Coordinator

A class coordinator is one of the key ingredients to a class that provides people the vision and tools to engage the Muslim world with the love of Christ. Every EWI class needs 1-2 trained coordinators and a team of additional volunteers. You could play an important role in mobilizing your community to be a blessing to Muslims!

A coordinator is normally required to:

1. Attend and complete the requirements for either Perspectives on the World Christian Movement or Encountering the World of Islam (EWI). (Coordinators may have completed EWI under its old name, Perspectives on the World of Islam.)
2. Be active in a local church and approved by church leadership.
3. Participate in a coordinator training workshop, a distance training course utilizing online resources and conference calls. Click here to learn more about the resources available in the workshop.

Contact us if you have more questions or are ready to get started! Keep reading to learn more about coordinating a class.

A wise coordinator is a team player.
A coordinator needs to pull together a committed task force of volunteers to facilitate the class. Optimally, this should be a group of 6-10 people who have already taken the class or hope to do so when it is offered. A mix of individuals with leadership, communication, technical, and administrative skills will ensure an effective class. Ideally, the hosting church takes ownership of the class as part of its overall ministry vision, educational curriculum, and training program.

Planning an EWI class takes considerable work and prayer from a team of committed individuals at a local church. Your team can include Christians from a broad variety of churches in the community. Every host church must be willing to publicly endorse and actively promote the class and to encourage leadership enrollment. A typical EWI class has 30-60 participants representing seven or more churches in the community.

The coordinator is the “glue” that holds the class together.
The team members do the broad detail work to make the class happen. Speakers come and go, but the coordinator is involved in the class from beginning to end, leading and encouraging. Therefore, the coordinator should be familiar with the complete class curriculum in order to answer questions from students and team members.

What is the coordinator's most important task?
Each EWI class must have at least 25 paying students in order to cover the cost of operating this non-profit course. Weak classes do not succeed, and they burn out their coordinator teams. For this reason, we cancel classes which do not meet minimum standards. As painful as this is, it is better to delay a class for a semester or two than to push for a class without a strong base. The key to having a strong class is adequate promotion through personal relationships. Each task force member should be actively involved in student recruitment. Most people attend EWI because they are personally invited. Mailings and announcements are important, but it is almost always personal invitations to individuals in the community and active follow-up by the coordinator team that guarantees a strong class.

What needs to happen before the class starts?

1. Meet with leaders in your church to confirm their endorsement and to check the church calendar and availability of a classroom.
2. Conduct ongoing meetings with the team. Provide leadership, build your team of volunteers, delegate responsibilities (such as registration, grading, in-class worship, promotion, prayer, childcare, etc.), and serve your church.
3. Plan and implement a prayer strategy for your class.
4. Promote the course within your host church and develop a community-wide promotional strategy. Ask your pastor(s) to give you a list of 10 people they would like to see attend EWI, and then have someone personally invite each person.
5. Promote the course by visiting other area churches.
6. Select, book and confirm speakers for your class. Talk with other EWI coordinators or the EWI team to get suggestions for dynamic speakers for each lesson topic.
7. Communicate regularly with your church and the EWI team.