A Blog: According to Wikipedia is a discussion or informational site published on the World Wide Web and consisting of discrete entries. I have never been one to publicly post or to blog about anything. It has always seemed to me that to post my thoughts on the web would be just a little bit to public for who I am. Yet for my education class in seminary we are being asked to start a blog and to write posts in regards to the books and aspects that we are learning about in the class. This seems to me to be the perfect opportunity to learn more about the community of bloggers and what it might be like to write down and express my views in a new forum.
As a part of the first assignment we are to pick learning goals based on the competencies list that we would like to work on delve into and learn about ourselves in this class. I thought long and hard about what these may look like. To begin it seems I must start with where I evaluated myself to be at the end of the last class I took. So in that case I have put the two responses I made on the competencies I would like to focus on.
1. Am I familiar with the integration for biblical narrative, theological inquiry and ritual practice within religious education?
Given that I work as a Director of Children’s and Youth Ministry, I have had practice in these areas. I would say that I am familiar with them, but I would like more education in using them in many contexts, not just in the congregational setting I have been working in. This is an area that I enjoy learning more about, so it is an area that I feel a little bit more competent in.
I have grown in this area in the past year and for this class I would like to focus on how to integrate these aspects can be integrated in to religious education through avenues that I have not explored yet. I am well versed in inquiry and ritual practice in the way that the church has been doing it for a number of years yet I do not believe this to be the best way to reach and integrate these aspects in a world that is so profoundly changing at a rate that we have not ever seen.
2. Nourishes personal curiosity about God’s activities in the world and is able to wonder with awe at God’s activities.
I am always wondering with awe at the activities of God and nourishing my own personal curiosity. I love to look at what is going on in the world either locally or outside. The areas where I have issues are when I am wondering about the pain in the world and knowing that it is our humanity that causes us to hurt one another.
It may seem that this is not an area that I need to work on, but when going through the list of competencies I started to wonder if I was truly curious about Gods activities in the world. There are a million ways in which education is being expanded and used in new ways and I have not been interested in them. Take this blog for example. while I am curious to why people would feel the need to blog there is nothing in me that wants to nourish that curiosity or see how this could be used in new ways in the world. It is evident that this class may have a lot to teach me about nourishing my personal curiosity and being able to wonder with awe at God’s activities.
Reaching Up, and Growing 