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Wooddale Advance exists to honor God by developing, equipping and supporting healthy disciple-making churches.
It combines the experience and ministry of over 75 years of Wooddale to serve and support other churches.

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Schedule a phone consult with Paul Borden, executive director of Wooddale Advance, to ask questions specific to your church!

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HOW IT WORKS

Wooddale Advance is focused on five key initiatives to help develop, equip and support healthy churches.
WHO IT’S FOR
  • Lead pastors of large churches (average weekly attendance over 300) who desire to lead a healthy, missional church
WHAT TO EXPECT
  • Engage in a 1-year cohort of like-minded church leaders
  • Practical guidance to be able to implement mission and vision consistently
  • Develop healthy board governance focused on supporting the mission of the church
  • Maintain a consistent focus on evangelism and discipleship
  • Onsite weekend consultation with customized church prescriptions for your church and leadership
WHO IT’S FOR
  • Lead pastors of smaller churches (average weekly attendance under 300) who desire to lead a healthy, missional church
WHAT TO EXPECT
  • Engage in a 1-year cohort of like-minded church leaders
  • Practical guidance to be able to implement mission and vision consistently
  • Develop healthy board governance focused on supporting the mission of the church
  • Maintain a consistent focus on evangelism and discipleship
  • Onsite weekend consultation with customized church prescriptions for your church and leadership

WHO IT’S FOR

  • Church leaders and board members who seek to multiply the mission of their church through a multisite model of ministry

WHAT TO EXPECT

  • Learn from Wooddale Church’s history with planting new congregations and moving to contextualized multisite ministry
  • Explore alternative models of multisite ministry
  • Explore the elements of Gospel contextualization and how it applies to multisite ministry
  • Understand role of senior pastor, campus pastors, central staff and board
  • Practical guidance from multisite leaders at Wooddale Church
  • Experience a weekend at Wooddale Church
  • Optional onsite weekend consultation with customized church prescriptions for your church and leadership as a follow up
WHO IT’S FOR
  • Lead/senior pastors and board members who desire to advance the mission of the church in the future.
WHAT TO EXPECT
  • The Wooddale experience of pastoral succession, including successes and lessons learned
  • Understand the assumptions present behind the succession process
  • Learn the need to develop a succession plan before succession is an issue
  • How to create healthy pastoral transitions
  • Evaluate transitional options and approaches
  • Developing and implementing an effective search process
  • Creating an effective selection process
  • Determine ways to support the pastor for the first five years
  • Optional pastoral succession coaching

Wooddale Advance Ministry Leadership Development Program

Wooddale Church has partnered with three academic institutions to offer a unique program for developing future ministry leaders. This program will blend academic excellence with practical ministry experience, and intentional leadership development. Students who are accepted into the Wooddale Advance Ministry Leadership Development Program will complete two classes taught by Wooddale Church Leaders. This program will also include ministry mentoring through a required ministry role in a local church. Wooddale classes are taught over six weekends at Wooddale Church, the classes at the partner institution will all be online. The Wooddale Advance courses will be accepted by the partner institutions toward the completion of the degree at a special reduced rate. Once accepted into the Wooddale Advance Ministry Leadership Development Program, students will select, apply, and need to be accepted at one of the following partner institutions before they can begin their coursework.

Partner Institution

Crown College

Bethel University

University of Northwestern – St. Paul

Tuition Cost

$416.25 per credit for 30 credits

$415 per credit for 30 credits

$399.20 per credit for 30 credits

Wooddale Cost

$350 per credit for 6 credits

$350 per credit for 6 credits

$350 per credit for 6 credits

Total Tuition Cost

$14,587.50

$14,550

$14,076

Length of Program

36 Credits (6 credits from Wooddale); 2 years

36 Credits (6 credits from Wooddale); 2 years

36 Credits (6 credits from Wooddale); 2 years

Program

Master of Arts in Christian Studies

Master of Arts in Christian Thought

Master of Arts in Theological Studies (MATS) or Master of Arts in Ministry Leadership (MAML)

Description

Whether your goal is pastoral ministry, foreign missionary service, theological education, or service within other faith-based organizations, Crown’s online Masters in Christian Studies degree is designed to equip you with the theological understanding and practical skills that will help you in ministry.

Bethel’s Master of Arts in Christian Thought is about exploring the intersection of Christian thought and contemporary culture and applying your knowledge to everyday issues. You’ll build a strong foundation in Bible, theology, and philosophy to face the pressing challenges of modern society.

The Master of Arts in Theological Studies applies biblical principles to central theological issues and prepares you to teach in a church or academic setting, while the Master of Arts in Ministry Leadership prepares you with the spiritual and leadership skills for local church, non-profit and parachurch leadership.

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MEET YOUR LEADERS

Paul Borden is the director of Wooddale Advance. Paul has served as a pastor in a smaller congregation and co-pastor of a large, growing teaching church. He has also served as academic dean at Western Bible College and Denver Seminary. In his role as a denominational leader, he saw God transform over 150 congregations to become growing, Great Commission churches and was able to lead this group of congregations to plant 100 new churches. He has consulted with over 1,500 congregations and 35 denominations. He has written four books: Hit the Bullseye, Direct Hit, Assaulting the Gates and Make or Break Your Church in 365 Days. Paul holds a Bachelor of Science from Philadelphia College of Bible, a Master of Theology from Dallas Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Denver.
Dale Hummel was called as senior pastor of Wooddale Church on April 28, 2013. He began his ministry in a small rural church, eventually ending up in Eden Prairie, Minnesota to lead a church of more than 4,000. Every step of the way, God has used Dale to help churches reinvent their future. He frequently consults with churches across the nation and has written two editions of How to Lead the Church for overseas church planters, with another book to be released soon. Teaming up with Wooddale Worldwide, Dale travels extensively to promote Wooddale’s mission: to honor God by making more disciples for Jesus Christ. He has also led Wooddale to embrace a vision called Hope Beyond, which endeavors to spread the hope of the Gospel to a million people here, near and far by the year 2022. Dale and his wife Marcia have three children and four grandchildren.
Kyle Robinson serves as the executive pastor of ministry for Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. In his role he provides leadership to fulfilling the vision of imparting the hope of the Gospel here, near and far. Kyle and his wife Stephanie were committed volunteers at Wooddale Church for a decade before Kyle joined the staff. Their two children are actively involved in the ministry of the church. Kyle is an avid runner and scuba diver, and loves to share stories over cups of strong coffee. Kyle spent 10 years in corporate and management consulting roles before joining Wooddale’s team and holds two master’s degrees and a doctorate in leadership studies.
Pat Mazorol serves as chair of Wooddale Church. He led the transition of leadership in his roles as chair of the senior pastor search team and church chair. Pat is an attorney with 23 years of business experience as chief executive officer of two national trust banks and senior vice president of a Christian university. He currently practices law and consults on business planning, leadership succession, leadership transition and board governance. Pat’s governance experience includes service as chair of two nonprofit boards, governance committee chair of an international humanitarian ministry board and vice chair of a Christian university board of trustees. Pat and his wife Barbara have two daughters and eight grandchildren. His most avid interests are grandchildren, reading, films, golf and Disney World.