Resources

The concept of practice helps us better understand how preaching works, as well as how we can teach that practice more effectively. This essay develops a compact but wide-ranging view of practices, reflecting the current scholarly discussion. It also argues that preaching is a particular instance of this larger concept of practices. Understanding preaching as a practice gives new perspectives on what preaching is and allows us to consider how to employ broadly recognized standards of excellence to evaluate particular instances of students' preaching. Further, this essay explores how the teaching of preaching is a practice in its own right. The value of this insight is that it allows us then to explore how the character of the teaching and the character of what is taught can be consonant with one another, and in ways that can guide. This essay is from "Teaching Preaching as a Christian Practice," edited by Thomas G. Long and Nora Tisdale. Used by permission of Westminster John Knox Press.

One of the primary aims of pastoral leadership education is to offer reflective processes that enable learners to surface, critique, and construct different epistemological conceptions of reality leading to more effective pastoral practice. In many pastoral leadership education programs, this type of intentional reflection usually takes place in a mentoring or supervisory relationship as well as in a reflective seminar. In this essay, I describe how I have used the "immunity-to-change language technology" as one type of reflective process for intentional reflection and transformational learning in pastoral leadership education. The results of my research and ongoing use of this educational tool indicate that it can be valuable for enabling change by helping learners expand their pastoral leadership capacities and become more effective in their practice. Given my findings, I conclude that this educational tool could be of interest to other educators who are seeking to broaden their own repertoire of approaches to transformational learning. A version of this research appears in a forthcoming book by the same author, published by Novalis, in Fall 2008.

White and African-American students in the American South are able to meet and learn from Confucianism on its own terms much more readily than their peers elsewhere. This is because of their tendency to respect authority, participate in intergenerational ritual performances (especially those concerned with manners, meals, and mortuary practices), and judge the present in terms of the past (especially the U.S. Civil War). This is true despite the incompatibility that many southern students sense between Confucianism and their own religious doctrines. Instead, southern students' grasp of Confucianism rests on the grounds of lived religious experience. When southern students learn to see in Confucianism a set of beliefs, practices, and experiences that, in some ways, mirror their own, they are empowered to identify the tradition as "religious" in a way that renders "religion" a descriptive category of comparison rather than a limiting category of unique identity.

The proliferation of methods of literary criticism in biblical studies raises the question of how to introduce students to the field. This article argues that the work of Northrop Frye is useful for teaching the existential meaning and social impact of the Bible. The first section introduces relevant aspects of Frye's literary theory. The second presents the author's teaching as a case study. The third section concludes with implications for a philosophy of theological education.

The challenge of integrating knowledge, practice and vocational identity is a persistent challenge to theological educators. Cahalan describes how teaching two book-end courses in the M.Div. curriculum have opened up possibilities for integration as a process and a goal of the entire curriculum. In the course, Introduction to Pastoral Ministry, students explore six questions in relationship to ministry: who, what, where, when, how and why. In the culminating Integration Seminar, students demonstrate their capacity for thinking theologically about a particular pastoral situation. Through both written and oral presentation, students' ministerial identity and authority are shaped and challenged as they gain proficiency in drawing what they know from and into what they do in the practice of ministry. Integration is also a strategy for theological educators who strive to take seriously the experiences students come with, the settings to which they will go, and what they most need from the M.Div. degree to gain solid footing in practice while also engaging lifelong learning. This essay is reprinted from Dorothy Bass and Craig Dykstra, eds., For Life Abundant (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2008).

As the result of an extensive self-study for the purpose of reaccreditation, the Department of Theology at The University of Portland began offering a new series of courses called Theological Perspective Courses (THEP). THEP courses are upper division and offered by theology faculty in conjunction with another department that has required core courses in the College of Arts and Sciences. They are intended to be interdisciplinary, with two faculty members from different disciplines collaborating on new course design and implementation. THEP 482, Theology in Ecological Perspective, was one of the first two THEP courses taught. This article describes and reflects on the nature of this religion and science course in terms of subject matter, learning theory, and development of community. Several additional appendices to this article appear online at: http://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu/journal/article2.aspx?id=12397

This essay discusses an approach to teaching religious studies in a general education or core curriculum that I have experimented with for the last decade, which I call the "Learning Covenant." The Learning Covenant brings together various pedagogical theories, including transformational, experiential, contract, and cooperative learning, in an attempt to address diverse learning styles, multiple intelligences, and student learning assessment. It has advantages over more traditional teacher-directed approaches to teaching, including meeting student resistance to "required" courses head-on by inviting them to identify learning needs regardless of chosen vocation and meeting them in the context of a religious studies course, recognizing the multiple ways in which students learn and providing a variety of opportunities for students to express their learning, and allowing students opportunity to take increased responsibility for their own learning. The essay will focus on the Learning Covenant's development, components, strengths, and drawbacks.

Theological educators in church and academy alike continue to ask, "What is formation for ministry?" Dissatisfaction has increased within all participants of theological education – faculty, students, administrators, pastors, and church professionals. Temporarily postponing the "what" of formation, this article explores the dissatisfaction with formation language in terms of one critical dissonance: the improbable quest for a pastoral identity amidst the observable reality of multiple identities, chosen and imposed. A constructive response crafted by identities-in-practice, as configured by disciplined spiritual stewardship, gives both critical and contemplative guidance for a fuller participation by all in Christian formation. Formation then becomes defined with a publicly theological coherence: the "shaping-being-shaped" primarily by the Holy in the worlds mutually configured within improvised, risked service.

Online technologies, recently embraced by seminaries to respond to changing student needs and demographics, compel practitioners to ask questions about the content, methods, and desired outcomes of teaching/learning experiences. Indeed, as Delamarter and Brunner have pointed out in this journal (2005), many seminaries have turned to these strategies only to find that the issues are not technological; rather, they are pedagogical. This article discusses the insights generated by one such teaching experiment, a hybrid course on religious education for social justice. Through this educational experiment, the professor and students discovered that the format of the hybrid course proved to be an effective means by which to promote the praxis of social justice as well as develop some of the skills essential for effective ministry and education. The article begins with the rationale of the course design and content and continues with the perspectives of the students and instructor in reflection on the experiment. It concludes with some preliminary insights into the potential usefulness of hybrid learning for both peace and justice education as well as its value in the overall formation of educators and ministers.

A study of sixty-six highly effective teachers of introductory theology and religion courses in various types of institutions reveals very complex challenges for instructors. The majority of students have as a goal their own religious and spiritual development. Faculty members’ most frequent goal is critical thinking. Students much less frequently mention critical thinking, and their expectations and voices may be more appropriate for a place of worship or a counseling center. To meet these complex challenges, faculty encourage four student “voices”: the questioner, the applier, the thinker/arguer, and the autobiographer. These voices can help students explicitly to bring their own experiences and beliefs into relationship with course material and critical thinking. Careful planning and guidance for students are the key to making these voices work well.