Fall 2020/Fuller Online

IS502

Gutenson

IS502: PRACTICE OF CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY (4 Units: 160 hours). Charles Gutenson.

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 vocation 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) 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 video lectures, online discussions, reading, and other assignments that promote active learning.

REQUIRED READING: 900 pp. of required reading

A. 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].

Katongole Emmanuel M. Mirror to the Church: Resurrecting Faith after Genocide in Rwanda. Zondervan 2009. ISBN: 978-0310284895, Pub. Price $15.99 [176 pages]

Tutu, Desmond and Mpho Tutu. The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and our World. HaperCollins 2014. ISBN: 978-0062203571, Pub. Price $16.99 [240 pages]

B. REQUIRED CORE PRACTICES: (available in e-reserves or as ebooks)

i. Hospitality/Inclusion

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. [pp. 1-16, 158-176 assigned].

Cha, Peter. “Constructing New Intergenerational Ties, and Identities among Korean American Christians: A congregational case study.” In Nieves and Priest (eds); This Side of Heaven: Ethnicity, Race and Christian Faith. Oxford, 2006. ISBN: 978-0195310573, Pub. Price $45.95; available as an ebook through Fuller Library. [16 pages].

Conde-Frazier, Elizabeth. “From Hospitality to Shalom” in A Many Colored Kingdom. Baker, 2004. ISBN: 978-0801027437, Pub. Price $24.00 Available as an e-book from the Fuller Library. [pp. 167-210 assigned].

ii. Truth Telling

The Danger of Silence (https://www.ted.com/talks/clint_smith_the_danger_of_silence)

Empire: Tell the Truth (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYybTaTBdHs)

iii. Gratitude

40 Simple Ways to….(http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/40-simple-ways-practice-gratitude.html)

iv. Promise Keeping

v. Forgiveness/Reconciliation:

Tutu, Desmond and Mpho Tutu. The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and our World. HaperCollins 2014. ISBN: 978-0062203571, Pub. Price 16.99 [240 pages].

Additional resources will be added/substituted by the time class starts with the goal of assuring wide contextual perspectives on the various issues.

Biblical Texts: Deuteronomy [25 pp. assigned], Matthew [25 pp. assigned].

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 the instructor know. Together you can figure out some alternative ways of completing the assignments that will preserve the learning objectives while making the coursework accessible.

900 pages reading and videos (for example, weekly YouTube mini lectures), including at least 50 pages of biblical text (10%) [This assignment is related to learning outcome #3]. [60 hours].
Most weeks, there will be a 25 to 40 minute lecture uploaded to YouTube and students are expected to watch these as available. [This assignment is related to learning outcomes #3 and #4.] (10%) [20 hours]
Vocation Formation Group (VFG): Students will meet with a small group facilitated by a Vocation Formation Group Leader. These will be synchronous, online meetings coordinated by your VFG leader. In these groups, students will engage the core practices through spiritual disciplines, biblical and theological reflection, and sharing stories of their vocational formation. (10%) [This assignment is related to learning outcome #2, #4]. [20 hours].
Autobiography: Students will create an autobiography related to practices of community (20%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #1]. [10 hours].
Four fieldwork activities and reflections. Details included in syllabus. (15%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #2.] [20 hours].
Final Integrative Paper: Students will write an integration paper that reflects on their vocational formation to date, integrates key points of learning and/or transformation from the course, and identifies a plan for further spiritual and vocational development. (35%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #1, #2, #3, #4]. [30 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.