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Faith and Belief

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In a Facebook forum, I’ve started posting quotes from Sara Little’s classic book To Set One’s Heart: Belief and Teaching in the Church, Louisville: John Knox Press, 1983. Sara was Professor of Christian Education at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, and completed her PhD at Yale studying under Richard Niebuhr. Since the Facebook posting is going to bet too lengthy, I thought I’d transfer it over here.

This was a textbook from my Master’s in Religious Education in the mid-80’s and remains very formative for my understandings.

Here are the two quotes posted:

“Ministry is a form of service, a person’s response of gratitute to God’s gracious action and being. Therefore teaching is always done as a responsive activity, it is never a matter of seeking control. What the teacher does is also to seek truth, to risk giving expression to what is percerived, but always in such a manner that the freedom of the student is not obstructd. Neither teacher nor student creates truth, nor is free to flout it. Theirs is a freedom to come to know it, to exercise all powers of intellection and volition and understanding in responding to it.”

“Belief is not the same thing as thought, and believing is not the same thing as thinking. But thought is surely a major component in belief, as belief is in faith. Note that belief is multi-layered, that it has affective (feeling), volitional (willing) and behavioural (acting) components, as well as cognitive (thinking). … Our “belief” is closer to what Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gassett meant with his reference not to “ideas which we have but ideas which we are.” In fact the term “credo”, translated from the creeds as “I believe,” literally means “I set my heart.”

From here, the next part becomes a bit harder to just lift sentences from, so let me summarise as well as quote.Continue Reading

Qualitative Research in Christian Education

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“Congregations of the old Protestant mainline denominations … continue to sponsor many educational activities, but they lack the intentionality, the coherence and the continuity needed to maintain and renew their identities as communities of faith.”
Charles R Foster, From Generation to Generation
(Eugene: Cascade Books, 2012), p45.

Today I’m going to start to blog about my doctoral research, simply by doing a 10 minute ‘brain dump’ every few days and see where it goes. I’m just completing writing 20 half-hour sessions of Christian education for congregations in the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, which has been helpful for making think and write in bite-sized chunks. Plus it’s been helpful in doing some more thinking towards how to frame it as a book

In 2011 and 2012 I undertook a national research project for the Uniting Church in Australia, designed to help the Assembly consider its role in Christian education. The research included a literature review, gathering the views of Assembly staff, a consultation within each synod, and field interviews with 25 people in 21 congregations across Australia. The congregations were selected through a peer recommendation process from synod and presbytery mission and education staff, who were given criteria for selection. The aim was to find congregations and ministers/leaders who were deemed to be effective in Christian education. From about 80 suggested churches and leaders I constructed a sample seeking to reflect the diversity of the Uniting Church in terms of geography, church size, location, demography, theology, ethnicity, ages, gender and sense of mission. Ethnicity and gender were the two most difficult to achieve in terms of balance. The field inteviews took place in mid-2012, and were preceded by four pilot interviews which allowed me to refine my questions. All interviewees allowed me and the UCA to identify them. The interviews lasted 60 minutes to about 90 minutes. Interviewees were mainly ordained ministers, and included three married couples.

I produced an extensive report for the UCA Assembly at the beginning of 2013. My doctoral thesis was submitted in July 2018 and I graduated in December 2018.

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Congregations as Learning Communities

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While my new blog is coming together too slowly, I’d better get back to blogging here! This blog has been silent while I was completing my doctoral thesis and subsequently recovering. I graduated last December. My thesis title was “(Re)forming Christian Education in Congregations as the Praxis of Growing Disciples for a Missional Church”. The title is a total Google Searchfest of buzzwords.

The thesis is publicly available from Flinders University here.

I’m working on some ways to summarise and share my doctoral research in workshops and also for what will hopefully be a forthcoming book. I plan to share some bite-size pieces. Here’s an initial handout-in-progress that summarises some ways of exploring the dynamics of a congregation as a learning community.

“Being Disciples” Study Series

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This is the project page for the 6 week study series that I’m developing around Rowan Williams’ “Being Disciples”. Here is the introduction and first part. It will be added to in the coming weeks. I’m going to write it as I work my way through the book each day.  A group of people are offering feedback and hopefully contributing as well.”

You can order Williams’ book from Book Depository or Amazon (Australia).

You can also download the booklet in sections here in PDF format. Eventually (by Easter time) you will be able to download the whole booklet.

Download Being_Disciples-Daily_Reading_Guide

Download Being_Disciples-Introduction

Introduction

Welcome to the journey of Being Disciples. To be a disciple is to be a follower of a less-travelled Way, an unfolding Truth and a compelling Life. Discipleship is about learning to follow – not just anyone, but a particular Master, Teacher, Healer, Messiah, Saviour – Jesus Christ.

This Study Guide is based around Rowan Williams’ wonderful book Being Disciples (London:SPCK 2016). Williams is the former Archbishop of Canterbury. You will need to order the book (try bookdepository.com). You will also need a book for journal reflections.

This Guide includes a plan for daily devotional reading of the book during Lent with Scripture, prayer and journal prompts.It also includes a weekly small group discussion outline.

You may commence the daily readings anytime during the week of Ash Wednesday and organise weekly small groups as suits your schedule leading up to Easter.

Rowan Williams’ book itself was not written as a Lenten study, however its theme of discipleship is about learning to be and do that to which followers of Jesus are called.

The study guide contains a range of Bible readings and does not follow any particular lectionary readings.

Each week has an introductory video which you will find at [Vimeo link to be added].

You can share also share the Lenten journey with others at
[new Facebeook group to be added].

blessings

Craig Mitchell

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