program components

WORK - LEARN - SERVE - COMMUNITY

  • work

    Faith and vocation is a principal feature of the Fellows program. We will assist each matriculating Fellow to find a job that corresponds to his or her education, interests, and strengths. Once they’ve established employment, Fellows will embark on the journey of vocational discernment; through personality assessment, focused mentoring sessions, and prayer, the Fellows will begin to understand how their individual callings, united with their theological commitments and trust in Christ, bring about flourishing, not only in their own lives, but also in the life of the city in which they live.

  • community

    Relationships are gloriously difficult work; to live in community is to grow in both joy and character. The Muncie Fellows will eat together, serve together, pray together, learn together, and grow together. Deeply rooted relationships form the foundation for growth and restoration in the individual and community alike. In addition to developing what we hope will be life-long friendships with one another and our team, Fellows will live with and be cared for by host families. From start to finish, the Muncie Fellows program takes place in community.

  • learn

    A quote often attributed to Hans Rookmaaker once said, “Jesus didn’t come to make us Christians; he came to make us fully human.” To be fully human is to fulfill our calling as the imago Dei, the image of God, and that calling is nothing less than participation in the restoration of all things in Christ. To better understand this calling, we will study the narrative of the Kingdom of God in Scripture—what is often called the four-chapter gospel: Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration. In addition, the Fellows will participate in a wide range of theological and cultural seminars, retreats, and discussions to better understand how the Kingdom of God frames all that we do.

     

  • serve

    The local church is God’s missional outpost to a world in exile. Fellows will worship together and serve in and through the local church. Muncie, like anywhere on earth, is filled with opportunities to care for our neighbors’ needs, spiritual, emotional, and physical. The Muncie Fellows program aims to bless the people of Muncie by recognizing the imago Dei in every human being. James exhorts us to “visit orphans and widows in their affliction,” and Jeremiah says, "seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” As poet Gerard Manley Hopkins so beautifully puts it, “Christ plays in ten thousand places / lovely in limbs and lovely in eyes not his / To the Father through the features of men’s faces.”