2014 Baseline

Below is a sample of some of the questions on Ember's 2014 application, from a section called 'Missions Baseline.' This app is used for all of our 2014 stuff - ProtoGuides, summer experiences, etc. And this section is intended to see how well our applicants understand these concepts.

Describe what a person of peace is.
Describe what an indigenous leader is.
Why are these leaders so important?
Describe the tension between social justice and evangelism.
What is cultural distance and provide an example.
Describe an example of contextualization.
Name a modern day example of a movement.
Who are you discipling right now?
Who is discipling you right now?

The fabulous original idea for a 'baseline' was from Trevin Hoekzema and really, the idea is fantastic. Much of what we intend to do is to help prepare our students for global leadership, potentially navigating lots of different cultural contexts and jumping in to missional leadership. We think the questions above cover some pretty core concepts. If we don't know what they know before they begin with us, then we don't know what kind of job we have done.

We have a pretty detailed application but I like it that way. Answering these kinds of questions helps you - it aligns what you are trying to do with what we are trying to do. It also helps us - if someone doesn't finish it, they didn't fit us in the first place. And of course, we ask these questions at the end of our summer to really see if it worked.

* I heard of someone screaming when they were in the middle of our app and their little brother closed their browser.
** I save off almost every great missions application I find in a google drive folder. Weird I know.