Here at IMPACT 360, life is constantly changing. During my time here as a student, I have discovered there is no normalcy to what we do here. Every week our schedule is different but that only makes it more exciting. This past week was our first week being back from Fall Break. Everyone returned to campus well rested and with a renewed vigor for life here at IMPACT 360. Over our break we read Engaging God’s World by Cornelius Plantinga Jr. We were given an assignment Monday morning to prepare a group presentation and deliver it on Tuesday morning. We had less than 24 hours to start, finish, and present our presentations in front of the class. The class as a whole had mixed reactions, but I personally became very excited. Just that morning in class, I felt confident for the first time to speak up and say what I was thinking. Upon being briefed on our assignment my confidence grew. After class, everyone immediately got to work. We were separated into our Community Groups, c-groups, to work on the presentation. C-groups are groups of five or six students and each group has a different responsibility for maintaining different parts of campus.
At the end of our week, we have a wrap up session where we take an hour and a half to three hours conversing as a class what we learned during the week. This morning we met for wrap-up and talked about the material we covered, and also how our groups worked together on our assignments. Dr. Basie and Ed Bort led wrap-up this morning and Dr. Basie asked us how we responded to the pressure of the assignment given. What followed was an incredible time of sharing. We got to know each other on a more personal level because people were opening up about their frustrations and struggles they had with group members they were working with. After our wrap-up session ended, many of the c-groups, including mine, met and continued discussing problems we had how we can work to resolve them and become a more effective team. Much of what we learn here at IMPACT 360 takes place in the classroom, but there is so much more we learn outside of the classroom. I can’t wait to see what God has in store for the coming months!
Diana Parker
Class of 2012