Winter 2020/Fuller Online

IS502

Smith

IS502: PRACTICES OF COMMUNITY (4 Units: 160 hours). Joshua Robert Smith.

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.

RELATIONSHIP TO PROGRAM LEARNING OUTCOMES: This course will provide students with further opportunity to develop and/or master skills in integrating theological and missiological content with life experience and context through engaging a variety of spiritual practices related to the practice of community, which is consistent with the SOT/SIS PLO “Students will have demonstrated capacities to cultivate a theologically reflective practice of Christian discipleship.” (MDiv, MAT, MATM, MAICS). The emphases on integration in this course provides introduction to the MAICS learning outcome related to critical thinking and integration (MAICS). This course may also contribute to various learning outcomes in the MAGL related to integrating theology and praxis in ministry and mission, and related to spiritual formation (MAGL).

COURSE FORMAT: This course will be conducted online on a ten-week schedule aligned with Fuller’s academic calendar for a total of 40 instructional hours. Students are required to interact with the material, with each other, and with the instructor regularly through online discussions, reading, and other assignments that promote active learning.

REQUIRED READING: 927 pp. of required reading.

A. Required Textbooks

Lohfink, Gerhard. Jesus and Community. Fortress, 1984. ISBN: 978-0800618025, Pub. Price $29.00. [187 pp. assigned].

Battle, Michael. Ubuntu: I in You and You in Me. Seabury, 2009. ISBN: 978-1-59627-111-1, Pub. Price

$18.95 [154 pp. assigned].

Pohl, Christine. Living into Community: Cultivating Practices That Sustain Us. Eerdmans, 2011. ISBN: 978-0802849854, Pub. Price $20.00. Available as an e-book from the Fuller Library [178 pp. assigned].

Volf, Miroslav. Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a World Stripped of Grace. Zondervan, 2005. ISBN: 978-0310265740, Pub. Price $15.99 [97 pp. assigned].

Biblical Texts: Exodus [50 pp.], Mark [30 pp.], and 1 Corinthians [18 pp.].

B. Core Practices (all articles below will be available via eReserves)

Hospitality

Required text: Pohl, Christine. Living into Community.

Conde-Frazier, Elizabeth. “From Hospitality to Shalom” in A Many Colored Kingdom. Baker, 2004. ISBN: 978-0801027437, Pub. Price $24.00 [43 pp].

Wimberly, Anne Streaty. “Called to Listen: The Imperative Vocation of Listening in Twenty-First Century Faith Communities.” International Review of Mission LXXXVII, No. 346. [10 pp].

Truth-Telling

Required text: Pohl, Christine. Living into Community.

Promise-Keeping

Required text: Pohl, Christine. Living into Community.

Forgiveness

David Augsburger: Here is a link to an interview he did several years back that gets to some of the more important issues: http://www.nacronline.com/wordpress/160/the-f-word-forgiveness-and-its-imitations. [14 pp].

Required Text: Volf, Miroslav. Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a World Stripped of Grace.

Gratitude

Required text: Pohl, Christine. Living into Community.

Christian Formation

Smith, James K.A. ”Introduction: Beyond Perspectives” and “Homo Liturgicus: The Human Person as Lover,” in Desiring the Kingdom. Baker, 2009. ISBN: 978-0801035777, Pub. Price $22.99 [56 pp].

Testimony

Drury, Amanda Hontz. “Testimony in Practice,” in Saying is Believing. InterVarsity, 2015. ISBN: 978-0830840656, Pub. Price $22.00 [42 pp].

Group Spiritual Direction

Bedford, Nancy. “Little Moves Against Destructiveness,” in Practicing Theology, Miroslav Volf and Dorothy Bass, eds. Eerdmans, 2001. ISBN: 978-0802849311, Pub. Price $24.00 [26 pp].

Roxburgh, Alan. “Practices of a Missional People,” in Journal of Missional Practice. Fall 2013 (online http://themissionalnetwork.com/index.php/alan-j-roxburgh [10 pp].

Discerning Vocation

Olds, Jacqueline and Richard Schwartz, “The Elephant in the Room,” in The Lonely American: Drifting Apart in the Twenty-first Century. Beacon Press, 2010. ISBN: 978-0807000359, Pub. Price $19.00 [12 pp].

Plus other videos and articles on Canvas.

ASSIGNMENTS AND ASSESSMENT:

  1. 927 pages reading and videos, including at least 80 pages of biblical text (10%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #3]. [52 hours].
  2. Vocation Formation Group (VFG) Participation: Students will participate in active learning to foster understanding of and capacity for engaging in theologically-informed reflection through participation in Vocation Formation Groups. (10%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #1, #2, #3 and #4]. [8 hours].
  3. Online Instruction and Web interaction weekly (DLAs): interactive reflective activities including videos, google docs, and Discussion posts [often a 250-word post and follow-up250-word forum response] (15%). [This assignment is related to learning outcomes #1, 2, 3, 4]. [20 hours].
  4. Directed Exercises & Learning Activities 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 engagement with course content. (15%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #1, #2, and #3] [10 hours].
  5. Autobiography (1000 words): Students will create an autobiography related to practices of community (10%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #1]. [3 hours].
  6. Attend at least 3 worship gatherings at the same church, plus four fieldwork activities and reflections, which can be at the same or different churches (15%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #2] [6 + 8 hours + 8 hours (22 hours)].
  7. Final Integrative Assignment (2500 words): 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. (25%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #1, #3, and #4]. [25 hours].

PREREQUISITES: IS500 encouraged. 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.

NOTE: This ECD is a reliable guide to the course design but is subject to modification. Textbook prices are set by publishers and are subject to change. Copyright 2019 Fuller Theological Seminary.