Summer 2020/Fuller Online

IS501

Dougherty

IS501: PRACTICES OF WORSHIP (4 Units: 160 hours). Traver K. Dougherty.

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. IS501 is an integrative course that explores the identity and practices of Christian worship and prayer as a people called, gathered, and sent by God. Together, professor and students study and enact historic Christian disciplines necessitated by this distinctive identity (Sabbath-keeping, confession, praise, reading & proclaiming the word, gathering & sending, prayer, communion, enacting the prophetic) 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 worship. (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 worship. (3) Students will have demonstrated capacities to engage scripture, tradition, and contemporary resources to reflect theologically on historic and personal practices of worship. (4) Students will have articulated how worship 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 worship, 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 meets ten weeks online (which includes required synchronous and/or asynchronous participation in vocation and formation groups) 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: approximately 900 pp. of required reading

Smith, James K. A.You are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit. Brazos Press, 2016. ISBN: 978-1587433801. Price $19.99.Available as an e-book from the Fuller Library[150 pp. assigned]

B. Selective Reading: Read 150 pp. from one or more of the below

Costen, Melva.African American Christian Worship. Abingdon Press; Revised, 2007. ISBN: 978-0687646227, Pub. Price $18.00. Available as an e-book from the Fuller Library [156 pp.]

Duck, Ruth.Worship for the Whole People of God. Westminster John Knox Press, 2013. ISBN: 978-0664234270, Pub. Price $32.00. Available as an e-book from the Fuller Library [358 pp.]

Farhadian, Charles E., ed.Christian Worship Worldwide: Expanding horizons, deepening practices. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2007. ISBN: 978-0802828538, Pub. Price $24.00. [312 pp.]

Fulkerson, Mary and Maria Shoop.A Body Broken, A Body Betrayed: Race, Memory, and Eucharist in White-Dominated Churches. Cascade Books, 2015. ISBN: 978-1620329047, Pub. Price $14.00. [106 pp.]

Labberton, Mark.The Dangerous Act of Worship: Living God's Call to Justice. IVP Books, 2013. ISBN: 978-0830834143, Pub. Price $18.00. Available as an e-book from the Fuller Library [200 pp.]

C. Practices Reading

Communion

Phelps, Jamie T. 2000. “Communion Ecclesiology and Black Liberation Theology.” Theological Studies 61 (4): 672–99 [27 pp. assigned; Available on eReserves]

Wright, NT. “Part 1: How it All Began” inThe Meal Jesus Gave Us. 2nd edition. Westminster John Knox, 2015. ISBN: 978-0664261290, Pub. Price $14.00 [36 pp. assigned; Available as an e-book from the Fuller Library]

Confession

Abernethy, A. D., Witvliet, C. V. O., Kurian , K. R., Brown, S., Uh, M., Rice, B. E., & Rold, L. (2016). "Varieties of Spiritual Experience: A study of closeness to God, struggle, transformation, and confession-forgiveness in communal worship." Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 35(1), 9-21 [12 pp. assigned; Available on eReserves]

Pool, Jeff B. 2005. “The Heart of Christian Confession.” American Baptist Quarterly 24, no. 4: 376-390 [14 pp. assigned, Available on eReserves]

Enacting the Prophetic

Brueggemann, Walter.The Prophetic Imagination2nd ed. Fortress, 2001. ISBN: 978-0800632878, Pub. Price $14.51 [Chs. 1-3, 7; 64 pp. assigned; Available as an e-book from the Fuller Library]

Gathering & Sending

Schmit, Clayton J. “The Sending” and “The Gathering” inSent and Gathered: A Worship Manual for the Missional Church. Baker Academic, 2009. ISBN: 978-0801031656, Pub. Price $20.00 [19 pp. assigned; Available as an e-book from the Fuller Library]

Prayer

Chan, Simon. “The Theology of Life & Prayer” in Spiritual Theology: A Systematic Study of the Christian Life, 125-140. InterVarsity Press, 2009. ISBN: 978-0830815425, Pub. Price $21.00 [15 pp. assigned, Available as an e-book from the Fuller Library]

Wright, NT. “The Lord’s Prayer as a Paradigm of Christian Prayer” inInto God’s Presence: Prayer in the New Testament, R.L. Longenecker, ed. Eerdmans, 2001. ISBN: 978-0802848833, Pub. Price $24.00 [22 pp. assigned; Available on eReserves]

Praise

Brueggemann, Walter. “Praise and the Psalms, The Politics of Glad Abandonment” inThe Psalms & the Life of Faith. Augsburg Fortress Press, 1995. ISBN: 978-0800627331, Pub. Price $26.00 [22 pp. assigned; Available on eReserves]

Yong, Amos. “Worship in Many Tongues: The Power of Praise in the Vernacular,” Worship Leader 122 (May-June 2015): 14-17 [4 pp. assigned, Available on eReserves]

Reading & Proclaiming the Word

Peterson, Eugene. “Scripture as Form” and “Scripture as Script” inEat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading. Eerdmans, 2009. ISBN: 978-0802864901, Pub. Price $13.50 [55 pp. assigned; Available on eReserves]

Sabbath-Keeping

Bass, Dorothy C. “Keeping Sabbath” inPracticing Our Faith: A Way of Life for a Searching People. Jossey-Bass, 2010. ISBN: 978-0470484111, Pub. Price $14.99 [14 pp. assigned; Available as an e-book from the Fuller Library]

Heschel, Abraham Joshua. “A Place in Time” and “Holiness in Time” inThe Sabbath. Farrar Straus Giroux, 2005. ISBN-13: 978-0374529758, Pub. Price $14.99 [22 pp. assigned; Available as an e-book from the Fuller Library]

D. Integration Texts

Brueggemann, Walter.Worship in Ancient Israel: An Essential Guide. Abingdon Press, 2005. ISBN: 978-0687343362, Pub. Price $17.99. Available as a Kindle e-book from Amazon [88 pp. assigned].

Jones, Cheslyn. "The Jewish Background to Christian Worship" inThe Study of Liturgy. Rev. ed. Oxford University Press, 1992. ISBN: 978-0195209228, Pub. Price $70.00. Available on eReserves [18 pp. assigned]

Webber, Robert E.Ancient-future Worship: Proclaiming and Enacting God’s Narrative. Baker Books, 2008. ISBN: 978-0801066245, Pub. Price $20.00 Available as an e-book from the Fuller Library [122 pp. assigned; eReserves].

Bible Reading: 50 pp. assigned in Canvas.

ASSIGNMENTS AND ASSESSMENT:

This course includes fieldwork and embodied assignments of various kinds. If you have a disability, chronic illness, or other condition that makes these activities inaccessible for you, please let me (Traver) know. Together, we will figure out an alternative way of completing the assignment/s that will preserve the learning objectives while making the coursework accessible.

Approximately 900 pages reading including biblical text [This assignment is related to learning outcome #3] [60 hours].
Vocation Formation Group (VFG): Students will meet during class time with a small group facilitated by a Vocation Formation Group Leader. In these groups, students will engage the core practices through spiritual disciplines, biblical and theological reflection, and sharing stories of their vocational formation (15%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #2, #4]. [8 hours].
Autobiography (500 words): Students will create an autobiography related to practices of worship and prayer (5%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #1]. [2 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. Includes: (1) four reading response forums, (2) weekly discussion forums, (3) weekly engagement with a worship practice and journal entries (45%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #2 and #3] [28 hours].
As a participant-observer, students will visit two worshiping congregations outside their own church tradition and/or previous experience [Visit #1: Orthodox or Catholic; Visit #2: a church with a distinct ethnic identity (e.g., Korean, Black, Chinese, Vietnamese)], then prepare a 250-word participant-observation report on each (15%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #3]. [15 hours].
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. (20%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #1, #3, and #4]. [20 hours].

PREREQUISITES: None. IS500 strongly recommended.

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.