Winter 2017/Pasadena
IS502
Bolger
IS502: PRACTICES OF COMMUNITY (4 Units: 160 hours). Ryan Bolger.
DESCRIPTION: Christian practices constitute the Christian life. The combined Christian practices of vocational formation, worship, community, and mission facilitate the integration of personal, spiritual, academic, and global formation into the vocational coherence of a Christian leader through reflection, relationships, and practices. IS502 is an integrative course that explores the identity and practices of Christian community as a people called, gathered, and sent by God. Together, professor and students study and enact historic Christian disciplines necessitated by this distinctive identity (hospitality, forgiveness, promise-keeping, truth-telling, gratitude, and testimony) in order to form students who demonstrate capacities to cultivate a theologically reflective practice of Christian discipleship.
LEARNING OUTCOMES: (1) Students will have demonstrated capacities to critically reflect on their current and past experiences of Christian practices of community. (2) Students will have demonstrated through participation in local contexts the capacity to engage in activities and exercises related to Christian spiritual disciplines and practices of community. (3) Students will have demonstrated capacities to engage scripture, tradition, and contemporary resources to reflect theologically on historic and personal practices of community. (4) Students will have articulated how community practices impact their response to the Central Integration Question (CIQ) and will identify exercises, habits, and disciplines to embody these practices within their sociocultural context.
COURSE FORMAT: This class meets once per week for three hour sessions for a total of 30 hours of classroom instruction for lecture and discussion (which includes 8 hours of required synchronous and/or asynchronous participation in vocation and formation groups) plus 10 hours of directed learning activities for a total of 40 instructional hours.
REQUIRED READING: 1185 pp. of required reading and/or the equivalent time in viewing.
A. Required Textbooks
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together. HarperOne, 2009. ISBN: 978-0060608521, Pub. Price $14.99 [128 pp.]
Block, Peter, Walter Brueggemann, and John McNight. An Other Kingdom: Departing the Consumer Economy. Wiley, 2016. ISBN: 978-1119194729, Pub. Price $17.00 [144 pp.]
Mobsby, Ian and Mark Berry. A New Monastic Handbook, Canterbury Press, 2014. ISBN: 978-1848254589, Pub. Price $27.00 [212 pp. assigned]
Pohl, Christine. Living into Community: Cultivating Practices That Sustain Us. Eerdmans, 2011. ISBN: 978-0802849854, Pub. Price $20.00 [178 pp. assigned].
Smith, C. Christopher & John Pattison. Slow Church. InterVarsity, 2014. ISBN: 978-0830841141, Pub. Price $16.00 [211 pp. assigned].
Vanier, Jean. Community and Growth. Paulist Press, 1989. ISBN: 978-0809131358, Pub. Price $22.99 [217 pp. assigned]
The Holy Bible. CEB, NRSV, and TNIV translations are acceptable [50 pp. from both Old and New Testaments].
B. Core Practices
Christian Formation
See Bonhoeffer
See Mobsby and Berry
See Pohl
See Smith et al
Hospitality/Inclusion
See Bonhoeffer
See Mobsby and Berry
See Pohl
See Smith and Pattison
Truth-Telling
See Block et al
See Pohl
See Vanier
Testimony/Story-telling
See Mobsby and Berry
See Pohl
Forgiveness
See Bonhoeffer
See Lohfink
See Mobsby and Berry
Gratitude
See Pohl
See Smith and Pattison
Promise-Keeping
See Pohl
Group Spiritual Direction
In-class resources
ASSIGNMENTS AND ASSESSMENT:
1185 pages of required reading [This assignment is related to learning outcome #3]. [60 hours].
Classroom and Vocation Formation Group (VFG) Participation: Students will participate in active learning to foster understanding of and capacity for engaging in theologically-informed reflection in the classroom and through participation in Vocation Formation Groups. (35%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #1, #2, #3 and #4]. [22 hours+8 hours].
DLAs (Directed Learning Activities): Group Project. (10%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #1, #3, #4]. [10 hours].
Autobiography: Students will create an autobiography related to practices of community (10%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #1]. [2 hours].
Four fieldwork activities and reflections (10%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #2]. [8 hours + 8 hours = 16 hours].
Directed Exercises and Integrative Reflection: Student will participate in disciplines and exercises outside of the classroom over the course of the quarter related to the core practices of the course and reflect on these experiences in a way that integrates experience with course content. (5%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #2 and #3] [17 hours].
Final Integrative Assignment: Integration paper that reflects theologically on the practices of this course and their implications for the student’s response to the CIQ and the exercises, habits, and disciplines in their current Rule of Life. (30%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #1, #3, and #4]. [25 hours].
PREREQUISITES: None. Recommended in first year of study.
RELATIONSHIP TO CURRICULUM: Meets a core integration requirement in the 120 MDiv and the 80 MAT, 80 MATM, 80 MAICS Programs (Fall 2015).
FINAL EXAMINATION: None.