Tips and Tricks:
1. Go through these videos in order.
2. Go at your own pace.
3. Grab a journal to jot down your answers to the discussion/reflection questions.
4. Watch anywhere - on your computer, on your phone, on the Youtube app.
5. Do this course in community! Process together. Use the youtube comments as your community, if needed.

Let's start with two questions: Firstly, who the heck ARE YOU? And secondly, why do you think so? In the ski and snowboard culture, we've probably all dealt with some sort of identity crisis at some point. Maybe the new guy who is actually a pretty good skier just rubbed you the wrong way. Maybe your recent injury had you miss out on a huge portion of the season and it threw you into a bit of an existential why-am-I-even-here season of frustration. Maybe you felt inadequate in a certain experienced group of riders. Maybe you've even caught yourself embarrassingly name-dropping in a crowd out of some weird place of insecurity that you didn't realize was there. Regardless of where or how you've felt your identity called into question, we can probably all relate to misplacing our identity in some things from our past.

In this first episode, Josh and Ryan introduce the concept of learning to BE before we DO. This episode on Identity addresses some of the common ways humans (and specifically Christians) mis-identify themselves and reminds us that we can find a stronger, more resilient, life-giving identity in Jesus.

In preparing for this video, Josh and Ryan found Mark Driscoll's book, Who Do You Think You Are? , to be very helpful. We'd encourage you to check out this book if you're interested in learning more about the importance of placing/finding your identity in Christ.

Let's discuss the following:
- What are some of your go-to mis-identifications?
- What are some creative ways we can correct those areas of misidentification and redirect ourselves toward a right identity?

What does it actually mean to "be a disciple"? Great question! And an important one for every Christian to answer. Glad you asked. There are A TON of different ideas floating around out there, and so the answer is not as straightforward as you might hope. In fact, if you asked 10 different people in 10 different churches what it means to BE a disciple of Jesus, you'd probably get 10 different definitions. Unfortunately, this kind of ambiguity can lead to confusion and frustration in the Body.

In this audio recording, Josh and Ryan dig into the question, "What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus?" They explore several passages from the New Testament and pull out FIVE IMPORTANT PRINCIPLES that give a strong, well-rounded, Biblical understanding of what it looks like to actually BE a disciple of Jesus.

Here are the five common principles/themes that Josh and Ryan explored in the passages from this recording. The passages suggest that a disciple of Jesus should be:

1. Sacrificial: When Jesus calls someone, He calls them to come and die (to self).
2. Relational: When you come to Jesus, you are grafted into His body (the Church). We are to regularly gather and commune with our fellow brothers/sisters in the faith.
3. Transformational: As a believer, the Spirit of God is working in you - transforming you into the image of Jesus.
4. Missional: We GO, we baptize, and we teach. We don't just sit in our church buildings, we go out and proclaim the glory of God, and His good news, to the world around us.
5. Rational: We submit ourselves to the Word (we're learners), and we teach others to observe Jesus' commandments.

And here are two example definitions for your consideration:

A disciple is a person who has trusted Christ for salvation and has surrendered completely to Him. He or she is committed to practicing the spiritual disciplines in community and developing to their full potential for Christ and His mission.

• Dave Earley and Rod Dempsey, Disciple Making Is...How to Live for the Great Commission with Passion and Confidence (Nahsville: B&H Academic, 2013), 28. Emphasis Added.

A disciple of Jesus...is someone who learns the gospel, relates in the gospel, and communicates the gospel.

• Jonathan K. Dodson, Gospel Centered Discipleship (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 38. Emphasis Added.

Let's discuss which of these principles you find easier or more difficult to live out on a daily basis.

Helpful resources that we'd encourage you to check out:
Gospel-Centered Discipleship by Jonathan K. Dodson
The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Discipling in a Multicultural World by Ajith Fernando

Let's discuss why unity amongst believers is so important within the shred culture. How can we cultivate communities of disciples when we are all so different?

Helpful resources that we'd encourage you to check out:
Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer Discipling: How to Help Others Follow Jesus by Mark Dever

We have probably all been guilty of viewing discipleship as a burden -- just another set of complex tasks or programs that we HAVE to do. But if you look at Jesus' method of discipleship, it would appear that much of His ministry was done on-the-go. He seemed to simply invite people into His daily life. Could discipleship really be that simple? Are we making this more complicated than it needs to be?

In this recording, Josh and Ryan explore Jesus' day-to-day model of discipleship to see how we might tweak our own "METHODS."

At the beginning of this recording, Ryan mentioned that he was largely influenced by the writings of Dr. Robert Coleman. Below are the eight principles of Jesus' ministry that Dr. Coleman highlights in his book, The Master Plan of Evangelism.

1. Selection: Jesus' method to reach the world was PEOPLE, not programs
2. Association: Jesus spent intentional time WITH His disciples
3. Consecration: Jesus expected His disciples to be HOLY / SET APART
4. Impartation: Jesus was generous with His time and investment
5. Demonstration: Jesus MODELED how to live for the Kingdom of God
6. Delegation: Jesus gave His disciples opportunities to serve/minister
7. Supervision: Jesus followed up and gave important feedback
8. Reproduction: Jesus expected His disciples to reproduce themselves -- to make MORE disciples

We want to invite you to consider these principles and how they might apply to your life and ministry.
Let's discuss whether or not you think these principles accurately reflect Jesus' ministry. Are there any principles (from the list above, or from Josh and Ryan's talk) that you would change/adapt? Are there any principles that you would ADD to this list?

Helpful resources we'd encourage you to check out:
The Master Plan of Evangelism by Robert Coleman

Let's discuss the following question: If you have successfully navigated a season of doubt, what is one lesson you walked away with?

Helpful resources that we'd encourage you to check out:
When Faith Fails: Finding God in the Shadow of Doubt by Dominic Done

At this point in the course, we'd like to encourage you to pause and take a breath. We want you to spend some time reflecting on God's character and any habits of disenchantment that you may be dealing with.

To help you do this, we would encourage you to check out two resources that we have found super helpful:
Recapturing the Wonder: Transcendent Faith in a Disenchanted World by Mike Cosper
The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer

As we heard in this video, Josh and Ryan have found Justin Earley's book, The Common Rule, to be a great resource in helping us choose the BEST daily practices/habits that will make our lives more fruitful and fulfilling. Make sure to check out Justin's book, The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose in an Age of Distraction, for more information/help on creating a new "rule of life." Visit Justin's website at thecommonrule.org and view the interactive version of his Common Rule diagram. Click through the different habits and let's discuss which habits resonate with you personally.

While this episode was never meant to be an exhaustive apologetic for the veracity of scripture, we do hope that hearing about the sources will remind you of the thousands of years of diligence and reverence that other Believers before us have had for the cherished Word of God. Does this reminder about the reliability (and multitude) of the Bible's sources make you feel more confident in your approach to understanding it? Does this raise more questions for you? Good. Stay hungry. Hunger to learn more is good, and although Knowledge is something we will never possess in its entirety, we can all push in and ask the Lord for more Wisdom as we dig into His Word together.

The word "interpretation" feels like a very subjective term in our world, doesn't it? It's something we hear thrown around often, "Well, that's not the way I would interpret that, sooo...let's just agree to disagree." Often times, we mistakenly choose to "interpret" some information in a way that gives us liberty to use that information to benefit us...or even as an excuse to ignore that information altogether. It's almost like we love when truth becomes relative...at least when it happens to benefit us. Guilty! But this loosey-goosey, relativistic approach to interpretation is not how the Bible has been handed down to us, and it is not what correct Biblical interpretation is.

In this second episode on Hermeneutics (the art and science of studying the Bible), Ryan and Josh discuss Biblical INTERPRETATION and how the meaning of scripture is not relative at all. As they explain the 5 Steps of the Interpretive Journey, we see that all scripture has only one meaning but can have many applications. And if we stay true to the five step formula we'll introduce, then the applications of the Biblical text can be world-changing right here, right now, for us and the world around us!

Here's a quick recap of the 5 Steps of the Interpretive Journey:
1. Grasping the text in their town: What did the text mean to the original audience?
2. Measuring the width of the river to cross: What are the differences between the biblical audience and us?
3. Cross the principlizing bridge: What is the theological principle in the text?
4. Consult the biblical map: Does the theological principle fit with the rest of Scripture?
5. Grasping the text in our town: How should we live out these theological principles today?
All of these principles have been taken from: Grasping God's Word Textbook by Duvall, J. Scott, and Hays, J. Daniel.

It's understandable if this idea of interpreting the Bible well feels like a big responsibility. It is. But while handling the Word of God should be done with care and respect, this simple framework should help us feel more confident to do it well. Do the 5 steps sound easy enough for you to try this on your own or with a small crew? Maybe you try it around the table after a post-shred meal. Maybe you set aside 30 mins to try this out with a friend in the car on your way to the mountain. Was it helpful to hear Ryan and Josh use these 5 steps on the Philippians passage? This is accessible stuff and excites us to see real, practical application of God's Word to our context.

So far we've considered how we got the Bible from its original documents translated into our current languages. We also discussed the practical 5 Step Model that helps us accurately interpret the Bible and find real-life applications for us. That's great for our confidence, but maybe we still feel a little inadequate to teach the Bible, that's okay too. People have been feeling that for thousands of years. The Bible is a very unique, divinely-inspired book that we hold very dear, so to claim to understand it well enough to teach it is a big deal. Fortunately, there are lots of free (and cheap) tools to help us study and share more confidently.

In this episode, Josh and Ryan discuss WHICH RESOURCES we should be drawing on to help us understand the Bible better. It is important that we consider which types of resources are most helpful and also understand how to identify if a resource is reliable or not.

One of the "resources" that Josh and Ryan talked about was the global church. They discussed how it's important to get out of your "cultural comfort zone" once in a while to see how people from other cultures read/interpret passages. Now...this is different for a lot of us...and we get that! So we wanted to help you get started. We want to encourage you to check out a book by InterVarsity Press called, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes. (You may remember Josh and Ryan talking about this book during their conversation.) We LOVE this book. It's a super interesting read and contains tons of great examples of how other (non-western) cultures tend to read/understand passages that we're all pretty familiar with.

Here are some other resources that Ryan and Josh would recommend to help with your Bible study.

Online Resources:
The Bible Project (FREE resources available on their website or on YouTube)
Bible Study Tools
The Gospel Coalition (FREE online Bible and Theology courses)
Plano Bible Chapel Text (FREE study notes on most books of the Bible)
Bible Gateway (Click on "Study Tools" on the left side of the page. They have tons of study notes and FREE commentaries available)
Study Light(Choose from a list of FREE commentaries/study notes)
Blue Letter Bible
Precept Studies

Affordable and accessible print resources:
The NIV Application Commentary Series (Affordable commentaries that aren't super technical)
Layman's Bible Commentary Set (by: Tremper Longman III)
Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentaries
The For Everyone Commentary Series (Affordable commentaries that are easy to read/use)
ESV Study Bible
NIV Zondervan Study Bible
Misreading Scripture With Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible
Misreading Scripture With Individualist Eyes: Patronage, Honor, and Shame in the Biblical World

What a blessing to have this community right here (members of the diverse, global Church) to dig into this stuff together with, isn't it? Have you used any good resources to help you understand and teach the Bible better? Do you feel comfortable to find more resources that align with the filters suggested in the video (peer-reviewed, citing other resources, recently published, pastor's approval, consistent with rest of scripture)?

Have you ever been in a place where you thought, "Okay, I think I understand what this certain passage of scripture MEANS...buuuuut, now what do I actually DO with that?!" It turns out sometimes that we know the MEANING of a text but fail to make real APPLICATION of the message.

In this fourth episode on Hermeneutics (the art and science of studying the Bible), Josh and Ryan emphasize the importance of us not just understanding the Word but also applying it well: rearranging the beliefs in our Heads, moving us emotionally in our Hearts and resulting in genuine acts of love and service through our Hands.

Do you have trouble moving from the meaning of a passage to the application? Some of us feel like we understand a principle in our Heads but it MAYBE gets lost somewhere in the Heart stage and never fully makes it to affecting change in the works of our HANDS. Or consider this: have you ever skipped the step of the Heart and moved straight from a Head understanding directly to the works of your Hands? If we skip the step of grasping God's Heart in our own Heart, we run the risk of Doing with our Hands based solely on obligation alone. Have you ever skipped the Head step and did something that felt emotional...but maybe it was based on wrong understandings? Clearly, each step of the Head, Heart, Hands application model is important. We've all had experiences of doing this poorly and skipping steps, but like the skills we develop on our skis/snowboards we all learn BY PRACTICING. Do you remember a time in your life when you saw all three steps done well?

Okay. It's official. We've made it! It feels like we've finally come to the place and time to really get into the thick of the DOING portion of the DOING phase. I mean, we were technically DOING as we focused on reading and understanding the Bible ourselves, but actually leading real, community Bible studies begins a kind of PUBLIC Doing, doesn't it? And while many in our global community have expressed hesitancy in leading a Bible study themselves, hopefully these simple and practical examples will fill us with the confidence of a 14-year-old who just learned their first 360.

In these final episodes on Hermeneutics, Josh and Ryan talk about how to start implementing these principles into practical GROUP studies. To help make this more tangible, Josh and Ryan had conversations with some local pastors and missionary friends about BIBLE STUDY MODELS they've used for studying the Bible in their communities and why they work well for their contexts. In this episode, Josh explains the Discovery Bible Study method.

Just to recap some of the points that Josh mentioned in the video, here are some of the "rules" we follow when we gather for Dinner & Discussion (our Discovery Bible Study):
1. Be relational. Maybe try gathering over a meal.
2. Pick something to study. Choose a book and/or a passage.
3. Remind the group to avoid Hyperlinking. Hyperlinking is just a fancy way of saying, "Hey, stay in the passage we're reading!" Now...we sometimes fudge this rule. If you're going through a book, it is sometimes helpful to let people go back (for context).
4. Remind the group to speak in sentences, not paragraphs. We've found that this actually helps to generate MORE conversation, because more people get an opportunity to speak/share.
5. Read it twice. Once you've decided on the passage you'll be studying for the night, read the passage twice.
6. Summarize it. After you've read the passage twice, close your books and summarize the passage (this can be a group effort!).
7. Ask: What does this teach us about God?
8. Ask: What does this teach us about humans?
9. Ask: How could we go about applying this to our lives this week? What principles do we see here?
10. Pray it out! Celebrate what God is doing in your life (praises) and take prayer requests. Pray as a group.

As Josh said on the video, we believe that this method is a great introduction to "leading" a Bible Study. It's easy to use and it's easy to reproduce. So, if you're interested in learning more about the Discovery Bible Study method, then click here! Our friend Hondo developed this PDF using information from a couple of different sites/resources. According to Hondo, much of this content can be attributed to the ministry Contagious Disciple Making (see below). This PDF is NOT the property of Snowboarders & Skiers for Christ.

Other helpful recourses:
Contagious Disciple Making: Leading Others on a Journey of Discovery
Contagious Disciple Making
discoverybiblestudy.org

Let's discuss -
- Have you ever tried using the Discovery Bible Study method?
- If so, how did it go!? What kind of results did you see?
- If you haven't tried this model before, does it seem simple enough to try out?
- What are some things you like about this model?
- What kinds of things do YOU try to implement when leading Bible studies (i.e., what kind of environment do you try to cultivate)?

Okay. We're talking about how to lead a BIBLE STUDY again for this second part of Episode 12. To quell some of our apprehension about leading our own Bible studies, we're providing an inside look into a couple approachable and easily-reproducible models. Remember, we talked about how to read the Bible well for ourselves (building a good foundation), and now we're talking about how to help others study the Bible. In the last episode, Josh welcomed us into his home for a cup of tea and gave a brief description of the Discovery Bible Study method, a method that keeps things simple and conversational (of course Josh, the old chatterbox, wants to keep it simple and conversational).

In this episode, Josh and Ryan speak with two local pastors, Kevin Platt and Chris Gonzalez, about The Story of God. The Story of God is a Bible study method that seeks to help people read/understand the Bible as one overarching story. We think this method (way of studying Scripture) is great because it's easy to use, memorable, visual and helps people see the bigger picture.

Interested in learning more about the Story of God? If so, click here! Kevin and Chris provide short descriptions of each part of the story, and even have YouTube videos where they briefly describe each of the six parts.

So if you think this might be a helpful method, then check it out! After all, practice makes perfect (well...better).

Hearing the examples Hondo, Kevin, and Chris have used to improve the Bible studies in their communities, does this give you better insight for your community? Can you think of something you have tried? Have you learned any what-not-to-do lessons from your attempts? And before we get ahead of ourselves, it may be wise to ask if you have only considered YOUR own plans and ideas. Have you stopped and prayed about what specific approach God might have planned for your community? Often times, God is waiting for us to ask.

Which stories resonated with you? Did any of the stories inspire you to meet specific needs in your community with a new approach? Often times, we feel like maybe our roots are planted more firmly on one side of the bridge than the other. Do you feel like you have better connections in your Church, or on your local hill? How can we strengthen that weaker side? If you're all out of fresh ideas, remember the themes of Serving, Sticking With It and Sacrificing.

Having gospel conversations with people can often feel awkward. Why is that? Isn't this the greatest news ever!? Shouldn't we be excited to share the good news of Jesus Christ? Well...yes. We should be excited about that! And most of us know that. But that still doesn't negate the fact that, for most of us, sharing the gospel with people is hard. It feels awkward. And it often times feels forced. So what do we do about that? How do we make these conversations feel more natural, rather than forced? Well...one thing that might help is learning how to speak the gospel over every aspect of our lives.

In this video, Josh and Ryan speak with Jeff Vanderstelt about his book, Gospel Fluency. In this brief (but AWESOME) book, Jeff argues that sharing the gospel often feels awkward for us because we haven't learned to speak the gospel into the everyday stuff of life - we haven't learned how to apply the good news to EVERY aspect of our lives. So in order to become more confident sharing the gospel with others, we first need to learn how to speak the gospel over ourselves (in other words, we need to develop fluency). In short, we need to constantly (daily) stir up our affections for Jesus. And we need to help other believers stir up their affections for Jesus. The more we do this for ourselves and for others, the more natural all of this (speaking/sharing the gospel) will become.

Interested in learning more about Gospel Fluency? Check out Jeff's book below. This book, along with the workbook, has been instrumental for several of us in the SFC network:
Gospel Fluency: Speaking the Truths of Jesus into the Everyday Stuff of Life

We all would like to be "well-versed" in the gospel. We all would like for these gospel truths to just flow out of us. But, for many of us, that just feels difficult. As Jeff noted in this episode, developing gospel fluency takes practice. You need to practice speaking these truths over yourself (in any/every situation), and you need to surround yourself with people who love Jesus and want to talk about Him. In short, practice makes better. Does this concept of "gospel fluency" make sense to you? Did hearing the examples Jeff gave, of how to apply these gospel truths to the everyday stuff of life, make this a little more clear (make this more tangible/practical)? How can you go about developing gospel fluency? What "practices" and/or "rhythms" could you begin implementing this week? Let us know what you think.

Learning a new language is hard. It feels unnatural. A huge part of learning any language involves a good bit of LISTENING in the beginning. So, in order to grow in gospel fluency, we need to surround ourselves with people who love Jesus and who talk about Jesus often. This will help us learn how to speak the truths of Jesus into the everyday stuff of our lives. That's step one.

Step two is learning how to listen to people who don't know Jesus. Often, we think of evangelism as going and telling somebody something they need to know...but rarely do we stop long enough to listen to what they're going through. As Jeff says, Jesus is the answer to everything that they're going through, but if we don't stop long enough to listen, then we won't know what kind of hurts/disappointments they're dealing with.

We want to be people who share GOOD NEWS. So that means we need to be a people who LISTEN well enough to know how the gospel can be good news to the people we're sharing with.

As Jeff pointed out in this episode, if we want to develop gospel fluency, then we need to surround ourselves with people who LOVE Jesus and who talk about Him often. Where are you currently finding this kind of community? If you don't feel like you have this kind of community, what first step could you take to help foster this kind of community? Maybe, if you don't know where to turn, it looks like reaching out to some fellow SFCers!

Did hearing Jeff talk about the importance of LISTENING to others (outside of the church) challenge you? How might listening to the stories of other people shift the way you share the gospel? Let us know what you think.

Christianity calls us to live lives that are visibly different. We should live in such a way that people see something different in us and ask, "WHY?" And most of us get that, right? Most of us understand that we should live a life that demands a gospel explanation. But, if we're honest, sharing WHY we're different is HARD! We clam up. We get nervous about what they'll think of us if we share. Why must Christians explain their reason for living differently? Great question! As Jeff explains in this video, failing to explain the reason WHY actually may lead others away from Jesus by "teaching" them that they can just be good people and leave Jesus out of the equation. Christians live differently BECAUSE of Jesus...not because of something generated in and of themselves. It's important to learn how to: show AND tell...in LOVE. As Jeff notes in this episode, love is crucial! Sharing the gospel IN LOVE is what helps people experience good news.

As Josh and Ryan shared in this video, Gospel Fluency was such a formative book for them. It helped shift their approach to evangelism, and made them feel more confident in their ability to take the gospel (the GOOD NEWS) to people who truly need to hear it. We believe that it will also encourage you and make you more confident in your ability to speak gospel truths into the everyday stuff of life.

Show and Tell. It brings me back to elementary school, when I would bring in some of my favorite things (skateboard, pet hamster, etc.) to show all of my friends. Did you ever get to do that!? I LOVED telling everyone about these different things that were important to me. And not only did I love showing/telling people about my favorite things, but I loved seeing/hearing what was important to my fellow classmates. Now...while "show and tell" may be an elementary school past time, we still have opportunities to show and tell. We have opportunities to show by living visibly different lives (lives motivated by Jesus). And we have opportunities to tell by sharing WHY we live differently. Does this "show and tell" stuff make sense to you? Have you had a lot of experience with showing AND telling? What examples come to mind that you're willing to share?

Lastly, and probably most importantly, our sharing needs to be rooted in LOVE. As Jeff shared in this episode, we are called to be salt and light to this world (salt and light are enhancers...they make things better). That being said, how can we love people well in our sharing? Let us know what you think.

We've all felt it. That nervous feeling in our gut when it comes time to share the gospel. We know it's an important message that NEEDS to be shared. But often times we can't seem to shake that nervous feeling that hits when it comes time to share. And maybe it's because we've had some pretty awkward/cringeworthy experiences of sharing the gospel in the past - experiences that have caused us to shy away from sharing the gospel. And for a lot of us it might feel like that's just that way it's destined to be - awkward and hard to do.

In the last episode (well...three episodes), Jeff Vanderstelt spoke to us about Gospel Fluency - learning to speak the truths of Jesus into the everyday stuff of life. He noted how sharing the gospel often feels hard/awkward because we don't know it well enough - we struggle to see how the gospel applies to the "everyday stuff of life." He argued that in order to become more fluent in the gospel (more confident in sharing it), we need to start speaking these truths on a regular basis. In short, you want to feel confident in your ability to share the gospel with others? Then you need to start sharing the gospel with yourself (and with other Christians) on a DAILY basis.

And that makes sense, right? The more we practice something, the more we immerse ourselves in something, the more confident we become (just like skiing and snowboarding!). And while that might sound nice, you might be wondering..."okay, well how do I start doing that?" Well...you've come to the right place. In this episode, Josh and Ryan speak (once again) with Kevin Platt and Chris Gonzalez about the Story of God. They share how this simple six-symbol-story has helped them become more confident in their ability to share the gospel with people.

Did any of the stories in this episode stick out to you? As we heard in this interview, sharing the gospel doesn't always work out the way we hoped (e.g., the person didn't respond the way we thought they would, we were caught off guard by a comment they made and/or question they asked, etc.). And that can cause us to shy away from future opportunities to share the gospel (because we don't want to relive those past experiences). Do you think having The Story of God framework may help to alleviate some of those fears? Does having a framework like this help to take some of the pressure off? Do you think that this is something you could do on a chairlift (or in a coffeeshop) with someone? Let us know what you think.

We REALLY hope that this course has been a source of encouragement to you. As Josh and Ryan said throughout the course, we've only really scratched the surface on some of these topics. But hopefully, these different lectures/interviews sparked some conversation. Maybe it helped to shift the way you think about some of these things. And if so, great! Keep pressing in. The goal - as Josh and Ryan said throughout the course - is to push each other to SHINE BRIGHTER and BRIDGE BETTER.

As we conclude our (virtual) time together, let us know if anything stuck out to you from the course. How did you work through the course (individually, or with a group)? Is there anything (any topic) that you'd like to see explored in future revisions of the course?