Are you experienced?

In her book, The Church as Learning Community, Norma Cook Everist proposes Eight Facets of Learning and related methodologies to teaching to a diverse audience. When considering my own stylistic preferences, it's fairly obvious that I prefer an experienced-based environment and struggle within a study-based environment.

Educational environments that feature experience as the basis for learning tend to employ are variety of tactics including expeditionary learning, field education, dramatization, role playing, simulation, and case study (p. 104). I have always valued opportunities to get my hands dirty in the process of learning. Learning by doing (and making mistakes) has proven invaluable for me over the years. In particular, I am an avid seeker of case studies in which others can do the learning for me and I can glean the results.

On the other hand, study-based learning tends to provide me with the most challenges. I struggle to find the patience or focus for long periods of self-guided work. Learning that requires route memorization or lengthy research often fails to capture my attention for sustained periods of time. I prefer to roll up my sleeves, start producing work, evaluate the results, tweak the approach and retry.

Perhaps these preferences are a result of the environments that I've been passionate about for the last 20 years or so. You can't learn about wine & food by just reading about it. You have to get in there and taste it. I'd like to think there's a way to approach Christian education in a similar fashion. I look forward to finding that way.

Jesus loves you... go do something about it!

There you have it. The one sentence that describes what I hope people in my future congregations will take away from my ministry. Simple, straight forward and hopefully, easy to remember. It's the Gospel revealed and the commission implied. -KISS (keep it simple stupid)

Objective vs. Subjective

I suppose my upcoming role as a Christian educator will be one of the most challenging aspects of my calling to ministry. As much as I know that I am an objective thinker, I know that the world around me is an anything but objective place. Nurturing others faith will be a subjective activity.

I imagine that I'll need to cultivate a patience for developing educational strategies that will be unique to each time, place, subject and person. The one-size-fits-all approach I may desire to implement most likely will not generate any lasting contributions to the process. I do feel that one of my gifts is an ability to "read" others frames of reference which should serve me well. I also like to maintain a sense of the world that surrounds the contexts within which we live. At the same time, I know that I will struggle with agenda anxieties and will have to learn to accept greater flexibility in the educational process.

The good news is that while learning is a subjective process, so is teaching. I think there's room for me in there too.

Religious...anyone, anyone... Education

Last week in class, we discussed John Westerhoff's three Christian education metaphors. In my own experience, I can say that each one accurately portrays different times of my life.

My earliest memories of attending Sunday school, at about the 1st or 2nd grade level, exemplify the Production metaphor. It was a classic school setting where I was grouped into a classroom with kids my own age and we were "taught" to by a teacher. I would say this technique was again mirrored during my time in confirmation. Each week, I would just sit at a desk in a classroom and the pastor or a volunteer teacher would lecture to me and my classmates. In both instances, the setting was formal and less than stimulating. I especially remember the painful times during confirmation classes when, after having lectured for some time, the instructor attempted to engage the students in some sort of discussion. In reality, the instructor just wanted us to recite what had just been presented. No room for discussion. It was just like the classroom scenes from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Westerhoff's Greenhouse metaphor more accurately describes my 4th through 6th grade Sunday school experiences. Clearly the church educators in my congregation started to wise up and divided the Sunday school into groups of similar abilities rather than just age levels. While we met as a combined group of elementary-aged kids for portions of the time, the material was presented for our benefit and much of the small group work was conducted in a way that matched our developmental stage. While I think this may have increased levels of participation, I'm not sure that there was any greater transference of knowledge or understanding.

In contrast to these first two metaphors stands the idea of Christian education as a Pilgrimage where the teacher and students progress with each other. My time as a post-confirmation junior and high school student active in youth group activities seem to be best described in this manner. The primary person responsible for Christian education during this time was the youth director. Everything we did was done on a journey together. Sometimes this was more figurative in nature, like discussions about faith in very secular settings. Sometimes the educational journey was literal, like trips to Montana to go backpacking at bible camp. No matter the activity, the youth director always engaged the rest of the group as a co-learner and co-experiencer. There's no doubt that those trips were foundational in the formation of my faith. There's something to be said for a journey shared together.

Ready, Set... Wait!

I've often said that Advent is my favorite season of the church year. Now I get the chance to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak. In my Education class, I have been assigned to a small group that has the task of creating a curriculum for church education around the season of Advent.

Advent is the first season of each new church year and comprises the four Sundays before Christmas. It is intended to be a time of preparation and waiting; for the coming Christ child and for the return of Christ. What I love about Advent is that if enough attention is focused onto this time of preparation, we can slow down the march towards Christmas and all of its commercialism and misdirected enthusiasm. Don't get me wrong. I love to celebrate all the traditions of Christmas and I'm certainly happy to participate in the joy of holiday gift giving and receiving. But I appreciate the intentional efforts of Advent to truly prepare us for the radical way in which our lives are to change when Christ comes into this world. Perhaps for a few brief moments we can turn our attentions away from ourselves and focus on those around us.

In addition to preparing this curriculum for a church's educational theme, our small group must also make a presentation that reflects Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences, in particular the logical-mathematical category. I hope this proves to be as interesting an exercise as our research is shaping it to be. Logical-Mathematical learners aren't necessarily just good at math but rather enjoy problem solving through scientific theory, pattern recognition and logic games. At this point, we're looking hard at doing something with an Advent calendar that slowly reveals the elements of what we hope to communicate to our audience. I'll be sure to post some results.

Squeezing Into Education

In Norma Cook Everist's The Church as Learning Community, she describes various factors in establishing learning environments, two of which include physical and emotional factors. In considering these two elements, I am compelled to share a couple reactions.

First, my most recent home congregation in Red Lodge has to literally think outside the box when it comes to creating effective physical learning environments. The spaces available for learning within the confines at Messiah Lutheran are limited to the sanctuary and the basement underneath the sanctuary. The limits to these spaces have certainly handicapped even the traditional Sunday School and Sunday Adult Forums. I have to wonder how many potential participants choose not to participate regularly because the spaces are not appropriate to the needs of learning (too cramped, too public, too noisy, inaccessible, interfere with other activities, etc.).

On the other hand, I do feel that our congregation has a strong history of establishing an appropriate emotional setting for learning to take place. I have felt an intentional commitment towards respect of differing opinions. This behavior has definitely been modeled by the pastor and other congregational leaders.

It's interesting to note that this congregation is taking steps towards re-visioning their physical space needs in order to alleviate current limitations and better accommodate desired growth in ministry. Already some of the non-Sunday morning study groups are finding it more effective to gather in spaces away from the cramped church. Working from within a culture of respect should give the congregation the strength to head down a path of facility redesign or possibly the construction of a whole new facility.

Do Good, Drink Beer!

I just got back from spending a couple hours at the Mill City Farmer's Market "Oktoberfest" with my good friend Steve. While it was nothing like the celebration I'm used to in Red Lodge, this farmer's market located in the shadows of the new Guthrie Theater in downtown Minneapolis provided a fun start to the day. A handful of members from the local craft-brewers association were on hand sharing samples of their brews. Most everything we sampled was good, but one beer (the first we tried) had a special ingredient - social activism.

Finnegans Irish Amber is brewed by a non-profit organization that donates 100% of its profits to community programs. Regional brewer James Page Brewing is behind the initiative. Here's a quote from their website:

"Finnegans was created out of the belief that there are loads of fun and creative ways to make a difference in a community. So we at Finnegans decided if we sold a great tasting beer (Finnegans Irish Amber) and gave all of our profits to fund community programs assisting those in poverty – we would be doing our bit and just maybe, inspire others to get involved as well. We here at Finnegans believe that it takes a community to create and maintain healthy communities and healthy communities don’t leave folks behind."

I have to say it's ambitious, inspiring and tasty! And as a fan of innovative company models, I am also a big believer that if you want to attract customers to your product, your marketing campaign needs to be more clever than the other guys. Finnegans gets it. Go here to see more.

Malt, hops and humor are all gifts from God. It's nice to see somebody that is willing to stick their corporate neck out and use these gifts for all the right reasons.