Terry Virgo at GodFirst

This past weekend, we had the privilege of hosting Terry Virgo at GodFirst. Terry leads Newfrontiers, the family of churches that GodFirst is part of. Terry did teaching for some 200 GodFirst leaders on Saturday morning, preached on Sunday morning and evening, and then met on Monday evening with the elders from GodFirst's congregations around the city.

It was incredibly faith-building to hear Terry share stories of churches all around the world--Armenia, Mexico, Philippines, Brazil--working together to make Jesus famous. It's also just so cool to see a man in his 70's, who's seen all the ups and downs, to still be so passionate about Jesus and his church - I want to grow old like him!

Listen to Terry's talks at GodFirst at godfirst.co.za/node/696, learn more about Terry at www.terryvirgo.org, and learn more about Newfrontiers at www.newfrontierstogether.org.

Scientific Research

Last year, I and two colleagues launched a course called Scientific Research, where we exposed students to cutting edge scientific investigation. As their final project, students wrote science review papers that were put together into the inaugural Journal of Scientific Research, and they presented their work at the Scientific Research Symposium. Their presentations can be viewed in the videos above.

Below you can find a more detailed description of the course from the introduction to the Journal of Scientific Research:

The 2009-2010 school year marked the beginning of the Scientific Research course at African Leadership Academy. The goal of the course is to expose students to current research in the various fields of science, to teach them to fully analyze and interpret journal-level science writing, and to allow them to become experts in a particular area on the frontiers of scientific knowledge. The students began by reading widely about current developments, meeting weekly in small groups with an instructor and a few peers to share about their reading. They then focused on a topic of special interest, where they quickly surpassed the knowledge even of the instructors, and they began to teach each other from their fields of expertise.

It was an exciting time as the students shared their progress in fields ranging from superconductivity to gene therapy to piezoelectricity. Over the course of the year, students taught each other and learned from each other through a process of review by discussions and presentations as they continued to develop their understanding. At the end of the year, they compiled their research into comprehensive review papers on their field (and one original research paper from Spencer based on a psychology experiment). The year culminated with the first ever Scientific Research Symposium where the students shared abstracts of their work with the greater community, while Spencer, John, Kylie, and Mehdi gave keynote addresses about their research.

This journal is a compilation of the papers from the inaugural class of Scientific Research. We hope you enjoy glimpsing the journey of this past year!

Read the full Journal of Scientific Research here.

ALA on NPR

Click here for the original story.