This spring I wrote a pair of blog posts—Are You Living Your Dream? and Living Beyond Our Broken Dreams—that caught the attention of Canadian Mennonite University’s Xplore program. Xplore is an enrichment program that will take place over six weeks this fall, and I’ve been invited to develop and teach a course related to those blog posts! This will be my third course for Xplore, and I’m already looking forward to it!!

I’d love to have any of you join me over Zoom on Thursday mornings, October 5-November 9, 11:00 a.m. – noon, CDT (9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. Pacific). No assignments or exams, but a good time of reflection, prayer, sharing, and discussion. You’re free to have your camera on, or leave it off and simply listen in if you prefer. Here’s the title, course description, and instructor bio:

Are You Living Your Dream? Or Longing for a New One?

Course Description: In our rapidly changing world and with the challenge of changing personal circumstances, what life do we dream of and how can we live it wisely and well? In Scripture God promises to pour out the Spirit, and “your young will see visions, Your elders will dream dreams” (Acts 2:17, cf. Joel 2:28). What might this mean for our dreaming today?

This course will explore dreams and dreaming in Scripture, good dreams/bad dreams/broken dreams/God-given dreams, letting go of a dream, making room for a new one, learning to dream again, and living it out. Each session will include time for reflection, prayer, sharing, and discussion. May we all continue dreaming, and live into hope one day and one moment at a time.

Instructor: April Yamasaki is a pastor and the author of Four Gifts, Sacred Pauses, and other books on Christian living. She currently serves as resident author with a liturgical worship community, edits a quarterly devotional magazine, continues to write online and in print, and is a frequent guest speaker. In these and other ways, she is living her childhood dream of being a writer. At the same time, with the sudden death of her husband last year and in other circumstances of life, she is well acquainted with delayed, disappointing, and broken dreams.

There are so many great courses being offered this fall, so check them all out on the Xplore website.  Registration hasn’t opened yet, but I couldn’t wait to share this with you!

Writing/Reflection Prompt: In my last two blog posts, I’ve shared about  cutting back in some areas and pruning in others to allow room for new growth. This is one of the happy results, that I actually have the space to say yes to this teaching opportunity. What careful pruning have you been doing, and what good results are you seeing?

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