LF 550 – Biblical and Vocational Foundations of the Teaching Ministry
LF 551 – Congregation as Context “Faith formation is nurtured by the whole life of a congregation, the gathered community of faithful people… Everything that happens in a congregation is part of the process of faith formation” (Diane E. Shallue, p. 4). This course draws upon materials from the field of congregational studies to prepare students to understand the context, culture, and theology of a particular congregation in light of driving forces affecting faith formation in congregations in the United States.
Prerequisite: None Credit: 0.5 Instructor: Dr. Narola McFayden
LF 552 – Cultural Shifts Impacting the Teaching of Faith The culture around us is changing bringing new opportunities for us to teach faith. The church must find ways to be the church in these changing times. In this course we will examine three cultural shifts: digital age, the rise of the SBNR/Nones, and religious pluralism. We will conclude by reconsidering faith formation in light of these cultural shifts.
Prerequisite: None Credit: 0.5 Instructor: Dr. Narola McFayden
LF 553 – Stages of Faith
LF 570 – Children’s Ministry in the Church
LF 571 – Youth Culture and Faith Formation This course explores the complexity, necessity and purpose of children’s ministries within the church. We will identify some of the historical strategies for children’s ministries and explore how these have impacted the direction of current curricula and methods. Students will explore their own contexts to recognize historical strains, cultural changes, and the current needs of children and their families within their own congregational settings.
Prerequisite: None Credit: 0.5 Instructor: Faculty
LF 572 – Teaching the Bible In this course we examine a time-honored and common practice of faith formation in congregations: Bible study. We consider why congregations engage in Bible study and what conditions need to be present in order to help children, youth, and adults learn best. We also explore a variety of methods that can be used to design a Bible study, as well as strategies to help people engage the Bible in their prayer lives.
Prerequisite: None Credit: 0.5 Instructor: Dr. Tamar Wasoian
LF 574 – Youth Ministry in the Small Church A perceived weakness of small churches is their lack of programming for youth. This course will explore current trends in religious education which suggest that small churches are fertile ground to do small-scale youth ministries which have big impacts.
Prerequisite: None Credit: 0.5 Instructor: Dr. Christopher Rodkey
LF 575 – Storied Learning Storytelling is as old as the human existence in the world. Through stories our brain and our consciousness explore and make sense of the world in which we exist in. Through stories that we tell about our lives, we create a world that makes sense to us. Stories about our faith and faithfulness not only speak of our past experiences but also construct our daily realities and future hopes. This course will be looking at literature about stories and narrative as means for learning and being. Because Christian education is focused on faithful living, connecting story, self and the Divine is an important method in effective teaching and learning ministry of the church. This class will help the students design their own ministry experience using collaborative storytelling as creative teaching and learning method.
Prerequisite: None Credit: 0.5 Instructor: Dr. Tamar Wasoian
LF 576 – Christian Education in the Black Church This course will offer a glimpse into the history, function and relevance of Christian Education in the Black Church. Attention will be given to the role of story-linking, culture, and education as a means of freedom. Approaches to engaging this community in manners that are respectful, thoughtful and life-giving will be considered.
Prerequisite: None Credit: 1.0 Instructor: Faculty
LF 577 – Special Topics in Youth Ministry: Baptism and Confirmation This is an advanced course in faith formation, specifically focused upon issues of the pastoral practice of baptism and confirmation with teens.
Prerequisite: None Credit: 0.5 Instructor: Dr. Christopher Rodkey
LF 578 – The Art of Youth Ministry: An Introduction This course is an introduction to youth ministry. Emphases for this introduction will include locating youth ministry within larger ecclesiological and theological contexts and developing tools for youth ministries that are helpful in a variety of ministry contexts and situations.
Prerequisite: None Credit: 0.5 Instructor: Dr. Christopher Rodkey
LF 579 – Faith Formation in Adolescent Women In this course, we begin by considering the context of adolescent women, naming developmental issues faced by young women and common cultural narratives about girlhood identity to which they are exposed. We then examine themes that arise in research about the faith lives of adolescent women and consider what this research implies for ministry with adolescent women. Finally, we look closely at methods used in religious education with adolescent women to support their faith formation, including girlfriend theology groups and transformative prayer practices.
Prerequisite: None Credit: 0.5 Instructor: Faculty
LF 580 – Post-Christendom Youth Ministry With the rise of secularism and the displacement of the church from a privileged location in the public square, our assumptions and starting points for ministry with youth must also shift to proclaim the Gospel within the context of a new frontier. This course will introduce theological modes of interpreting emerging youth and millennial culture and explore new and changing perspectives on teaching, worship, community, and boundaries for youth ministry. As a result of this course, students will be able to articulate the concept of post-Christendom ministry and both theorize and plan a ministerial practice targeted at youth.
Prerequisite: None Credit: 0.5 Instructor: Dr. Christopher Rodkey
LF 581 – Holistic Education Holistic education looks into human being in its mind, body, soul and community dimensions, within the context of time and history, in relation to the divine. This course explores aspects of fullness of life for humanity, integrity of creation and all manifestations of the wholeness God wills for us. Students will be doing this through exploring practices that make them whole and reflect on how to make wholeness possible in their vocation. We will be experimenting with physical/mental mediation to integrate body, mind and spirit. By keeping journal reflections on these experiences, students will discuss aspects of ministry that require wholeness and Holiness. After reading on the theme from diverse sources and combining their own experience, as a final project, the students will plan a holistic ministry project to implement in their own ministry.
Prerequisite: None Credit: 0.5 Instructor: Dr. Tamar Wasoian
LF 582 – The Spirituality of Public Spaces
LF 583 – Adult Spirituality This course explores aspects of age appropriate teaching and learning ministry with adults. Moving through life spans brings new challenges to already existing realities of life. This course highlights these challenges and places ministry with adults in the sphere of home and community as well as the church. In the first part of this class, we will be reflecting on the work of James W. Fowler and learn about faith formation in adulthood. We will be reflecting on vocation, grace, and the journey of being and becoming. In the second part, we will be learning from Linda J. Vogel about her vision of education that answers the age appropriate needs of the adult learners and practical road map to achieve such vision.
Prerequisite: None Credit: 0.5 Instructor: Dr. Tamar Wasoian
LF 584 – Feminist Pedagogy All learning and teaching take place in our bodies and we process information in ways that are unique to our gendered bodies.Because religious education is concerned about faithful living, this course intends to expand the learning and teaching experience beyond the stereotypical gender differences conversations to embrace ways learners are empowered to claim their being and becoming in their learning patterns. This class focuses on the intertwining / intersectionality of body, gender, and teaching/learning. We are concerned about ways gender engages learning patterns and how church’s ministry should be attentive to these patterns. We will look at education theories from gendered prospective and envision renewed ministry that answers to embodied and gendered spiritual essentials of women. Postscript:This class is the third in series of Storied Learning, Adolescent Women, and Feminist Pedagogy. The classes are not directly related but build on each other.It is intentional to open the class to all genders. We are learning about women’s education but all genders have to learn about this. Androcentric learning patterns were taken for granted long enough in education and it is time for us to shift the conversation.
Prerequisite: None Credit: 0.5 Instructor: Dr. Tamar Wasoian
LF 585 – Educating for Hospitality and Peacemaking Christian education can be a means to negotiate power and powerlessness, prejudices—overt and covert—and preconceived assumptions in order to create safe spaces of hospitality. This enables the Church to fulfill its call to be a sacrament of the Reign by being open to all ethne (nations or peoples) and become a multicultural community. This course will focus on developing an educational ministry in the church that addresses difference so as to facilitate the values and practices for all in kingdom living that leads to wholeness and peacemaking for the Church and the world at large.
Prerequisite: None Credit: 1.0 Instructor: Dr. Tamar Wasoian
LF 587 – The Art of Youth Ministry: An Introduction This course is an introduction to youth ministry. Emphases for this introduction will include locating youth ministry within larger ecclesiological and theological contexts and developing tools for youth ministries that are helpful in a variety of ministry contexts and situations.
Prerequisite: None Credit: 0.5 Instructor: Dr. Christopher Rodkey
LF 590 – Competency Exercise *Please refer to section 7.1.6-7.1.8 of the Student Handbook*
Prerequisite: Completion of all other LF 500 level work Credit: 0.5 Instructor: Dr. Narola McFayden
LF 670 – Liberative Pedagogies and Practices In this class, we begin with theological, anthropological questions: who are we as human beings and why (and from what) do we need liberation? We then ask how our educational ministry can contribute to human liberation through the pedagogical (teaching) practices we utilize. We begin our search for answers where the movement of liberative and critical pedagogies began, with Brazilian educator Paulo Freire’s foundational text Pedagogy of the Oppressed. We then look at how followers of Freire, in the worlds of secular and religious education, have used his work to undergird a variety of pedagogies designed to promote critical thought and critical action, including narrative, aesthetic, and embodied pedagogies. We then conclude by returning to a theological question: what role does our faith and relationship with God play in liberative pedagogies? As a partial answer to this question, we consider the practice of discernment as a way to connect with God’s will and to join in partnership with God in transforming all life for the reign of God.
Prerequisite: Successfully completed one competency exercise and a minimum of 60% of LF 500 level work Credit: 2.0 Instructor: Faculty
LF 671 – Christian Adaptation of Spiritual Practices After reviewing ways that churches in other times and places have adapted spiritual practices, students will develop “healthy change guidelines” to collaborate with church members to:
- Evaluate how well their current spiritual practices “fit” with their current mission and with the norms and models in:
- The Bible,
- Their network of churches,
- The cultures around their ministry context – so that they can:
- Discern which current practices should remain as is, or be modified, or be dropped – and then:
- Agree how to experiment with envisioned changes so that everyone who so desires can:
- Help plan the experiment
- Evaluate its effects, and
- Decide on the next steps for corporate growth in Christ.
Prerequisite: Successfully completed one competency exercise and a minimum of 60% of LF 500 level work Credit: 2.0 Instructor: Faculty
LF 673 – Thomas Merton: His Life, Spirituality and Social Consciousness This course is designed to introduce students to the life, spirituality and social awareness of the renowned Trappist monk, Thomas Merton. It will do so via three interlocking approaches. The first will focus on Merton’s life, noting the important people and events that were formative for his spirituality, and helped shape his ministry as spiritual director and author. The second focus will be on Merton’s spirituality, reviewing not only on how his life influenced his spiritual formation, but also on how his studies of other faiths also influenced him. The third focus will be on the development and growth of his spiritual consciousness and how these influenced his commitment to social issues, even as he lived the life of a cloistered contemplative monk.
Prerequisite: Successfully completed one competency exercise and a minimum of 60% of LF 500 level work Credit: 2.0 Instructor: Dr. Williams Grimes
LF 674- Development of Spirituality in Later Life As people reach later life, they tend to address a personalized set of core existential issues (e.g., What is the meaning and purpose of my life? How do I make sense of my life experiences? What will happen when I die? What is my “legacy” (defined in one’s own way)?). Answers to them reflect the varieties of spiritualties and beliefs people hold, shaped by their unique life experiences, but the fact that people ponder these kinds of questions transcends sociocultural categories. Indeed, the questions asked in later life are like ones we ask throughout our lives and are strongly influenced by a host of factors and life experiences. For many people, though, a sense of urgency for dealing with them rises as one’s anticipated longevity grows shorter, and our answers to them tend to mature as our life experiences accumulate. Why is that? In this course, we discover several things: (a) how the ways our brain functions change with age; (b) how those changes in turn affect our approach to spiritualities and beliefs that may also change over time (from a sense and need for “certainty,” to openness to skepticism and relativism, to a more holistic and reflective principled view that involves a different form of “certainty”): and (c) how those changes in turn are connected to parallel developmental processes in thinking in general (that also transcend sociocultural categories) that are reflected in, among other things, the ability to hold multiple, sometimes contradictory, thoughts in mind simultaneously and nuance them with extra-situational information, and the processes by which “certainty” is achieved. These changes are rarely linear, always reflect each person’s unique life experiences, and are described variously in terms of “modes of thinking” or as “processes of thinking.” Students will learn strategies and insights that can be applied to both a personal awareness and in meeting the challenges of later life through professional ministries. These strategies and insights will be applicable to one’s own life as well as to the people to whom one ministers.
Prerequisite: Successfully completed one competency exercise and a minimum of 60% of LF 500 level work Credit: 2.0 Instructor: Dr. John Cavanaugh
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♦ Updated 02/21/22