here we go.

Classes officially started this week! The past couple of weeks have mostly consisted of hanging out, trips to Belfast, and talking with people...starting school now seems so odd. Although, it is nice to have a routine and to see the campus full everyday.
The three classes i am taking are Biblical Discipleship, Old Testament Prophets, and Pastoral Care. The first one is pretty self-explanitory, its a class about what it means to be and make disciples one of the assingments is to create a deiscipleship goal and plan for a church. The class focuses on things like idnetity and personal life in Christ. OT Prophets, also an abvious one, is an exploration of the prophets in the Old Testament specfically focusing on the book of Isaiah. An assignment for that class is to outline the mahor job discription of a prophet before exile focusing on 1-2 Kings. The last class, Pastoral Care is a class that helps develop a Biblical and theological understanding of pastoral care as well as practical skill. It will transfer to Moody as my pre-counseling class so i assume there will be a lot of counseling type of material covered.
Classes start at 9am with a voluntary prayer meeting Tuesday through Friday at 8:30am. On Tuesday there is a devotional service at 10-10:50am and a prayer chapel called "world focus"- where we pray for specific parts of the world- at 2:20-3:10pm.
Every Thursday at 10-10:50am everyone breaks into their fellowship groups where we do a variety of things. For our group each member will lead the session in what ever they want be it a testimony, games, prayer, bible study, walk, etc... Its a cool way to get to know a smaller group of people that you may not have had the chance to hangout with. Besides those 4 things there is also midday prayer chapel from 12:10-12:30 Tuesday through Friday which is a time for everyone on campus to pause and pray. We also have prayer triplets (or quadruplets) that are suppose to meet about an hour a week for prayer on whatever they need.
The school is really making an effort to incorporate prayer and a strong spiritual life into the school, as im sure you can tell. BBC is really unique with things like that. I dont know of any other school that would make the students spend over 4 hours per week in concentrated prayer/devotional time. The fact that it is scheduled into the school day, that there are specific times when there are no classes just time for prayer, says alot about the goal and mission of Belfast Bible College.
During one of the first chapels the speaker said that ones prayer life is a direct reflection of their personal walk with God. Iv been challenged by that and these past few days, to make prayer a foundation for not only my walk with God but for my life.

"do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
- Philippians 4:6-7

"And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. ¹⁵And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him."
- 1 John 5:14-15

p.s. sorry for no pictures this time.