Village Apprentice Academy
Class Information
Education is a dangerous pursuit. Who hasn’t heard of the ivory-tower academic? who has a head full of brilliant knowledge and yet a perplexingly lifeless heart? It should not be so. Biology and philosophy, sociology and theology all have their proper end in doxology. All truth is from God and belongs to God and exists for God. Yet, Paul warns, “knowledge puffs up” (2 Corinthians 8:1). Why, then, would anyone set out on this perilous quest for knowledge?
The same Paul who cautioned the Corinthians against the danger of self- aggrandizing knowledge exhorted Timothy to “think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything” (2 Timothy 2:7). His command to the Romans was not to be conformed to the world but to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). Jesus says that the first and greatest commandment of the Law is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37).
Thus, for the Christian, intellectual pursuit is not optional—it is critical. Our aim at the Village Church Apprentice Academy is to magnify with you the centrality of Christ in the life of the mind and its application in the heart. It is our earnest hope that your theological studies, spiritual formation, and practical theology at the Apprentice Academy will deepen your understanding of God, as we look together at his Word and his works in redemptive history. We hope that you will be challenged to think through difficult issues, that you will be equipped to articulate the truth with clarity and that you will be strengthened in your faith.
But we are after more than your mind. We believe that Christ is most visibly seen in us when we are enjoying Him deeply and earnestly. Thus, during your time at The Apprentice Academy we want you to drink deeply from the Bible so that new, radical affections for Christ might well up in your life, and that these affections might overflow in self-sacrificing, risk-taking acts of love. We long to launch Apprentices who embrace the connection between head and heart and hands into a lifetime of ministry in the home, the church, and the world.
Below, you will find more detail on The Apprentice Academy vision and how we, by God’s grace, hope to accomplish these aims. We hope that you will prayerfully consider joining us and that should God so lead, your time at The Apprentice Academy would be the most formative two years of your life.
