Technical Support
Here you will find information to help you through various aspects of your journey with the Encounter School of Ministry. This information is for students of the Onsite DC Campus. Below you’ll find sections on the enrollment process, basic dashboard (Canvas) navigation, how to activate your Canvas dashboard, etc. To see the information for the particular areas, please Click on the tabs below .
NOTE: our DC campus can support you in limited ways. For most support issues (tuition, payment, passwords, etc.) are supported by the Encounter School headquarters. Please go to: https://encounterschool.org/esm-student-support-on-site/ where you will find support on a wide variety of topics.
Year 1 Application/Tuition
For those applying for Year One:
If you have guests or friends who would like to register for the School, please let them know that the application deadline is October 1 (this date may change from year to year, check with the team at the start of each year for the application deadline). After that, no applications will be accepted. Once the application period closes, the registration for the year will be finalized and lanyards will be printed and mailed to us.
Sometimes, students have a difficult time finding the emails regarding acceptance or tuition or their invitation to the Canvas dashboard. This can be for many reasons: (a) the email could have gone to their junk/spam or trash folders; (b) they get many emails and they don’t recognize the emails from encounter; (c) there was some difficulty in the sending of the email and it never reached the student. In most cases, we find that the student received the email but somehow never saw it.
If you are having a difficult time finding the emails or knowing your status, it can be helpful to know the process and what the emails look like to help you search for them in your email software.
The Process.
- Potential Student applies to Encounter School of Ministry (ESM)
- A Confirmation Email is sent to the applicant stating the following:
“We have received your application to the Encounter School of Ministry. Your application will be reviewed in the near future and you can expect to receive an email for further instruction by a member of our staff within no less than two weeks. If you have any questions about the application process, please contact us through our Student Support Center at https://encounterschool.org/esm-student-support-home/. - The application is reviewed (this process can take 2-3 weeks, so please be patient). If accepted, the student is added to the ESM Student Dashboard on Canvas.
- The student is sent an acceptance email. The email has the following features (below) that you can use to search for it if you are having difficulty finding it. If you want to see more details about what is included in the acceptance email, you can see an example that was sent in 2025 to the Class of 2027 here: https://encounterschooldc.org/email-acceptance/
- From: Encounter School Admissions <admissions@encounterschool.org.
- Subject: Encounter School of Ministry Acceptance!
- Body: Dear ____,
Congratulations! You have been accepted into the Encunter School of Ministry. After a thorough review of your application, identifying your desire to attend the Encounter School stood out to us… (click here for a full sample of the email)
- The student is sent an invoice by email 24 hours after the acceptance email is sent.
- The student is sent an invitation email from Canvas to activate and setup their dashboard. NOTE: the student MUST click on the link to accept the invitation to access and setup their account. The dashboard in Canvas is their central hub for student information, communications, schedules, class recordings, syllabi, and links to several other important resources. For more information on getting setup in Canvas, click on the “Dashboard Problems?” tab above.
Tuition payment
Once the acceptance letter arrives, students have 15 days to pay the invoice. All of the payment information is included in the letter. Students can pay quarterly or get a discount for paying in full. Tuition payments are due on the first day of the Quarter. Obviously, if you are still awaiting your acceptance letter, this date does not apply.
How the tuition portal works:
Once the student is accepted, ESM enables the tuition portal for the student and they are sent an invitation to set-up their tuition account on Zoho. The student should accept the tuition portal invitation so that you can access your account at any time. Best practice: choose to make it match your canvas account (same email & password) which would allow you to easily get to the tuition portal via a link within Canvas. If you setup your tuition portal with a different password than your Canvas account, you’ll simply need to remember two sets of passwords (or have your browser save them).
If a student attempts to log-in without accepting the portal invitation and setting up their account, it would come back with no account found.
Note from ESM: To make it easier for students, I ALWAYS suggest they skip the tuition portal and look for the invoice that is emailed directly to them. The subject line they should be looking for is: “Tuition Invoice [Invoice #] from Encounter School of Ministry“. The email would look something like this:
For students who have already been accepted and have not yet paid, Brighton sends out payment reminders – please do not ignore these notices. At some point, if payment is not received, they will drop students from the roster. So, if you are having problems in this area, please let us know so that we can assist you.
In the event that a student is dropped and cannot access the student dashboard, they will be able to fill out a Student Reactivation Request Form. This form can also be found on the Student Support Center. Once their invoice is paid, they will be given access to their dashboard once again.
All tuition must be paid online via credit or debit card. Cash or checks are not accepted.
Further Assistance—Open a Ticket at ESM
If you cannot find the emails described above, please contact ESM support directly. All enrollment and tuition issues are handled by the main ESM office. To open a support ticket, please go to: https://encounterschool.org/esm-student-support-on-site/#tuition
Students Going Into Year 2
When you enroll in the school, ESM assumes that you are enrolling in the full 2-year program. So, you do NOT have to apply again to continue into Year 2. However, you do need to confirm your tuition schedule (quarterly or annual). And if for some reason, you cannot continue, you must submit a drop request. Please see the email below that all incoming Year 2 students should have received.
Hello Rising ESM Year 2 Students!
How wonderful it is to officially call you Year 2 students! What an incredible year it has been being able to witness, no matter if you are near or far, the transformation and breakthrough in your lives. The Lord loves to work in you and through you!
As a student who completed ESM Year 1, you are automatically enrolled in Year 2.
While you do not need to fill-out a new application, it is important for you to confirm the tuition cycle you would like to follow next year as soon as possible. You can do this through the Year 2 Information Form.
Once completed, our team will work to issue your tuition invoice. You only need to fill out the Year 2 Information form if you are intending on continuing onto Year 2. If you are unable to continue, please fill out a ESM Student Drop Request Form.
If you are coming back after having completed Year 1, but had to discontinue for a time, you can request to be reinstated so that you can continue on and complete Year 2. To do this, please fill out this Reactivation Request Form.
TUITION OPTIONS:
Annual Tuition: One-time $ payment due on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025
Quarterly Tuition: Four $ payments due on the following dates:
- Payment 1: September 10, 2025
- Payment 2: November 19, 2025
- Payment 3: January 28, 2026
- Payment 4: April 9, 2026
*Please note: Any student needing to transfer campuses or ESMO zoom sessions, will still need to fill out the Year 2 Information Form as well as a Student Transfer Request Form AFTER the end of the school year.
This form is due by August 1, 2025.
| Class of 2025: Year 2 Information Form |
Year 2 Preview with Patrick Reis
Year One equipped you with skills and tools to unleash the love of God through the power of the Holy Spirit into your spheres of influence. In your second year, we are going to go even deeper, diving into topic of Intimacy, Advanced Ministry Training, Power Evangelization, and Leadership & Deployment. It is in this year where we want you, through the guide of the Holy Spirit, to go after your Kingdom Dreams. You will learn how to take what you have learned to advance the Kingdom even further than you thought was possible.
Please take a few minutes to watch this video message from Patrick Reis, to gain an even better insight as to what you can expect for Year Two of the Encounter School of Ministry!
Eligibility for Graduation
As a reminder, graduation from the Encounter School of Ministry means that a student has completed academic, attendance, and financial requirements over the course of 2 years (8 quarters). To be eligible for a Certificate of Completion, students must be able to satisfy the following requirements on our Graduation Eligibility and Honor Form:
- Completed 80% homework assignments per quarter
- Attended 80% of classes per quarter*
- Completion of Year Two Ministry Project
- Has paid all outstanding tuition invoices
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us through the Student Support Center.
We are excited to see you in the Fall! Please know of our entire team’s prayers for you as you enjoy your summer with your family and friends.
In Christ,
Rachel Grech
Director of Operations
Encounter School of Ministry
Student Dashboards (Canvas)
Each student will gain access to a student dashboard. You can access it from the Encounter website (the login button at the top right of the page) or directly from https://canvas.instructure.com/login/canvas/. From the dashboard, you can find the schedule for your course, access to your tuition portal, links to the Student Support Center, and you will find resources from each class (student handouts and videos of the talks) which is very helpful, especially if you missed the class. Videos will be posted between 1-2 days after the class. Below is a short tutorial of the dashboard to help you know what’s available and how to navigate it.
Trouble Logging Into Your Dashboard?
There are a couple scenarios to consider: (a) you’ve already setup your Canvas account to access your dashboard; and (b) you never setup your Canvas account and need to do so.
(a) If You’ve Already Setup Your Canvas Account
We do not have access to your login information. However, you should be able to reset your password. Just go to the Canvas login page:
https://canvas.instructure.com/login/canvas
(b) You Have Not Setup Your Canvas Account
Below this video is a text writeup of how to setup your Canvas account if you prefer that
Text version of what is in the video:
If you’ve never accessed the Encounter dashboard in Canvas, you likely haven’t setup your account. You should have received an email invitation from Instructure (the company that is behind Canvas) around the same time that you received your acceptance email from Encounter. You’ll note that in your acceptance email, it says the following:
|
Student Dashboard Access I have gone ahead and given you access to your course dashboard for ESM Students. This dashboard is housed on a learning management system called Canvas. While setting up your free account, you will be asked to verify your email address. If you do not see an email come through, please be sure to check your spam or promotions folder. All you need to do to access the course Dashboard is to press this link which serves as an invitation URL. Prior to beginning your time as an Encounter School of Ministry student, please be sure to go through the Foundational Resources portion of the Student Dashboard. Here you will find two initial essays to read and two talks to listen to. |
Some confusion may occur because Encounter did not specifically state where the email would be coming from, so you may have been looking for an email from Encounter. But the Canvas dashboard is run by a 3rd party (Instructure), so your invitation to setup your account on Canvas would have come from Instructure.
That email should look similar to this but addressed to the email address you provided Encounter. To find that email, you will want to search for “instructure.com” (check your spam/junk or trash folders if you’re having trouble finding it).
Your account is setup for the DC Class year that would reflect your graduation year. So those in Year 1 during the 2025-2026 school year would be in the DC2027 class, those in Year 2 during the same year would be in the DC2026 class.
Setting Up Your Account Once You Have the Email
To accept the invitation, please click on the “Get Started” button (or a similar link if Instructure adjusted how this email is generated).
Once you click on the “Get Started” button, you should be taken to Canvas where you should see something like this:
You must click on the “Accept” button to accept the invitation. Once you do, you should see something like the following (your actual graduation class year will appear in place of “DC 2026”):
You will click on “Create My Account” and that will bring up the following where you can add your password, change your time zone to “Eastern Time” and choose whether you want to receive info from Instructure (Canvas), and click on “I agree ot the Acceptable Use Policy.”
Once you click on “Register”, your account will be setup. It would be nice if you could add your photo to your profile to help people know you better. To do so, click on the “Account” menu item, then click on the “Profile” link, and then on the “Edit Profile” link, and then click on the icon of the person. That will give you the following box where you can upload your photo.
Contacting Encounter Headquarter Support
If all else fails, you’ll need to open up a ticket at the Student Support Portal.
Contact Us
Please contact Don James with any technical issues you are facing with the DC Encounter Campus website using the contact form below.
- If you have issues with registration or tuition, please contact Encounter Ministries at their Student Support Portal. Since we do not have access to login credentials, password issues also need to be resolved by Encounter Ministries.
- If you have questions regarding teachings given, homework, upcoming practicums or ministry projects, please contact your class shepherds (Betsy & John Roeder for Year 1, or Theresa & Dr. Andre Leyva for Year 2)
If you’ve had a problem that was resolved by Encounter Ministries, please let us know so that we can be aware of any problems students are having and what was done to fix it. Thank you!