Educating for Redemptive Community

Educating for Redemptive Community
Author: Denise Janssen
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2015-10-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1498208169

Jesus made claims about redemptive community throughout his ministry when he called people to extravagant grace. Even in the midst of the oppression of his day, Jesus preached and taught that redemptive community was possible if his followers would simply stop hoarding, hiding, and excluding. What a prophetic word for today in the midst of modern day oppression and fears of scarcity! In this edited volume, in honor of religious education scholars Jack Seymour and Margaret Ann Crain, eight of their PhD advisees--each scholars in their own right--join Seymour and Crain to lay out their vision of redemptive community. Rooted in their own scholarship, each contributor proposes ways in which Jesus' vision of redemptive community can become reality in churches and congregations, and in our larger world. In addition to essays by Jack Seymour and Margaret Ann Crain, scholars contributing to this volume include Dori Grinenko Baker, Reginald Blount, Evelyn L. Parker, Mai-Anh Le Tran, Leah Gunning Francis, Carmichael Crutchfield, Debora B.A. Junker, and Denise Janssen. The foreword by Mary Elizabeth Moore and afterword by Seymour and Crain set the volume in the larger context of the church and academy.

Reframing Christian Education for a Global Generation

Reframing Christian Education for a Global Generation
Author: Heesung Hwang
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 135
Release: 2024-09-24
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

This groundbreaking book serves as a case study, delving into the unique challenges faced by the “global generation” as they navigate the complexities of their hybrid identities. Heesung Hwang, drawing from her extensive experience as both a minister and theologian, presents a compelling vision for religious education inspired by the traditional Korean concept of madang. In this open space, faith communities gather to engage in communal interaction, fostering generative environments where all members are valued and their contributions esteemed. Through the lens of madang, Hwang invites readers to reimagine religious education as a holistic experience that transcends traditional boundaries, encompassing storytelling, conversation, play, and relationship-building. This transformative work challenges religious educators to embrace innovative approaches that honor the diverse cultural and religious backgrounds of young people, ultimately paving the way for redemptive communities that empower the next generation to shape new cultural and religious expressions within society. Reframing Christian Education for a Global Generation promises to ignite important conversations and inspire meaningful change within faith communities worldwide.

Towards a Contextual Transformational Practical Theology for Leadership Education in South Africa

Towards a Contextual Transformational Practical Theology for Leadership Education in South Africa
Author: Gorden E. Dames
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2016
Genre: Education
ISBN: 3643908008

"Towards a contextual transformational practical theology for leadership education in South Africa is a courageous effort by a prominent South African practical theologian to develop a framework for the theory and practice of leadership education in an African context. Taking the harsh realities of South Africa as point of departure, the author demonstrates how an indigenous South African practical theology can be developed through a critical interaction between `Western' and African ideas." (Prof. Jaco S. Dreyer, Professor of Practical Theology, University of South Africa)

Reset the Heart

Reset the Heart
Author: Dr. Mai-Anh Le Tran
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2017-05-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1501832476

When the #BlackLivesMatter protest movement burst into dynamic action following the shooting death of young Michael Brown in the fall of 2014 in Ferguson, MO, a good number of clergy and lay leaders in greater St. Louis sprang to action and learned anew what it took to “put some feet to their prayers.” However, as improvisational efforts continued to rally and organize churches toward the enduring work of confronting the insidious violence of systemic social injustices in their own backyard, these religious leaders ran head-on into a familiar yet perplexing wall: the incapacity and unwillingness of their faith communities to respond. In many cases, the resistance was (and still is) fierce, eerily reminiscent of the stand-offs that divided religious communities and leadership in the 1960s Civil Rights era. If the Church’s teaching, learning, and practice of faith is purportedly transformative, then where was/is that faith when it was/is needed most? If good religious formation had been happening - or had it? - then why the enduring signs of indifference, paralysis, apathy, exasperation, resistance, symptoms of anesthetized moral consciousness and debilitated hope in the face of pervasive social-cultural violence? The answer may come in a searing indictment: that in an emerging cultural-religious era in which religious identity, expression, and experience are increasingly pluralistic, yet also politicized, polarizing, and racialized, Christian faith communities—even those of progressive theological persuasions—are still held under dominant cultural captivity, and fashioned by colonizing teaching strategies of “disimagination” – such that the stories (theologies) and rituals (practices) of the faith have effectively become obstacles that anesthetize moral agency and debilitate courageous action for hope and change. This book addresses the above practical concerns with three paradigmatic questions: 1. What does it mean to educate for faith in a world marked by violence? 2. How are Christian faith communities complicit in the teaching and learning of violence? 3. What renewed practices of faith and educational leadership yield potential for the unlearning and unmaking of violence? An organizing thesis drives the inquiry: Thinking and teaching for violence-resisting action as Christians requires an on-purpose setting of our hearts in a world that violates and harms with impunity. Against violent “disimagination”and its conscience-numbing instruments, Christian religious communities are being challenged to regenerate radical forms of prophetic, protested faith, the skills and instincts of which must be honed deliberately. This occurs through intentional and strategic forms of public consciousness raising for the sake of participation and action - an action that moves toward and is fueled by critical, insurrectional, resurrectional, hope.

Teaching the Way of Jesus

Teaching the Way of Jesus
Author: Jack L. Seymour
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2014-03-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1426766858

Christian religious education provides the content, processes, and settings to empower the church’s mission in the world—a mission that includes health care, peace with justice, and disciple-making ministries. Today, the field Christian Education is clear about its tasks of helping form and nurture faith that is then embodied in faithful practices. Research studies on Christian faith practices show how participating in Christian community undergirds and complements thoughtful living through one’s life. With an emphasis on practices and mission, this book offers readers concrete ways to empower vital faith formation in congregations as it describes current trends, which include richer diversity, entrepreneurial spirit, and interfaith dialog. This book will also help prepare students for leadership in the Church universal and in the field of Christian Education.

Practicing Witness

Practicing Witness
Author: Benjamin T. Conner
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 136
Release: 2011-07-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0802866115

How might a church infused with missional theology change the way it approaches Christian practices? Interacting both with the missional theology of George Hunsberger and Darrell Guder and with the theology of Christian practices laid out by Craig Dykstra and Dorothy Bass, Benjamin T. Conner argues that allowing these two disciplines to inform one another can enhance the nature of the church s witness, its congregational discipleship, and its theological education. Framing his work with real-world narratives and applications inspired by his work as a minister to adolescents with special needs, Conner shows how a practical missional mindset can redefine and reinvigorate the spirit and purpose of a congregation.

Teaching Redemptively

Teaching Redemptively
Author: Donovan L. Graham
Publisher: Assn of Christian Schools International
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2003-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781583310588

Publisher's description. As God's image bearers, Christian teachers are called to reflect the character of our creative, redemptive God and to live according to His truth. This book encourages and challenges Christian teachers in any setting, public or private, secular or Christian, to teach redemptively--to employ biblical principles in all aspects of the educational process.

Diversity, Intercultural Encounters, and Education

Diversity, Intercultural Encounters, and Education
Author: Susana Gonçalves
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2013-01-04
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1136189238

This book concerns the challenges and tensions rising from mass migration flows, unbalanced north-south and east-west relations and the increasing multicultural nature of society. The scope of the book’s theme is global, addressing diversity and identity, intercultural encounters and conflict, and the interrogations of a new socio-political order or paradigm. Thus, it highlights some of the most poignant and challenging outcomes of cultural diversity faced more or less palpably by everyone everywhere in today’s societies. The book’s theme of multi- and pluriculturality is of particular current interest in the academic, socio-political, economic and entrepreneurial spheres. It covers Western and non-Western perspectives, representing a valuable resource in terms of international dialogue and experimentation. The chapters are complimentary, completing a rigorous theoretical framework offering detailed presentation and analysis of the phenomenon of diversity as encountered in society and the educational setting and at large viewed in a multidisciplinary multiperspective fashion. Among the theories and concepts represented are those intrinsic to sociology, psychology, political science, economics, history, literature, pedagogy, communication and linguistics.

Partners in Wisdom and Grace

Partners in Wisdom and Grace
Author: Marylin T. Kravatz
Publisher: University Press of America
Total Pages: 183
Release: 2010
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0761849386

Creative tension calls for a dialogical conversation in order to find mutual ground that can be beneficial for both partners. Partners in Wisdom and Grace explores the possibility of such tension created by the absence of religious education as a dialogical partner in the National Directory for Catechesis published by the U.S. Bishops in 2005. These queries are central: Will catechesis take religious education as a conversation partner? And, will religious education return the favor? This book concludes that catechesis and religious education remain distinct enterprises that have their own specific identities and make their own particular contributions toward educating for a religious way of life. This is an invitation for catechesis and religious education to generate a continuous healthy dialogue and mutually enrich each other while maintaining their distinct identities. Book jacket.

Organizational Transformation in Higher Education

Organizational Transformation in Higher Education
Author: Gary Hauck
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 430
Release: 2002-05-30
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0595228283

Between the years 1981-1996, many American colleges experienced a period of decline due to the numbers of available students, economic trends, and national interests. Some of these schools were able to experience significant positive turnaround. At the same time, many institutions of religious higher education continued to decline, some to the point of closure. One Midwestern Christian college experienced a major turnaround. Evidence indicates in addition to turnaround, the school also went through a significant transformation process. This study investigated both the turnaround and transformation of the school as an integrated process. As such, it also serves as an example of an ethnographic case study in higher education.