Prayer Letter: January 2020
As our Advent campaign draws to a close, we want to take this opportunity to express our deep gratitude to you for your faithful support in 2019. We are excited about the impact we have made -- and will continue to make with your help. Your financial gifts, together with your prayers and encouragement, sustain our best efforts to make ICS a place where students are formed to await, expect, and participate in God’s new thing.
May God’s richest blessings be yours throughout 2020!
PS: If you haven't had the opportunity to contribute, you can still do so online:
Canadian Donors: Donate online via CanadaHelps at https://www.canadahelps.org/dn/8522.
US Donors: Donate online at www.friendsofics.org.
If you plan to send your gift via mail, the envelope must be postmarked no later than December 31, 2019 to be eligible for a 2019 charitable tax receipt. Thank you!
Wednesday, January 1 - Friday, January 3:
We ask for your prayers this week for our Senior Members Bob Sweetman, Rebekah Smick, and Nik Ansell as they make final preparations for the classes they will teach this semester. Please uphold them before the Lord as they seek to work out their calling as teachers and mentors.
This week, please pray for our Junior Members returning from their homes, from far and wide, that they will have safe travels. We ask too for their encouragement in their studies as they start a new semester of academic activities.
Monday, January 6 - Friday, January 10:
Please pray this week for Rebekah Smick who will be teaching the first class of the semester (Wednesday afternoon) in her course: “Reconsidering Kant’s Aesthetics.” We ask God to bless this learning opportunity with creative and insightful interaction.
On Wednesday evening this week, will be the first day of the course: “God in Flesh and Blood: Revolutions in Christology” with Nik Ansell. Pray for Nik and the students in this course that they might enjoy robust discussion of the material with one another.
This week (Thursday morning), we ask for your prayers for Bob Sweetman who will be teaching his course, “Spiritual Exercise as Christian Philosophy from Augustine to Bonaventure”. Pray too for our students, as well as the TST students who will be joining us, as they begin this new semester of learning.
Pray also this week for the three distance education courses which start this week: “Biblical Foundations,” taught by Jeffrey Hocking, “Set the Captives Free: Chistianity and Prison Abolition” taught by ICS PhD graduate Dean Dettloff, and “Foundations and Implications of Phenomenology” taught by ICS alumnus Neal DeRoo, professor at The King’s University in Edmonton.
Monday, January 13 - Friday, January 17:
Please pray for this year’s Interdisciplinary Seminar (IDS), titled “Naming the Divine Within and Without,” which meets weekly on Tuesday afternoon. With close attention to pre-modern Christian thinkers and contemporary scholars, this course will explore some of the ways in which a traditional understanding of transcendence and immanence has been maintained, modified, challenged, and reconceived since the advent of: the “linguistic turn,” the much-heralded “end of metaphysics,” and the alleged peril (and promise!) of a “post-truth” era. Pray for Senior Members Nik Ansell and Bob Sweetman as they lead this seminar.
This month, ICS/CPRSE is joining a number of academic institutions and community partners in a SSHRC Partnership Grant application spearheaded by the Centre for Community-Based Research in Waterloo, furthering the work done in the “Faith and Settlement Partnerships” research project. Please pray for the success of this collaborative effort designed to better serve Canada’s newcomers and their host communities.
Monday, January 20 - Friday, January 24:
Please pray this week for Ron Kuipers and Gideon Strauss as they travel to Langley, BC for meetings with the Society for Christian Schools in BC at Trinity Western University. While there, the SCSBC has volunteered to host a gathering of ICS supporters in the area and this will take place at TWU on Tuesday evening, January 21st. Please join us in prayer for both the meetings of ICS and SCSBC, and the evening event, that they will be productive and inspiring for all involved.
Then on Tuesday evening, Gideon Strauss will travel to Edmonton to take part as the keynote speaker in The King’s University’s Interdisciplinary Studies conference on January 22-23 titled “For Love or Money? Vocational Wayfinding.” Following the evening lecture on Wednesday, January 22nd, Ron Kuipers will host a reception for ICS supporters. Please pray for Gideon as he prepares his addresses and as he speaks on the connection between work and identity. Pray too that the get-together on Wednesday evening will be a good time of fellowship and conversation for all who attend.
On January 23th, CPRSE will host ICS’ Winter Term “Scripture, Faith, and Scholarship Symposium,” featuring recent Emerging Public Intellectual Award-winner Rev. Dr. Matthew Kaemingk. In the symposium, titled “Hospitality, Scripture, and Inter-religious Dialogue: Our Calling in an Age of Global Migration,” Dr. Kaemingk will speak about the major challenges to inter-religious dialogue in light of the most recent refugee crisis. Please pray that this event will be a fruitful opportunity to gather as an academic community as well as to reflect about some of the most pressing issues of our times.
Monday, January 27 - Thursday, January 31:
Plans are underway to host ICS’s fourth annual Undergraduate Workshop, on the topics of evil, resistance, and judgement. Following this year’s workshop, Senior Member Ron Kuipers and The King’s University professor Jeff Dudiak will be teaching the course: “Evil, Resistance, and Judgement: Hannah Arendt and Religious Critique.” Please pray for the course instructors and workshop planning team as they continue to put together this wonderful learning opportunity.
Plans are underway for ICS to hold its fourth “ART in Orvieto”, a 3-week summer residency in Orvieto, Italy for artists, writers, graduate students, upper undergraduates, and adult learners who have an interest in the theory and practice of art and faith. Please pray for a good response by interested applicants so that we will have the numbers to make this unique learning opportunity a success. For more information, please visit our website.
