PLAN FOR MEETING THE GRADUATE LEVELING REQUIREMENT IN HOMILETICS

1. For entrance into the Graduate Program in Ministry at Oklahoma Christian University, it is required that students have taken an undergraduate course in homiletics or, in some other way, have established that they are prepared to prepare and deliver sermons. For those in the "ministry" track, enrollment in the advanced course in homiletics assumes an undergraduate level of competence in this field. For those in the "family" track, further work in the preparation of sermons is expected in some of the family courses and thus, again, an undergraduate level of competence in homiletics is required. At the first class meeting in the advanced homiletics class, students will be given a form to complete in which they tell how this requirement has been met.


2. Those who have a C or higher grade in an undergraduate course in homiletics will be considered as having met this requirement.


3. Those who do not have satisfactory completion of an undergraduate course in homiletics may proceed in one of three ways:
   1. They may enroll in an undergraduate course in homiletics and take it for credit. For students who have no experience in preaching or Bible teaching and who need to develop skills in presentation by speaking before an audience, this option is recommended.
   2. They may audit an undergraduate course in homiletics if the teacher agrees that if the student completes all the work satisfactorily, he will certify that they have met the leveling requirement. Normally, audit means just sitting in a class and listening and not doing the assignments. A teacher must, therefore, give his permission in advance for the student to do the work in the course as an audit student and thus be certified as meeting this requirement. For those who need experience in speaking, this option is also an acceptable option.
   3. They may fulfill certain "leveling requirements" as listed below and then be certified by the homiletics instructor as having met the requirement for homiletics.
   
   
4. The plan for meeting the homiletics requirement by doing the "leveling work" is as follows:
1. The student must receive the approval of the teacher in homiletics before he/she is allowed to use this option.
2. The student must read all of the book Preaching: Man and Method by Dr. Stafford North, 1993 edition. This book is the text used in the undergraduate course at Oklahoma Christian and some other schools.
3. The student must complete two exercises for the leveling requirement available on the internet:(1) Review of a Sermon Outline and (2) Exercise on Sermon Plans. To use these, the student will find links to these two exercises at the bottom of this page. After completing these two exercises, the student should submit the completed worksheets from these exercises to Dr. North.
4. The student will also submit one complete sermon outline, following the recommended sermon outline style and following carefully one of the sermon organizational patterns recommended. The student must identify on the outline which of the patterns he/she is using.
5. After items c and d are completed with the approval of the homiletics instructor, the student may contact him about taking an examination over this material. This examination will be focused on chapters 6 and 7 of the book Preaching: Man and Method. The student should bring a Bible to the examination along with paper and pen. One of the major questions will assign the student a chapter of the Bible and ask him/her to use that chapter as a basis for four brief sermon outlines of specified patterns. The student will also be expected to know the types of supporting materials suggested in chapter 7 and the purposes for which they can be used.
6. Upon satisfactory completion of the examination, the homiletics teacher will certify that the leveling requirement has been met and the student will then be allowed to take those courses which have this leveling as a pre-requisite.