We all have felt persecuted for something we believe in at some point in our life. As a believer in Jesus Christ, how should we respond? This is a time in our society when we are facing tough and ever changing situations. How do we apply our faith to our lives in every difficult situation we encounter? This course is designed to challenge our faith, and dig deep into ways to apply it to our everyday lives whether the challenges we face are big or small. This is a chance to take a deep look into the lives of believing women from around the world, who faced incredible persecution in THIS CENTURY! What do they believe true faith in Jesus Christ means and how did they apply it to their lives? The book we will begin with is written by a teenager who was persecuted, and feared for her life, here in the United States! What does it mean to be a teen and live sold out for Christ? We will examine ways to choose to make our faith real no matter what situations we face.
Required Resource:
- Bible
- Hiding in the Light: Why I Risked Everything to Leave Islam and Follow Jesus by Rifqa Bary (more about this book https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8icfWaXL94w)
- Captive in Iran: : A Remarkable True Story of Hope and Triumph amid the Horror of Tehran’s Brutal Evin Prison by Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh (more about his book https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxoM0qvd-eo)
- Possibly another book (which may be 20th or 21th Century) – we will see what time allows!
*If you are looking to count this class on a transcript for entry into a secular University, it can fall into the category of Social Studies, or Cultural Studies with the title “Persecution: Women in the 21st Century: A look at how Women are being persecuted around the world in modern times”