mountain masala

Weekly Lenten Studies / Reflections

What if people stop being able to come to worship? That's the imminent question in this difficult pandemic situation. I was asked to make my Lenten Study "Water for the Journey" available as weekly sessions for easier sharing with people who can't come to a study group. It would also work as an at home reflection. Here are the five sessions for Lent, along with some other resources on the themes.

STUDY 1: CALLED TO FOLLOW - March 8th
Genesis 12:1-4a The Call of Abram and Sarai
John 3:1-17 Jesus and Nicodemus

Download Study_1

STUDY 2: CALLED TO TRUST - March 15th
Exodus 17:1-7 Israelites at Rephidim
John 4:5-42 Jesus and the Woman at the Well

Download Study_2

STUDY 3: CALLED TO GIVE - March 22nd
1 Samuel 16:1-13 Samuel anoints David
John 9:1-41 Jesus and the Blind Man

Download Study_3

Song "Like a Candle"

Also Guided Meditation on John 9:1-12  (PDF)

Here is a self-directed meditation suitable for individual use with an audio recording and an instruction / reflection sheet.

Audio recording - Guided Meditation. Play below or right-click (PC) or control-click (Mac) to download. 8.5mb mp3 file. Duration 8 mins 50 secs.

John_9

Download John_9_Meditation_Sheet (PDF)

A Call to Worship for Dispersed People

We are connected by God's Spirit, hoping for a glimpse of the holy:

the One who brooded over Creation
who engulfed a bush in flame
who made a path through the waters
who rolled away the tombstone

We are connected by God's Spirit, hoping for a whisper of the truth:

the Word who first spoke in the silence
the voice who raged with prophet’s zeal
the host who sang of peace on earth
the teacher who blessed humble and poor

We are connected by God's Spirit, hoping for a touch of compassion:

the tenderness that shaped the human body
the caress that opened eyes of the blind
the soothing hand that brought healing calm
the warmth that embraced lonely and lost

We are connected by God's Spirit, in the presence of mystery:

of One who is
revealed and hidden,
known and unknown
mother and father of Creation
human God-with-us
living Word
eternal Spirit
Three and One

Breathe into us
hope, faith and joy
Breathe into us
compassion, truth and holiness
Breathe into us
reconciliation, justice and peace
Breathe newness of life
as we worship today
in this place and in many places
joined by your Spirit of comfort and hope
Amen

STUDY 4: CALLED TO NEW LIFE - March 29th
Ezekiel 37:1-14 Valley of Dry Bones
John 11:1-45 Jesus and Lazarus

Download Study_4

Also Guided Meditation on Ezekiel - Download Ezekiel - Audio recording to come shortly

A Call to Worship for Dispersed People

Whether you’re in Belair, Brisbane or Bunbury
Whether you’re huddled around a campfire or basking in Broome
Whether you're missing your favourite seat in church or missing your friends

We are one community in Christ

We are nine months old, twenty-nine and nearly ninety
We grew up with the wireless and wireless Internet
We love Beethoven, the Beatles and the Beyoncé

We are one community in Christ

We are straight and queer and all in-between
We are in all kinds of relationships, individual and together
We seek honest friendship and true belonging

We are one community in Christ

We have more questions than answers
We know what to expect, yet we have no idea
We have much hope and a little faith

We are one community in Christ

So let us be reminded that we are held together, even when apart

The One who made our world
and shaped our souls is here
- around us, among us, within us
breathing, beckoning
giving, gathering
claiming, calling

We are one community in Christ

Breathe deeply
Listen hopefully
Look carefully
God is around us and with us.

We are one community in Christ

STUDY 5: CALLED TO SERVE - April 5
Isaiah 50:4-9a Servant Song
Philippians 2:5-11 Christ’s Humility

Download Study_5

A Call to Worship for Dispersed People

Let us take a moment to imagine the crowd of witness who are worshipping today - to be reminded of their faces, to hear their voices, to know that we come to God, each and all, this day. Let us bring our whole selves to God, knowing that God loves us and holds us, just as we are.

To the God of life
let us bring ourselves
some weary, some energetic
some contented, some disquieted
We bring who we truly are

To the God of truth
let us bring ourselves
some trusting, some doubting
our questions and our certainties
We bring who we truly are

To the God of light
let us bring ourselves
our achievements, our failures
our public selves, our hidden selves
We bring who we truly are

To the God of hope
let us bring ourselves
our dreams and visions
our despair, our yearnings
We bring who we truly are

To the God of all Creation
let us bring ourselves
we broken, we blessed
made in God’s image
loved beyond measure
We bring who we truly are
We find ourselves in the company of an unseen host
in many places, and down through the ages
drawn together as pilgrims on the way
We share a common memory and a common hope
Let us offer our worship
and be open to God’s light and life among us.

Uni Open Days

We've spent the weekend visiting three university open days with our youngest daughter. It's really a special time when you get to walk around the big wide world of future options with one of your kids. A part of me feels like I'm exploring uni for the first time too, and I hear about all of these things that it would be wonderful to study.

At the same, time there are a bewildering array of options and many young people feel pressured to make the right choice and make it count. I've been bothered for a long time by how much pressure our education system, and indeed society, places on young people in their last two years of high school. Andrew Fuller and others have suggesed that what our system does to them is developmentally inappropriate, since their brains are much better developed when they are in their mid-20's. Our schooling model is fundamentally WRONG (well it was designed to keep people out of the workforce for several years, wasnt it?)

The biggest problem of course is the suggestion that you only have one shot at this and you have to 'get it right'. The reality is that you can study almost anything you want later in life, that most people have at least 3 different kinds of jobs in their life, and that at 17 or 18 no-one knows their long term plans. Add to that the increasing evidence that today's young people learn through experience - they want to try things out - and its mainly about helping them choose something that they enjoy with the clear understanding that ultimately its not about failure.

Affirming the Spirit's presence

This week is the Uniting Church's triennial national Assembly, being held here in Adelaide with about 250 elected delegates from across the country (including me), plus a significant number of overseas guests and visitors. I've been to 7 or 8... some as a delegate and some as a staff worker. It's an enriching, inspiring, sometimes challenging but rarely dull week. Our College Principal, Andrew Dutney was installed as President at the opening worship service last night. A bunch of friends were involved in planning and leading a wonderful event, rich with multicultural participation, great music and imagery, and a timely sermon about being a church of reconciliation and inclusivity.

My small contribution was to invite photographers from around the country to contribute images to an audio-visual to accompany an affirmation of faith based on the new Preamble that our church added to our national constitution.

[Photo by Dean Whittaker]

We say God created the universe,
and the world we live in,
and every living thing on this earth.

We believe the Creation shows us the power and presence of God,
and makes us want to praise and give thanks to God,
and take good care of the earth God has made.

We are full of joy that across the world
different peoples have their own culture and language,
and that in God we are all united together as one.

We say God is Spirit,
breath of life,
who is always working to bring people to life in God.

We believe the Spirit has been alive and active
in every race and culture,
getting hearts and minds ready for good news:
the good news of God’s love and grace that Jesus Christ revealed.

We are full of joy that from the beginning
the Spirit was alive and active,
revealing God through the law, custom, and ceremony
of the First Peoples of this ancient land.

We say Jesus is Saviour and Lord,
and that he began the church,
and prayed that the church might be together as one.

We believe that in the risen Jesus
we are all brothers and sisters in the one great family of God,
and that God calls us to live in faith, hope, and love
for the sake of the Kingdom of God here on earth.

We are full of joy that we can learn,
grow and serve together
 as a pilgrim people
in the name of Christ.

I am grateful to Ian Ferguson, Darren Wright, Michelle Cook, Dean Whittaker, Megan Thomson, Alan Mathews, Denise Savage, Robin Yang, Tom Kerr, Mike Emmett, Joh Knijnenburg, David MacGregor - and to Jenny Tymms who consulted with a bunch of indigenous people in the writing of the affirmation.

I also want to acknowledge that it was Steve Taylor whose questions some time ago encouraged our national worship working group to begin work on worship resources related to the Preamble. The group will be making a bunch of images available along with the worship resources for use in congregations.

ATOM

There's some great stuff available in Australia for people who teach media-related stuff (I can't wait to getting back to teach it!).  ATOM = Australian Teachers of Media.  "Australian Teachers of Media (ATOM) is an independent, non-profit, professional association promoting the study of media. The membership of ATOM primarily includes teachers and lecturers from across subject disciplines at all levels of education. The membership also includes media industry personnel, a range of media, education and government organisations and, increasingly, the general public interested in the media."

They produce a great magazine (Metro), study guides for films, access to free screenings of new movies for teachers, and more.

Today the announced study guides for iPad, presumably using the new iBook Author app. You can find out which films are available here. And the apps are free!

Worth checking out and joining their email list.

 

 

Theory of Practice

Finally starting to read Pierre Bourdieu's "Outline of a Theory of Practice". The first two sentences:

"The practical privilege in which all scientific activity arises never more subtly governs that activity (insofar as science presupposes not only an epistemological break but also a social separation) than when, unrecognised as privilege, it leads to an implicit theory of practice which is the corollary of neglect of the social conditions in which science in possible. The anthropologist's particular relation to the object of his study contains the makings of a theoretical distortion inasmuch as his situation as an obersver, excluded from the real play of social activities by the fact that he has no place (except by choice or by way of a game) in the system observed and has no need to make a place for himself there, inclines him to a hermeneutic representation of practices, leading him to reduce all social relations to communicative relations, and, more precisely, to decoding operations."

Methinks he needed a good editor, even in French... 'decoding' is indeed the word.

 

Australian Association of Researchers in Education Conference

I'm at the annual AARE conference in Hobart. Lovely to be back  in Tassie. I'm here with hundreds of people who study education, teach educators, study the teaching of educators, study how educators teach, study how education is studied, study those who study education, and study what we mean by all of the above. i'm out of my comfort zone. (i know two people whom I havent seen yet.) people from universities, education depts and schools from across Australia and overseas.

there's a strong focus on schooling (yet little/nothing specific to church schools), and on preparing teachers to teach. a much lesser focus on higher education in general. very little on vocational education. virtually nothing on more 'community-based' learning eg. church.

i've been to a helpful session on research methods, and a session on educational leadership that was really about school principals for the future. there are 600 presentations over 5 days, so I'm hoping that i pick a few winners. the challenge is that there are lots of people here who know stuff that would be interesting and helpful for me, but its not really going to be in the sessions, is it?

tomorrow night I'm going to the "technology & education" special interest group dinner. i dont have an iPad... will it be all geek introverts? virtual food?

the Routledge book display has some great looking books on educational research and research in general...

i'm doing church work while I'm here too. that's the next post...

parenting and school achievement

Here's an article in the New York Times by Howard Friedman: "How About Better Parents?" suggesting that policy makers look beyond school performance as contributors to academic achievement in young people.It is based on OECD research concerning standardised academic testing of middle school students in the US.

There's a full report here.

The  main findings:

- children whose parents read to them in their early primary schooling scored better in high school academic tests, regardless of the family's socio-economic background

- parent's engagement with their teenagrs is strongly associated with better academic performance

The latter includes often diascussing political or social issues, and discussing books, film or television programs

This does not seem to be rocket science, and indeed reflects the broader based research of Search Institute over the last 30 years. However there is clearly an issue in helping anf encouring parent.s particularly those less inclined or able to read themselves, to do so. This would certainly be true in Australia as well.

It raises the question of how churches might partner with parents in these two key areas.

Thanks to Gene R for the link.

CRASSH

I've just stumbled across CRASSH - the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at Cambridge University. Loads of interesting stuff. Manuel Castells is about to give some lectures about . All kinds of interesting conferences and symposia... discussion about how creativity and innovation are measured as social capital, 'digital humanities' research... definitely worth watching and a visit next time I'm in the UK.

conferences and papers

here are some links to a range of conference papers available online recently... just thought I'd compile them here. lots of excellent stuff.

Symposium on Children's Spirituality, Melbourne - papers here

Religious Education Association (US) - papers here

Australian Association of Mission Studies - papers here

Access to learning about practice

Lave and Wenger (Situated Learning) are great at questioning traditional assumptions about learning. They suggest that there is a "folk epistemology of dichotomies" (have to remember to slip that phrase into conversation....). eg. "between 'abstract' and 'concrete' knowledge. These categories do not reside in the world as distinct forms of knowledge, nor do they reflect some putative hierarchy of forms of knowledge among practicioners. Rather, they derive from the nature of the new practice generated by sequestration. Abstraction in this sense stems from the disconnectedness of a particular cultural practice. Participation in that practice is neither more nor less abstract or concrete, experiential or cerebral, than in any other. Thus, legitimate peripheral participation as the core concept of relations of learning places the explanatory burden for issues such as 'understanding' and 'levels' of abstraction or conceptualisation not on one type of learning as opposed to another, but on the cultural practice in which the learning is taking place, on issues of access, and on the transparency of the cultural environment with respect to the meaning of what is being learned." (p104).

Great, hey! So it's not that the classroom deals in abstract theory (or cognition) and the field setting in concrete practice (or experience). Rather, the classroom is abstracted from the field setting because what happens there is in fact a different set of cultural practices. So its not that there's a burden on the classroom to the transmit the theory correctly and on the field setting to inculcate people with the right experiences. Rather BOTH settings involve learning new understandings and practices that are designed to replicate the kinds of communities in which they take place!

But more than that, the classroom teaching may be designed to withhold certain kinds of information or experience on the assumption that "theory" must be learned before "practice". The issue here is that the control of information may have more to do with the institution's ways of replicating itself than with a sound theory of learning for effective practice in a field setting.

I do like this stuff!