This year, BGU will return to the City of Dallas for its annual fall immersion, October 18-27, 2024. Dallas is the headquarters location for the BGU Campus and offers a rich and engaging opportunity to explore a city looking for transformational opportunities in it. The cities of Dallas and Fort Worth are the heart of the North Texas region, which is the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States. The region overlooks mostly prairie land and includes primarily manmade lakes cut by streams, creeks and rivers. Comprised of 64 municipalities, the region represents an economic and cultural hub within the Lone Star State.
Dallas is a booming city with a population of almost 1.3 million people; it is the ninth-largest city in the country. In 1841, John Neeley Bryan established the city by building a single log cabin near the Trinity River. The arrival of the first two railroads in 1872 and 1873 brought boom days for Dallas County, making it an important regional center for trade. Since then, Dallas has quickly urbanized, earning a reputation for luxury, southern hospitality, and entrepreneurship. As the region has grown, Dallas has also embraced a mix of culture and commerce by investing in what is now the largest urban arts district in the country.
The theme for the Dallas Metro Immersion is “Transforming a City- Perspectives, Precepts, and Processes”. In this course, students will be exposed to the principles and practices of transformational leadership using the Dallas-Metro environment and culture as a measuring stick. For 10 days, this city will become our classroom. The city immersions are designed to help you examine the characteristics and skill sets of local transformational leaders and include physically observing the principles and practices of various transformational ministries in the context of city transformation. Through site visits, local and historical attractions and current events, students will observe several organizations across a wide spectrum of industries, including the world-renown Dallas Cowboys franchise and their world-class, state-of-art the football stadium in Arlington, Texas. The local State Fair will take place during the Immersion and it promises to be the best one on record this year.
In addition to the places, food, culture, and city’s ambience, the Immersion will also expose students to opportunities for collaboration and civic and public networking, as well as the themes of transformational business, conceptual and strategic approaches to cities and city transformation, specific perspectives, precepts, and processes being used in these organizations and throughout the Dallas Metro Area. It will take you on a journey packed full of theological foundations for incarnational leadership for city transformation. The 10 days will give students an experiential learning process like no other. It never fails that during the BGU graduations, at least one, and many times so much more of our graduates identify the Immersion as the place where they settled on their dissertation projects or gained clarity on an existing one. This Immersion will be a spiritual retreat flavored with experiential and educational seasoning, Southern style.
The PORs for this course are Drs. Abi Coker and Paulette Jordan. Dr. Coker is the author of two of the books that will be used in the class. Dr. Coker completed his dissertation on the African diaspora in the Dallas Metro area and is extremely knowledgeable about the current state of the region. In one of his books, Church Beyond Walls: Demystifying the Sacred-Secular Work Divide for Community Transformation, he says, “For the Church to be effective in society and participate in the transformation of the community, the issue of the sacred-secular divide deserves attention. Paying relevant attention to it is the only way to reduce or possibly eradicate its inhibitive effect on the strength of the Church to function well in the Divine call for co-creation outside the church buildings” (p. 51). Dallas Metro is placed characteristic of the Bible Belt: there are many churches and ministries here. The Immersion will travel to see these ministries up close to gauge their effectiveness and presence in those communities. It is the work outside of the walls that best represent Jesus’ heart, hands and feet.
This Immersion promises to be one for the history books. Register today. Spouses, Alumni, and friends are welcome for a small fee. You don’t want to miss this one. For additional information, please contact Dr. Abi Coker (abi.coker@bgu.edu) or Dr. Paulette Jordan (paulette.jordan@bgu.edu). We look forward to seeing you in Dallas in October 2024!