Category: Reflections
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Tuesday reflection for week seven
Through all of the topics and conversations, everything seems to come back to a basic point*. Will the church be attractional or missional? Looking at the rise and fall of the Nine O’clock Service in England shows a model that, while very missional in the sense that they wanted to understand the culture and remove…
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Thursday reflection for week six
During class we discussed the similarities and differences between Shane Claiborne’s and Naomi Klein’s books. During discussion, a few points stood out to me. They may or may not have been discussed directly, but here are some of the things the discussion made me consider: Jesus’ model of ministry seemed to be one of focusing…
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Tuesday reflection for week six
How did Jesus redeem the practices around him when he walked on this earth? It was interesting to discuss and hear specific examples of how Jesus lived within the powers and practices of his time but also took bold steps to reform the expectations and challenge the processes people had become used to. He didn’t…
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Thursday reflections for week five
On Leadership Recently I’ve been trying to balance a little dissonance between what I’ve learned about leadership, what I’ve experienced in leadership, what I’m learning about leadership, and what I’m learning in class. (Clear enough?) I’ve always learned it is the leader who is to set the vision and the course for a group. Some…
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Thursday reflections for week four
Much of church history ignored what Jesus did within culture. What happens when we look at Jesus as a missionary? We see both his message and his method. His message was the Kingdom of God. He announced it. He inaugurated it. He embodied it through sayings and actions. The rule and reign of God was…
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Tuesday class reflections: week four
We had some great discussions in class Tuesday, but one piece stood out to me most. We discussed how in some ways, emerging churches are coming to a different understanding of theology from the traditional American evangelical mindset, and it’s changing how they do church. And it’s a larger shift than a different kind of…
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Thursday reflections for week three
In class Thursday we talked about how different theorists bring together the ideas of practices and the Powers. We discussed how the idea that getting a person into an office or a position could “change everything” is really untrue when you consider the power of the office itself. There are systems. There is momentum. There…
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Tuesday reflections for week three
In class on Tuesday Ryan Bolger introduced the idea of practices: the bundles of routinized human activities (doings and sayings) infused and bound by shared, often implicit, practical understanding (embodied skills, knowledge, know-how, presuppositions, background knowledge, emotions, and intention). Basically, they’re the little mini-cultures that, when combined, make up a broader culture. People can have…
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Thursday reflections for week two
We are talking about a lot of important, foundational ideas in class right now. Although it’s great stuff, I’m ready to dive into more of the application of the theories and ideas. Part of it may be because of my sociology major in college, the theoretical stuff isn’t as new as it may be for…
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Tuesday reflections for week two
Kingdom influence Today, after reviewing some of the history of the study of culture, we spent a portion of class time discussing some of the more recent contributors to the theoretical understanding and study of culture. One of the influential men we ended with was Stuart Hall, who started working for the Centre for Contemporary…
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Thursday reflections for week one
Defining Culture In class Thursday, we began to wrestle with the idea of culture. What defines it? The class threw out a number of ideas and definitions of culture. Most centered around the idea that culture was the shared expectations, traditions, beliefs and values that hold a group of people together. (Ok, so that was…
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Tuesday reflection for week one
In class today, Ryan Bolger introduced himself and gave a background to the course. The root of this discussion really began with Lesslie Newbigin, who served in India as a missionary from the 1930s to the 1970s. When he came back to the UK, he experienced a bit of a culture shock. He found that…
Jon Sampson 