Fall 2017/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, communion, enacting the prophetic, gathering & sending, prayer, and reading & proclaiming the Word) 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 and prayer. (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 and prayer. (3) Students will have demonstrated capacities to engage scripture, tradition, and contemporary resources to reflect theologically on historic and personal practices of worship and prayer. (4) Students will have articulated how practices of worship and prayer 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 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: 1,000 pp. of required reading.
A. Required Textbook
Smith, James K. A. You are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit. Brazos Press, 2016. ISBN: 978-1587433801. Price $19.99 [224 pp.]
B. Core Practices
Communion
Wright, NT. “Part 1: How it All Began” in The Meal Jesus Gave Us. 2nd edition. Westminster John Knox, 2015. ISBN: 978-0664261290, Pub. Price $14.00 [36 pp. assigned; eReserves.]
Confession
Foster, Richard. “Confession” in Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth. HarperCollins, 1998 (originally 1978). ISBN: 978-0060628390, Pub. Price $20.00 [15 pp. assigned; eReserves.]
Pool, Jeff B. 2005. “The Heart of Christian Confession.” American Baptist Quarterly 24, no. 4: 376-390 [14 pp. assigned, eReserves.]
Enacting the Prophetic
Brueggemann, Walter. The Prophetic Imagination 2nd ed. Fortress, 2001. ISBN: 978-0800632878, Pub. Price $14.51 [Chs. 1-3, 7; 64 pp. assigned; eReserves.]
Johnson, Todd E. “Doing God’s Story: Theatre, Christian Initiation, and Being Human Together,” in Theatrical Theology: Explorations in Performing the Faith, Wesley Vander Lugt and Trevor Hart, eds. Cascade, 2014. Pub. Price $34.00 [12 pp. assigned; eReserves].
Gathering & Sending
Schmit, Clayton J. “The Sending” and “The Gathering” in Sent and Gathered: A Worship Manual for the Missional Church. Baker Academic, 2009. ISBN: 978-0801031656, Pub. Price $20.00 [19 pp. assigned; eReserves.]
Prayer
Foster, Richard. “Prayer” in Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth. HarperCollins, 1998 (originally 1978). ISBN: 9780060628390, Pub. Price $20.00 [14 pp. assigned; eReserves.]
Wright, NT. “The Lord’s Prayer as a Paradigm of Christian Prayer,” in Into God’s Presence: Prayer in the New Testament, R.L. Longenecker, ed. Eerdmans, 2001. ISBN: 978-0802848833, Pub. Price $24.00 [22 pp. assigned; eReserves].
Praise
Brueggemann, Walter. “Praise and the Psalms, The Politics of Glad Abandonment” in The Psalms & the Life of Faith. Augsburg Fortress Press, 1995. ISBN: 978-0800627331, Pub. Price $26.00 [22 pp. assigned; eReserves.]
Reading & Proclaiming the Word
Peterson, Eugene. “Scripture as Form” and “Scripture as Script” in Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading. Eerdmans, 2009. ISBN: 978-0802864901, Pub. Price $13.50 [55 pp. assigned; eReserves.]
Schneiders, Sandra M. 2010. “The Word in the World.” Pacifica: Journal of the Melbourne College of Divinity. 23 (3): 247-266 [19 pp. assigned; eReserves.]
Sabbath-Keeping
Bass, Dorothy C. “Keeping Sabbath” in Practicing Our Faith: A Way of Life for a Searching People. Jossey-Bass, 2010. ISBN: 978-0470484111, Pub. Price $14.99 [14 pp. assigned; eReserves.]
Heschel, Abraham Joshua. “A Place in Time” and “Holiness in Time” in The Sabbath. Farrar Straus Giroux, 2005. ISBN-13: 978-0374529758, Pub. Price $14.99 [22 pp. assigned; eReserves.]
C. Integration Resources
Brueggemann, Walter. Worship in Ancient Israel: An Essential Guide. Abingdon Press, 2005. ISBN: 978-0687343362, Pub. Price $16.99 [86 pp. assigned].
Labberton, Mark. The Dangerous Act of Worship: Living God's Call to Justice. IVP Books, 2013. ISBN: 978-0830834143, Pub. Price $16.00 [190 pp. assigned].
Webber, Robert E. Ancient-future Worship: Proclaiming and Enacting God’s Narrative. Baker Books, 2008. ISBN: 978-0801066245, Pub. Price $20.00 [180 pp. assigned; eReserves].
Bible Reading: 50 pp. assigned.
ASSIGNMENTS AND ASSESSMENT:
1,000 pages reading and videos, including at least 50 pages of biblical text. [This assignment is related to learning outcome #3]. [55 hours].
Online 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. (15%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #1, #2, #3 and #4]. [32 hours+8 hours].
Autobiography: 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 [Orthodox or Catholic, Pentecostal, New Expression], then prepare a 250-word participant-observation report on each (15%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #3]. [15 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. (20%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #1, #3, and #4]. [20 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.