Prayer stations by Meredith Jackson

Merdith Jackson has collected a stack of resources for prayer stations at her Pinterest site located here.

There are usable resources here as well as the kind of images that will set you imagination flying for creating your own series of stations.

Useful, inspiring and beautiful: a great mix!

The Jesus Dojo

What if spiritual formation looked more like a karate studio than a lecture hall? Mark Scandrette uses playful experiments to connect Jesus' teachings with real life.

Imagine a world where we shifted our mindsets about worship: from worship services to service worship?

What if we gathered together to encourage each other towards love and good deeds by actually doing love and good deeds together in the name of Christ?

Jon Humphries shares:

"What if our worship was spiritual and faith practice joined as one? Where we listened for the Word of God who is Jesus as we reflected on Scripture by living out the teaching,  by actually feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the imprisoned, setting the captives free, helping the blind to see and proclaiming the time of the Lord's favour?

I love Mark Scandrette's concept of the 'Jesus dojo'. The idea of making faith an actual practice, where we practice our faith by exercising our faith in loving service to God and others at the same time in real and practical ways, is pretty inspiring.

The problem is that it requires me to step out of a perfectly safe boat (even one which seems to be slowly sinking) and step out with Jesus onto the water. What if I don't have enough faith and sink?
We all know what the right answer. I just would love some people to step out with me."

Pilgrim Launch and Orientation

Mark the 25th of October in diaries now. That afternoon will be the date of the launch of the Pilgrim course in the diocese. Bishop Cameron Venables will do the launching as we embark on a great journey together. Noted in the Archbishop’s address to Synod this year, the Pilgrim course is a great resource for new or experienced Christians in small groups. The course, created by The Church of England, has flexibility and is easy to run; there are leader’s and participant books, weekly video clips and liturgical resources for every session. It’s middle of the road theologically; any parish could use it!

 Come along to find out more about the program, check out the books and other resources and receive some initial training for the small group work. UK theologian, Paula Gooder, one of the authors of the program will stop by via some specially shot videos!

The Details

1-4 pm 25th of October

Lecturer Room 1

St Francis Theological College

Cost: nil

Who is it for? Anyone who wants to know more about Pilgrim: a Course for the Christian Journey.  You might be a prospective leader of the program in your parish, or just want to know more about how it works. You might be thinking about starting some new groups and looking for material, or maybe you've been running a group for a long time.  You're all welcome!

21st Century Faith Education Ideas...

It is perhaps time that we more fully and more intentionally embraced modern styles of learning into the way we foster and develop people as disciples in the Church - ironically this 'modern' way of learning looks very much like the way Jesus approached learning and discipleship with his followers.

For much of the life of the the Church, (That which we call Christendom - the time when Christianity was the dominant religious, moral and cultural societal paradigm) learning has been controlled by the learned - that is knowledge is shared/passed-on by the knowledgeable.

Much of the recent life of Church has been shaped by modern-ist forms of thinking where there are certain truths to be told, known and understood as they have been told, known and understood by the Christian culture that the learning takes place in. There was in effect a set of beliefs to be believed and often they took form a creeds to be learnt. There were morals to be followed and certain duties to be performed. The Christian discipleship equation worked along the lines that if you believed the right things, attended Church and served dutifully and lived with the right morals then salvation was the reward. There is much value in this as most of the elements are are good and helpful for righteous living. Of course this is also an oversimplification and a gross generalisation. However, this type of faith and discipleship can lead to religious complacency.

As we continue to move into a new millenium, we have moved into a new era for the Church. Christendom is nowhere near as strong as it was within our globalised, multi-cultural, and multi-faith world. Post-modernism and its balancing corrective of post-post-modernism has seen a shift in the way people approach questions of truth and belief. With the inception and growth of the internet and computing technologies, knowledge is now accessible on an increasingly exponential scale.

All this means that the style of education and learning has shifted, to a point where learning is less about the learner receiving a package of knowledge from the learned and knowledgeable teacher. We are increasingly moving in to a learn-ED (learning- Educational) focus. Here the emphasis is less on acquiring a certain packet of knowledge, but more on learning to learn and how to gather the knowledge that is needed at the time. This is not about devaluing knowledge, but is more about how we apply it and use to situations and circumstances. What hasn't changed is the learning of skills, but there has been a re-emergence around the skill of learning and learning how to learn. It is also about learning how to think and develop skills.

As all things often do, they seem to come back round to where they were some time before. This is perhaps beginning to happen in the Church. We have at the core of our theological endeavour always accepted that God is always more that we can fully comprehend and there is always more to be learnt as disciples both in terms of understanding our faith and applying it in our ministry and service to others. Faith-based learning is about learning to learn and learning to think in order to better live out God's call to discipleship through living and loving in caring service to God and others. It is about accepting the limitations of knowledge and moving beyond having a fixed set of doctrines that must be learned by rote, to see doctrines as being important foundations in which we build our own faith and discipleship through communion with God and with each other as the Church.

Faith based learning is about a learn-ed model of being which is about all people discovering and taking responsibility as learners so that all can carry the tradition and teaching of the Church rather than a group of experts. This does not mean that we don't need educated people who are experts in the Bible and theology. What is means is that there is a shift in their role as educators from being teachers which impart their knowledge and download it into their students, to teachers who use their knowledge and expertise to shape learning pathways for others so that others can learn fr themselves. It is a move from the learned being imparters of knowledge to being facilitators of learning and understanding. Knowledge is still shared.

'Godly Play' is one good example where the use of story by the 'teacher' is augmented by open questions which in turn open questions in the learners which then leads them to do their own thinking and processing in order to draw links and connections to other learning, to other parts of the faith tradition and to how they might apply their learning in practical ways in their faith and discipleship.

Teaching still occurs, but the style shifts back more to the way of Jesus and his simple and challenging way of story and explanation that almost always had a practical application to any learning that took place.

It is something to perhaps do more thinking and learning about.

- Jon Humphries

posted at https://www.facebook.com/groups/formingfaith/permalink/440394136100662/

Film Review: Calvary

New research on growing churches

The Church Growth Research Programme in the UK is doing cutting edge into...well you can guess from the name of the project. It's quite good.

From Anecdote to Evidence: Findings from the Church Growth Research Programme 2011-2013 is the name of the report on everyone's lips and it'll be the subject of much discussion at our Diocesan Synod starting on Friday the 11th of July.

If you want an online copy, you can find it here...

The Bible According to Gen Z

Did you know:

• Only 4 per cent of young people read the Bible daily and 7 out of 10 have never read it.
• Young people are ten times more likely to read the Bible if they are involved in a group which encourages them to do so.
• Only 1 in 100 youth will pick up the Bible out of curiosity or interest.
•  
• Here’s the blurb from The Bible Society about this new publication:
•  

“Find out how you can engage young people with the Bible; what’s working and what isn’t, and to get that other 99 to pick up a Bible. Bible Society’s Adrian Blenkinsop has pulled together a collection of essays for youth engagement with the Bible to help them, and their youth leaders, keep the faith.”

- See more or order at: http://www.biblesociety.org.au/genz

Be a Pilgrim!

Pilgrim: a Course for the Christian Journey may just be the best thing since sliced bread. And that’s so even if you’re gluten free.

Developed by the Church of England and written by a number of practical theologians and rubber-hits-the-road experts, Pilgrim includes four books so far, each featuring six 60-90 minute sessions.  Working through the ideas in our baptismal vows, the sessions feature everything you need to know if you are just starting out on the Christian journey.

But wait a minute: even if you’re an experienced traveler on that journey, this resource is useful too.  The discussion questions are written so that anyone, at any stage on the Christian journey can be inspired and fed.

As well, each session includes online resources: a video clip with input from the book’s authors and an audio prayer reflection.  The leader’s guide that rounds out the course’s materials is great, with ideas for each session and liturgical resources as well.

Here’s what the publishers say:

Pilgrim’s approach

It starts at the very beginning

Pilgrim assumes very little understanding or knowledge of the Christian faith.

It focuses on Jesus Christ

Pilgrim aims to equip people to follow Jesus Christ as disciples in the whole of their lives.

It flows from the Scriptures

The primary focus of each session is a group of people engaging with the Bible together.

It draws deeply from the Christian tradition

In the Early Church, the Christian faith was taught by the transmission of key texts which summed up the heart of the Christian message. Pilgrim restores this approach for the twenty-first century.

It honours the Anglican way and its many streams

Pilgrim has been developed as a specifically Anglican resource which aims to cater for every tradition in the Church of England.

All in all, this is a middle of the road kind of small group resource that any parish in our diocese could use, no matter where you sit on the theological spectrum.

The Cathedral bookshop will have the books in stock in late July./August but you can have a look at the real thing at the Roscoe Library, or delve into the materials at the UK website.

And what’s more, St Francis College will be offering regional training workshops for potential leaders of the Pilgrim course in the second half of the year.  Contact Jonathan Sargeant if you’re interested in those and we’ll see where to hold them.

Films and your faith

Seeing Star Wars as a child blew my mind.  Not just the space battles and derring do but the idea that faith ideas could co-exist with that other stuff right up there on the screen.  Ever since I've been interested in noticing the themes and moments when faith and the arts connect, whether that be in film, music, painting and even reality TV!

Dr Carol Hebron is an expert in this field.  In fact she's just finished a PhD on the ways in which Judas has been portrayed on the Silver Screen.  Her extensive reading and experience in the area of the Arts and faith makes her more than qualified to teach a subject at St Francis college in the coming semester called, "Theology, The Arts and Film.

Students have signed up for this subject as a part of their tertiary study and you can too.  But you might also consider doing what we call "auditing" the subject.  This means you can come to each lecture, participate fully, receive the readings and so on but not have to do any of the assessment, unless you want to.   It does cost, but only a fraction of what the full cost usually is.

This class meets over a series of 12 Tuesday evenings: beginning Tuesday, 15 July 2014.

Find out more about the subject and how to sign up for auditing it by clicking on the big orange button...

N.T. Wright on the Bible and why he won’t call himself an inerrantist

TIME Magazine called him “one of the most formidable figures in the world of Christian thought.” Newsweek once labeled him “the world’s leading New Testament scholar.” His name is N.T. Wright, and he has just written a controversial book on the Bible.

Jonathan Merritt is senior columnist for Religion News Service and has just interviewed retired Anglican bishop, NT Wright on his new book, Surprised by Scripture: Engaging Contemporary Issues.  In that work, Wright engages theological hot topics such as Darwinian evolution, whether Adam was a historical figure, and why he thinks the Bible makes space for women pastors.

The interview is a two parter and you can find the first half here.

In the second half of the interview, Wright discuses issues of homosexuality, science and gender.  You can find that here.

This interview makes great fodder for conversation!

Pervo's Gospel of Luke Commentary out now

It's good news on the biblical front that Richard Pervo's new commentary on Luke is now available.

This volume completes the highly regarded Synoptic Gospels set in the scholars Bible series.

Here's what the critics are saying..

"Pervo writes with verve" - The Bible Today

"(Pervo's) wit and erudition make for pleasurable reading" - Anglican Theological Review

What prompted the anonymous author of Luke to edit his sources, Mark and Q, and retell the story of Jesus? Using the Scholars Version translation that is true to the everyday Greek of the gospel writers, Pervo explores the who, when, where, why, and how of the Gospel of Luke. Includes the Greek text, introduction, notes, and cross references.

You can find out more and even order the book here.