Wheaton Passage is Wheaton College’s first-year student transition program that is specifically designed to help you form friendships and effectively navigate the transition into Wheaton. Designed and run by HoneyRock, the College’s Outdoor Center for Leadership Development, and the Christian Formation and Ministry Department, Passage has a long history of enhancing the first-year experience by providing a small group of peers, an upper-class mentor and a faculty leader to every student before they arrive on campus.
This course is specially designed to equip incoming students for their transition to Wheaton College through an experiential education model. Students will engage in purposeful adventure challenge combined with course readings, critical reflection and discussion intended to foster self-evaluation and development of personal faith, and character. You will also develop a social support network of faculty and peers to enhance your effectiveness as a student at Wheaton College. Through the educational experiences of this course, students will be presented with a framework for integrating the multi-faceted learning experience of college into Christian belief. This textbook serves as a course packet that contains the syllabus, various readings, discussion guides and details of Passage.
Welcome to Passage
Passage Course Syllabus
Course Checklist
Journal Guidelines
Introduction: Life with God, Together
Life with God, Together by Philip Ryken
Introducing Thoughtful Smartphone and Technology Use on Passage by HoneyRock
Theme #1: Spiritual Formation
You Are What You Love by James K.A. Smith, Chapter 1
Practicing Passion by Kenda Creasy Dean, Chapter 6
Reading and Discussion Guide
Theme #2: Faith in Practice
Part 1: A Rooted Identity
Embracing the Love of God by James Bryan Smith
Reading and Discussion Guide
Scripture Reading and Reflection Guide
Part 2: Living in Community
Living into Community: Cultivating Practices That Sustain Us by Christine Pohl, Introduction, Chapters 8 and 9
Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Chapter 1
Reading and Discussion Guide
Part 3: Sacrificial Co-Laboring
The Christ of the Cross and the World Mission of the Church by David Zac Niringiye
At this Time and Place, Self, World, and the Space Between by Darby Kathleen Ray, Chapter 13
An Explanation of the Philosophy and Purpose of Sacrificial Co-Laboring on Passage by The HoneyRock Center for Leadership Development
Reading and Discussion Guide
Part 4: Life of the Mind
The Countercultural Quest of Christian Liberal Arts by Jeffry C. Davis, Chapter 1
Faithful Christian Learning by Jeffrey P. Greenman, Chapter 5
Reading and Discussion Guide