Spring 2018/Pasadena

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.

COURSE FORMAT: This class meets twice weekly for two hour sessions for a total of 40 instructional hours in the classroom for lecture and discussion (which includes 8 hours of required synchronous and/or asynchronous participation in vocation and formation groups).

REQUIRED READING: 1000 pp. of required reading.

A. Required Textbooks

Lohfink, Gerhard. Jesus and Community. Fortress, 1984. ISBN: 978-0800618025, Pub. Price $29.00 [187 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 $17.00 [226 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 [pp. 167-210].

Wimberly, Anne Streaty. “Called to Listen: The Imperative Vocation of Listening in Twenty-First Century Faith Communities.” International Review of Mission LXXXVII, No. 346:331-341.

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 [pp. 17-35 and 37-73].

Testimony

Drury, Amanda Hontz. “Testimony in Practice,” in Saying is Believing. InterVarsity, 2015. ISBN: 978-0830840656, Pub. Price $22.00 [pp.125-167].

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 [pp. 157-183].

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. assigned].

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 [pp. 1-12 assigned].

Plus other videos and articles on Canvas.

ASSIGNMENTS AND ASSESSMENT:

  1. 1000 pages reading and videos, including at least 80 pages of biblical text (10%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #3]. [55 hours].
  2. 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. (20%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #1, #2, #3 and #4]. [32 hours+8 hours].
  3. Autobiography: Students will create an autobiography related to practices of community (10%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #1]. [2 hours].
  4. 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. (15%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #2 and #3] [15 hours].
  5. 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 (20%). [This assignment is related to learning outcome #2] [6 + 8 hours + 9 hours].
  6. 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. (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.