Integrating by PartsPosted on February 11, 2014 by A+ Brooke Lester, CuratorSomething there is that doesn’t love a silo. A curriculum is divided into fields are divided into courses are divided into units are divided into assignments. Ever review a student’s final paper for a course and find that, somehow, she didn’t succeed in using the knowledge and skills that she _actually did develop_ throughout the course? That final paper was constructed in a silo. There are a lot of factors from which the silo problem has been constructed and maintained. But, it’s pretty disheartening to imagine our learners going into their vocations and building silos around the challenges they find there…silos with high walls that keep out all the knowledge, intuition, skills, and habits that they’ve poured themselves into developing.My institution’s response-in-progress to the silo problem is a capstone project to the M.Div program, the “Final Integrative Paper…”
The Problem/Mystery of Preaching: Part 2—Embracing MysteryPosted on February 10, 2014 by David LoseThe basic practice and patterns of preaching we’ve employed in recent decades—and, truth be told, for centuries—are essentially sound. They don’t need to be redefined, only revised? A problem, according to this point of view, is a challenge or need that has a recognized context, involves set limits and variables, and presents itself for solution….
The Problem/Mystery of Preaching: Part 1—At a CrossroadsPosted on February 3, 2014 by David LoseI’ve been preaching now for nearly twenty-five years and teaching preaching for a little more than half that time, and the refrain I’ve heard from preachers from across Christian traditions and from every generation is the same: preaching is broken. This is usually followed by an earnest plea: Fix it! …