Resources

Years ago I devised a classroom demonstration, to use early in a semester when trying to help students become more aware, first, of the multiple dimensions of religion and, more importantly, of the ways in which diverse analytical lens for comparing and contrasting religion in a “toolbox for critical thought” will bring different dimensions forward while leaving others in the shadows.  Conceptually this is not a groundbreaking theoretical intervention for a first week of class exercise, although it does imply some theoretical “chess moves” that I feel strongly about.  Its main value here is to hone an entertaining and effective way to dramatize my points with a set of children’s blocks—both old-school wooden blocks and a few legos—plus a few crowd-pleasing additions to spice up the demonstration. I wrote this up for Teaching Theology and Religion in 2009 and have used it “live” with reliable success many times since then. Since I recently have been experimenting with moving one of my classes online, I decided to make a video version for my voice-over-powerpoint lectures.  It seems potentially useful to share the video here.     

In the first blog of this series (“Nobody Goes to the Cinema to Read the Screenplay"), I noted that I’ve tried to boost my multimedia literacy by becoming a student of the cinema and seeking convergences between filmmaking and homiletics for the purposes of enlivening the preached word, communicating the gospel, and impacting hearers and their/our world. One of the most delightful ways of boosting cinema literacy is by attending film festivals and their accompanying “talks.” At a recent documentary film festival, I heard about “Impact Teams,” and knew immediately that this is one of those impactful (!) convergences between filmmaking and preaching. Preaching professors guide students toward paying careful attention to their hearers and identifying what impact their preaching might have on them. Noted homiletician Thomas Long encourages preachers to identify a one-sentence “function statement” for each sermon.[1] This statement identifies what a preacher wants the sermon to do to/for the hearers in light of what the biblical text does and in light of what is known about the hearers and their lives. In other words, the preacher identifies the hoped-for impact of the sermon on individual hearers, the church, and maybe even the world. Often the first weeks of introductory preaching courses are dedicated to helping novice preachers get to a faithful function statement in order to craft a sermon that will do what the preacher (with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, of course) hopes it will accomplish (e.g., inspire, comfort, challenge, motivate, encourage, etc.). A good place to begin is to help preachers identify the impact sermons have had on them. Because this task does not come easy (surprising as that might be), getting some distance from the discipline of homiletics altogether is often a helpful starting place. A Film’s Impact on the Viewer Have you ever wondered why the majority of people have a conversation with someone about the films they see and the majority of worshippers (so it seems) rarely talk about their worship experiences with another? Somehow, we’ve been culturally formed to identify a movie’s impact on us beyond “I liked it” or “I didn’t like it.” We’ve developed a sense that movies are supposed to affect us and in this age of expanding cinematic literacy we’ve gained the capacity to articulate such effects. The preaching classroom is served by taking the discussion one step further and exploring with students what created the impact, e.g. lighting creates mood, camera angle forces point of view, the pace of dialog might create a sense of immediacy. “The filmmaker organizes shots, camera movement, editing, and music to elicit certain reactions so that viewers will respond right on cue precisely as intended.”[2] Learning the techne of filmmaking points to the intentionality of a filmmaker seeking (unapologetically!) a hoped-for impact on the viewer. A Sermon’s Impact on the Hearer Grasping the cinematic intentionality of a filmmaker aids recognition of the homiletic intentionality of the preacher. What tools do preachers have to create mood or to adopt a point of view, for example? How can preachers choose and use these tools to accomplish the sermon’s hoped-for impact? Even beyond homiletical techne, students begin to develop an appreciation for the power of preaching. In other words, with some intentionality, sermons can do things. (It’s worth noting that intentionality can be Spirit-led and, therefore, need not be equated with manipulation as some have been led to believe.) Sermon Impact Teams While many preachers learn to embrace the need to identify their sermon’s hoped-for impact, far fewer preachers embrace the encouragement to find out what impact a sermon actually has had on their hearers. Preachers can learn from filmmakers in this regard as well. Not only do filmmakers work toward a desired impact, but they often have “impact teams” to find out how films affect their viewers. It doesn’t take blockbuster budgets for preachers to adopt sermon feedback practices in order to find out how their sermons are received by their hearers. •  Consider soliciting responses to two or three written feedback questions posed on the back of the bulletin. • Designate one table at the coffee hour following worship as the sermon roundtable where members of the “sermon impact team” facilitate conversation. It is important to remember that this is not the occasion for the preacher to receive ego strokes or ego strikes. Instead, consider asking simply, “What happened to you during the sermon today?,” “What in particular made this experience happen for you?” With a bit of coaching, congregation members will soon embrace the power of the pulpit for their lives. What has been said about the screen can most certainly true about the pulpit: Movies change us. . . We can benefit, in other words, from an honest dialog with movies that probe the affairs of life, even unpleasant or disturbing events and conditions. And we become better critics with deeper self-awareness through spirited post-movie discussions that make us consider our values and refine our point of view, and even sometimes challenge us to think differently.[3] [1] Thomas G. Long, The Witness of Preaching, 3rd ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2016), chapter 4. [2] William D. Romanowski, Cinematic Faith: A Christian Perspective on Movies and Meaning (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2019), 55. [3] As noted by Los Angeles film critic, Justin Chang. Romanowski, 26.

In 2015 my wife, Dr. Vanessa Watkins, took a trip with National Geographic to Cuba led by one of their photographers. One of the things I love about National Geographic trips is that the tour leader lectures in the hotel prior to going out to engage the culture. This leader lectured, but what blew my mind was that he never put a word on the screen. Throughout our fourteen-day trip, he always lectured with a computer, projector, screen, and images. Still images were his language of choice. He showed us what he was talking about and it was powerful. The images he shared were his images, he was a professional photographer, but that wasn’t what made the images work, it was his pedagogical decision to use the screen to project pictures. He would talk around the image; the image became the center piece of his comments and it worked amazingly well. Those images are still with me, five years later. What does this say to us as pedagogues? [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="2560"] Vanessa and Ralph Watkins in Cuba 2015[/caption] We have the big screen in our classrooms, in Moodle and Canvas, but how are we using this real estate? Are we using the screen to project words, words that we are re-reading to our students? Are we using the templates designed by engineers in Power Point who have no artistic or pedagogical training? Are we using the screen to show our students what we are talking about so that they can see it? I would suggest that we think about how we might use the screen as a pedagogical tool to show the students what we are talking about, to engage the creative centers of their brains, and to embrace the old saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” I would rephrase that old saying, “a picture saves us from saying a thousand words.”To use photographs in the powerful way they can be used, we have to understand why a photograph works. Better yet we have to learn to read photographs. Lets go to Cuba: This is my favorite image from Cuba. Why?  This image is rich and full of information. When you read an image, you first read it from left to right. From left to right we see the juxtaposition of the old cars, a new car that is a taxi, a school bus with the backdrop of the capital. Smack dab in the middle of the image behind the newer black car is a street sweeper’s trash can. The image offers clarity, negative space (open space), and the beauty of Cuba’s sky. From the far-left bottom of the frame you see a blue car and that is put in conversation with the far-right of the frame where you see a white car. Sandwiched between these two cars is the complexity of Cuba. The capital stands as a monument under reconstruction; a symbol of Cuba’s determination to live, build, rebuild, reconstruct, and embrace its rich heritage of rugged survival. You also read an image from front to back. In the foreground we have this old blue car. The car’s headlights shine in the morning rising sun. You can vaguely make out the people in the car. The blue car greets you and it says, “Good morning Cuba!” As you move one layer back to the middle ground of the image, you see the black car, the street sweeper’s garbage can, the woman walking on the side of the school bus, the school bus, the capital, and the beautiful morning sky. The streets are clean and the streets speak of the beautiful blackness that is Cuba. This is an image that could be the opening for a lecture about my trip to Cuba. Why put words on the screen when I can put this picture on the screen? This picture takes you to Cuba. No words needed. This is an image you can talk around as you share with your students the complexity that is Cuba. When it comes to using images in our classes we need to use powerful images that tell stories and read well from left to right and from front to back. You are looking for images that speak to what you want to say, and say it in a way that brings to life the argument you are making. You have to ask what does this image say? What’s in the edges of the frame? Where does the eye go and where does it wander? What thousand words does this image say that I don’t need to say? Images speak if we look at them and listen. What are your images saying in your lectures? Here are some more pictures from my Cuba trip. I present them for your consideration to practice reading images. Start from left to right, then read the image from front to back, look at the edges of the frame and then ask, where does the eye go and what does this image say? [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="1000"] Picture #1: The City View of Havana[/caption] [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="1000"] Picture #2: The Fruit of Cuba[/caption] [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="1000"] Picture #3: Walking and Talking[/caption] [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="1000"] Picture #4: Time for Dinner[/caption]   To view all my photos from Cuba: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ralphwatkins47/albums/72157652605129753

Teaching theology in the seminary is challenging. Many students, burning with zeal to do the “real work” of ordained ministry, pastoral care, often cannot immediately perceive theology’s role in that endeavor. Its utility for building community, performing diaconal service, celebrating liturgies, or providing spiritual formation is often not as apparent to them as it is to us. I have found that one way to defuse students’ skepticism toward theology is by early, direct, and repeated emphasis on the relationship between theological imagination and the embodied practice of faith. Once students catch a glimpse of how theological symbols function (thank you, Elizabeth Johnson!) and, conversely, how practices shape theological symbols, they more readily apprehend how preaching, teaching, and living good theology are essential to providing the pastoral care they expect seminary will train them to give. Last July, I participated in the Wabash Center’s Teaching with Digital Media workshop for the express purpose of developing more tools to help students connect the study of theology to the practice of ministry. As part of an exercise during the workshop, I reconceived a paper assignment at the end of the first term of a two-semester introduction to theology sequence I teach annually. I turned it into an outward-facing digital theology project. Having students dip their toes into doing a bit of public theology as the culminating task of a semester of study designed to demonstrate the link between conceptual and practical theologies seemed like it would further my pedagogical goals. The assignment I gave them was to imagine themselves the director of adult formation at a church and to create an original meme (a still image or a GIF) for the formation-program Facebook page of the church. The meme was to communicate the importance of preserving a robust concept of sin in Christian theology and practice. Students had to share the meme as broadly as possible and solicit feedback on it. They then needed to write a brief paper that would (1) explain, in conversation with the relevant course texts, the theological choices made in creating the meme, and (2) report and reflect on how the meme was received and what the student learned from this as a theologian. The results were remarkable. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="511"] Used courtesy of Nora Boerner, CDSP M.Div. student[/caption] Students created memes that were sometimes provocative, sometimes humorous, sometimes both. The richest and most sophisticated of them, not surprisingly, were produced by the students whose theological rationales were the most nuanced. What was gratifying about this was that they themselves realized this connection. They were able to grasp how easy it is to communicate theology sloppily and saw that providing a message consonant with the Good News requires a deep understanding of what that central communication is. If one is going to distill the Gospel into capsule form, such as a meme, with as little distortion as possible, solid theology is required. In cases in which viewers received a message different from the intent, students benefitted from a first-hand education in how easy it is to be misunderstood when concepts are not handled with sufficient care, and they could appreciate that this can have unintended negative effects on one’s audience and thus impair the pastoral relationship. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="451"] Used courtesy of Sunshine Dulnuan, CDSP MTS student[/caption] Some students were made anxious by the assignment because of lack of familiarity with meme culture or trepidation over engaging in public theological commentary. Confronting both of these anxieties is important for church leaders in training. Effective public communication in the visual and syntactical languages various publics use is crucial for those charged with mission, discipleship, and evangelism (the three foci of Church Divinity School of the Pacific’s program of formation). This may mean learning idioms quite different from one’s default mode of communication, and needing to translate theology well from one into the other. The anxiety this assignment provoked was, to my mind, the one commonly experienced when confronting a developmental challenge, and so it was, in the end, a productive anxiety. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="405"] Used courtesy of Joanna Benskin, CDSP M.Div. student[/caption] This media-based assignment contributed nicely to my overall pedagogical objectives. Students were required to produce and disseminate a micro-theology expressive of their developing theological imaginations. They communicated a formational message with a theological foundation they could articulate and justify. They were thus given an opportunity to enter intellectually and affectively (and also tentatively and gently) into the arena of public theological exchange and to grasp how challenging, indispensable, and even, yes, pastoral, the discipline of theology can—and, in the context of these students’ particular vocations, must—be.

I learned something this holiday season—my first holiday season as a grandfather.  My family traveled from Atlanta, Georgia to Orlando, Florida to surprise my mother, Mrs. Earlene Watkins, on her 80th birthday. The surprise is summed up in this moment. [caption id="attachment_239279" align="aligncenter" width="397"] Mrs. Earlene Watkins, My Mother[/caption] My mother didn’t know that that I was coming with my wife. But, we weren’t the big surprise. The big surprise was the new addition to our family. Her new, four-month old, great-grandson, Princeton Josiah Smith. My daughter, Nicole Smith, and her husband, Walter Smith, conspired with us to make this day possible! My daughter Nastasia Watkins and I both videotaped this historic moment. I shot with two cameras: I walked in using my Canon G7 Mark II, and then I shot with my Canon EOS C100. These two cameras are what I am most comfortable with. I had to bring them in large camera bags, set them up, and prepare to shoot. In contrast, my thirty-two-year old daughter, Nastasia Watkins, shot her video with the camera she lives with: her iPhone. She not only shot this video with her phone, but she also edited the video on her phone. She posted her video within minutes. I took my video back to the hotel, edited it on my laptop in Final Cut X, and posted my video on the next day! [caption id="attachment_239281" align="aligncenter" width="392"] My Mother, My Daughter, My Son-in-law and Princeton Josiah Smith[/caption] What did I learn? Nastasia Watkins is no teenager. My daughter is a partner in her own law firm. She and her peers are completely comfortable making memories with what is in their hands. As I watched her shoot video and take pictures over the holidays, it was clear that she was always ready to shoot. On the other hand, it was more work for me. It didn’t come naturally. I didn’t use my phone. I had to go get my camera, get ready, shoot, and then put the camera down. My daughter never put her camera down. It was no challenge for her to be engaged in the moment and shoot simultaneously. I was wowed by her ability to be fully present and to capture the moment.  She taught me how her peers and those coming up behind her are processing, capturing, and seeing their world. They see the world with phone in hand. Their phone is not used to make phone calls, but as a way to see, engage, make sense of, understand, and frame their world. For we teachers, these are our students. They see their world through a screen the size of their phones. If we are to understand how to engage them, we must see what they see, how they see, and how they learn to make sense of that which they engage. How do we do this? We must pick our phones up and start to use them as they use them. I have to put my big, expensive cameras down. I am recommitting myself to using my iPhone X for the reason I say I bought it: for the camera. When you see commercials about the latest phone, they never advertise the phone’s ability to make phone calls. They sell the phone as a camera. It was the commercial that sold me, and after this holiday season I have recommitted to using the most powerful pedagogical tool I have with me all the time and that is the camera on my phone.  When we use the phone as a camera and editing device, we will begin to engage and make sense of the world our students live in. This will, in turn, inform our teaching and learning. We will see the phone as a teaching and learning device and not as a distraction from our traditional teaching moments. When we see the tool in our hand as a revolutionary pedagogical device, it will change how we use that which we have in our hand. [caption id="attachment_239282" align="aligncenter" width="408"] The Family at the Surprise Birthday Party for Mrs. Earlene Watkins @ 80![/caption] Well, I know you want to see the two videos . . .  here you go! Video by Nastasia Watkins https://vimeo.com/382453975 Video by Ralph Watkins https://vimeo.com/382456567 Photo credit: Victor Watkins

Introduction to the Series The cinema has become an important means of cultural communication, a contemporary language in need of understanding and explication . . . Some even believe that cinema studies is positioned to become the new MBA, a means of general preparation for careers in fields as diverse as law and the military.[1] Although multimedia literacy is not one of the accreditation standards for theological schools (yet!), add theological studies to the diverse fields mentioned in the quote above. As seminary education continues to follow the higher education trend toward online teaching and learning, instructors are recognizing the need to enhance their multimedia literacy. Minimally, it is important to note that many of our students are already literate in the contemporary language of cinema. Many students would agree with the following:  Movies serve not simply as a commodity but as a primary storytelling medium of the twenty-first century, interpreting reality for us, providing us with a common language, and acting as a type of cultural glue.[2] For many, “image” has replaced “text” as the central tool of communication. This substitution challenges theology’s centrality of the Word (text) and revives a longstanding love/hate relationship between the pious and images. The obstacles are especially palpable for an oral/aural ecclesial practice like preaching. After all, faith comes through hearing (Romans 10:17), not seeing, right? Despite such challenges, the Reformation spirit asks us theologians to embrace new means of communicating the gospel. Cinematic competency seems to be today’s printing press. So, in an attempt to meet students where they are (and teach others along the way), I’ve tried to boost my multimedia literacy by becoming a student of the cinema and seeking convergences between filmmaking and homiletics for the purposes of enlivening the preached word, communicating the gospel, and impacting hearers and their/our world. Part 1: Nobody Goes to the Cinema to Read the Screenplay Despite numerous obvious differences between the two fields that might render them too dissimilar for comparison (for example, films take years to produce and preachers generally have to squeeze sermon preparation into 6 busy days; films are primarily visual experiences, sermons are primarily aural experiences), preachers have much to learn from filmmakers. In this 4-part blog series, I will propose elements, concepts, and techniques from filmmaking that can serve preachers. We begin with this week’s reminder: Nobody goes to the cinema to read the screenplay . . . or even to hear it read. In the same way, nobody goes to worship to read a written sermon . . . or even watch the preacher read it. Oh, yes, people in the pews have become accustomed to the latter, but they should expect more from us preachers. You see preaching is inevitably a kind of performance. These two “p” words are often considered to be at odds since preaching is not solely for entertainment or to heighten the performers ego (to be sure, performers in a variety of arts, including film, expect their performances to move beyond these two outcomes as well). However, preaching is a performance in that it “completes, carries out, accomplishes” something, as its Old French etymology suggests (par-fournir). Indeed, preaching brings an experience to life. T.S. Eliot noted that “Literature was turning blood into ink.” Preaching, on the other hand, turns ink (the written biblical text) into blood; that is, it intends to bring the sacred text to life. Therefore, a sermon is a road map or a blue print for a transformational experience. “Road map” and “blueprint” are often used for screenplays as well. Preachers would do well to consider the following analogy from a screenwriter. However brilliant, [a screenplay is] always in a state of becoming, forever on the way to being something else—a film. You can admire a cocoon for its marriage of function and form, but ultimately it’s the butterfly that will make its way in the world.[3] Or, as another puts it, “. . . screenplays don’t really exist until they’re made into movies.”[4] In the same way, one might consider that a written sermon doesn’t really exist until it’s preached. So, how does this connection to the digital world guide the teaching of preaching? First and foremost, simply making the analogy explicit quickly resonates with preachers-to-be. Therefore, students are challenged to make their “scripts” (yes, I call them scripts) a means to an end, and not the ends themselves. Sermons that pay attention to sermon delivery from the beginning of the writing/crafting process tend to create more of an experience for and with the listeners. Such preaching has more of a chance to turn ink into blood and “make its way in the world.”   [1] Robert K. Johnston, Craig Detweiler, and Kutter Callaway. Deep Focus: Film and Theology in Dialogue, 11. [2] Deep Focus, 10. [3] Dan Gurskis. The Short Screenplay: Your Short Film from Concept to Production (Aspiring Filmmaker's Library), Kindle Edition, xii. [4] Joel Engel, Oscar-Winning Screenwriters on Screenwriting (New York: Hyperion), 2. 

Some things are best expressed digitally. When the Wabash Center's "Teaching with Digital Media" Workshop challenged my preoccupation with using text to explain visual concepts, I decided to create a video rather than typing a "Dos and Don'ts" list for students in preaching courses. With the help of two savvy graduate assistants, we produced this VLOG. Spoiler alert: everyone survives!  

I have often assumed that students have more facility with technology than I do. Unfortunately, this assumption has been wrong and student learning has paid the price. So now, when there is likely to be a steep learning curve for some students relative to equipment (like recording on the iPhone) or a platform (like Vimeo) or learning management system (like Moodle), I integrate facility with technology into course assignments. For example, in a semester-long, face-to-face preaching course, students must record and post their third sermons into Moodle after preaching them in a local congregation. Unfortunately, I realized that even with weeks (if not months) of notice that such a requirement is upon them, many students would spend more time worrying about equipment failure than the sermon itself. Then after preaching they would spend hours trying to upload their sermon onto a video sharing platform only to run into trouble posting on the university’s learning management system. Even more, my teaching assistants’ available hours were being used up troubleshooting for anxious students and tech-savvy students were reaching the end of their willingness to assist classmates (and ashamed to admit some resentment).  Clearly an interruption in the cycle was needed and the onus was on me to be the interrupter. What follows is an iteration of my new m.o. I continue the practice of letting students know early in the semester (essentially, the first day) that they will be responsible for recording and posting sermons. But now, my very next sentence is, “And, know that by the time you get to sermon three you will have had numerous opportunities to increase your facility with the technology that is needed to fulfill that part of the assignment.” At that point, I turn the class over to a teaching assistant who introduces herself, articulates the extent to which she will be available to provide tech assistance, notes the portion of the syllabus that clearly outlines the technological requirements for the course, and distributes a “how to record and post videos of sermons” handout. Perhaps the most helpful change I made was to adapt an assignment in week three. I replaced the typical online text-based discussion forum with a visual post. In other words, instead of typing their response to the weeks’ reading, they posted a two-minute video. While this low-stakes assignment had a desired deadline, students were not penalized if they were late if they were having tech troubles. The TA was available to meet with students in pairs or groups of three to assist with their recordings and postings. Lo and behold, the discussion on the material was already beginning as students honed their recorded reflections. This assignment gave us a sense of how many (and who) might need additional tech assistance. We set up out-of-class tutoring sessions accordingly. By this point, everyone had already succeeded, albeit with some assistance.. Additional unforeseen blessings were 1) the posts were much more animated and creative than usual, which yielded more engaging discussion threads; and 2) students had begun to overcome the squeamishness of seeing themselves on video and hearing their recorded voices. A second major change is one I wish I would have discovered a decade ago. For the first two sermons in the class, I would operate the camera and a teaching assistant would post the videos. Of course, I got into this habit because I started teaching preaching before everyone carried around their own device (yes, there was such a time!). Now that nearly (!) everyone has such equipment readily available, it would be a wasted learning opportunity for students (and a waste of my energy and time) not to utilize it. Therefore, every student takes responsibility for being the camera operator for one peer. Not only is this valuable for the camera operator, but an additional benefit is that the preacher practices communicating his/her needs (e.g., location of camera, desired angle), which is good preparation for enlisting a helper in the congregation. While the stakes are getting higher, we set up a backup camera just in case a preacher forgets to charge his battery or a fellow classmate forgets to push “record.” Once again students have to transfer the digital recording to a platform that can be easily accessed on Moodle. At this point, we review and emphasize the handout’s recommended privacy settings.  After repeating this process for one additional in-class sermon, students are well prepared to plan for recording sermon three. They are enjoying a sense of accomplishment and getting credit for it! Even more, they can now focus on preparing faithful and impactful sermons for the congregational setting, instead of anxiously anticipating their technical demands.

Do you strategize ahead of time the way I do for the airplane/drinks reception/parent meeting question: “So, what do you do?” I teach theology and Church history. Experience has taught me that telling a stranger I teach either subject is a conversation killer. I usually stick with “history professor,” but even that response often triggers the revelation of a deep dislike for history. Frequently, this is a holdover from a high school class that focused on memorizing and repeating facts and dates, i.e., bad pedagogy. This definitely is not a problem in my classes. For me, good history education focuses on the “why” and “how” of past events, especially the reasons for changes over time. My class doesn’t focus on precisely when Aristotelian thought collided with Christian theology. Instead, we discuss “what was the result?” Over the last few years, though, I realized that by minimizing timelines and dates, my pedagogy was doing students a disservice. Precious class time was spent on big historical changes and theological developments, but it left out the fine details. For example, the Council of Nicaea is a watershed event in Church history, a touchpoint between the institutional church and secular authorities. Students learn to offer an overview of the way in which the early church lurched from one major council to the next, and what were the significant outcomes. They can even articulate big theological points of contention. However, when prompted to consider “how and why did we get to a point, theologically speaking, at which a Roman emperor felt the need to summon a Church council,” students squirmed. They couldn’t provide a chronology beyond a few notable developments. But the chronology up to, and after, Nicaea really matters for helping us understand how key historical figures handled, and fought over, theological nuances. Who was exiled for his theology, and when, really matters. Seeking to improve student learning in theology and history, I introduced a digital tool, Visme, that serves as a timeline and infographic. For particular reading assignments, students had to create a graphic based on a topic, such as synods in the Frankish Church or the textual evidence for the filioque. I asked them to think of the graphic as a tool that they themselves could use to teach someone else a new topic. Visme is intuitive and visually attractive, and it has the pedagogical advantage of prompting students to make choices at multiple levels in order to tell an effective story. For example, if there are only ten entries on the infographic template, students have to carefully choose which way markers (e.g., an event or emergence of an idea) serve as concise headers (such as a word, name, or phrase) that can move the story along. When students write brief content to accompany the header, they, again, have to choose what is most relevant for that header—and for the entire story. Failure to create entries that were similar in style detract from the content and timeline overall, forcing the reader/viewer to work harder to understand what was most relevant. A small pedagogical change, like the introduction of a digital tool, can reap rewards, but it comes with challenges. Colleagues from other disciplines had assured me that integrating digital media into a humanities course would be seamless. After all, they said, our students are digital natives. It turns out, though, that a surprising number could still proclaim: “I’m not really good with technology.” When prompted for feedback, some students said they spent too much time on the look of the infographic and not enough on its content. Overall, though, they found the exercises to be helpful. Knowing that they would be creating a timeline helped them to focus their reading and notes. Ultimately, theological ideas don’t float in the air and get absorbed. Rather, they are passed, in time, person to person (or even person to text to person). St. Augustine’s understanding of grace, for example, didn’t spread abstractly. It was handed along through tractates and personal conversations and in synods, from one community to another. Theologically important conflicts emerged between people who held specific viewpoints and took discrete actions, all of which unfolded in time. Even the exegesis of a theological text is something that unfolds in sequence. What I learned by spending more time on chronology, and by using a digital tool as part of my pedagogy, is that students’ learning truly improved, especially with regard to their understanding to historical and theological relationships. And, in the end, it prompted them to think about the ways in which their learning could shape their future teaching.