By: Karen Rouggly on October 25, 2018
I’ve struggled a lot with imposter syndrome. Imposter Syndrome, or imposter phenomenon, is generally defined as a very real and specific form of self-doubt.[1] My personal favorite definition is that it’s a “hotmess of harmfulness.”[2] In fact, if I’m being completely honest, I’ve felt it a lot in the last 8 weeks. As an Enneagram…
By: Harry Fritzenschaft on October 25, 2018
Obviously, before arriving in Hong Kong for the first Advance of LGP9, it was wise to read Jackie Pullinger’s Chasing the Dragon and Steven Tsang’s Modern History of Hong Kong. While I am unsure of the reasons of the order of the other subsequent texts of DMIN 717, Richard Paul and Linda Elder’s Critical Thinking:…
By: Nancy VanderRoest on October 25, 2018
As I sit here at Metro Hospital in Grand Rapids this afternoon with my Orthopedic Doctor son (who ironically just underwent orthopedic surgery earlier today for an old football injury that has continued to plague him), I’ve been critically thinking about critical thinking. I honestly believe that our perceptions in life direct our pathway through…
By: Dan Kreiss on October 25, 2018
It’s not always easy to accept that maybe what you have believed to be true, taught to you by your elders in your favorite history classes, only represents one possible scenario. The understanding of world events from a Euro-centric perspective fails to acknowledge the significant influences people in the East have had in regard to…
By: Shawn Hart on October 25, 2018
“The Silk Road, also called Silk Route, ancient trade route, linking China with the West, that carried goods and ideas between the two great civilizations of Rome and China. Silk when westward, and wools, gold and silver went east.[1]” I believe as ministers, evangelists and missionary-minded individuals, we have often been captivated with not just…
By: Mary Mims on October 25, 2018
Recently, I taught on the story of David and Bathsheba, from the perspective of a Woman. Being a woman myself, this was not hard to do. In my preparation for the teaching, I not only prayed, but I also read many scholarly commentaries and journal articles on the interpretation of the story. Although I came…
By: Wallace Kamau on October 25, 2018
Is it possible that I have been making sub-optimal decisions that are egocentric and sociocentric, even the decision to take this doctorate and I should go back to the drawing board again? I’m convinced that I made a wise decision to add to my skills through this doctorate which, confirms that I have some…
By: Jay Forseth on October 25, 2018
(Map with China “at the center” which was discussed in our Hong Kong advance) I grimaced when I read the words “New History” in our book’s title this week. Do those two words even go together? I must admit my attitude was immediately skeptical towards The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by…
By: Chris Pritchett on October 25, 2018
What is “the axis on which the world spins?” What is the center of the world? This is really the driving question of Peter Frankopan’s monumental international bestseller: The Silk Roads: A New History of the World. Frankopan set out to write the history of the world from Antiquity to 2014—what an enormous feat to…
By: Mike on October 25, 2018
Peter Frankopan’s The Silk Roads is an old-world history book, told under modern contexts, about how East meets West and eventually became globalized. This post will attempt to connect Frankopan’s historical treatise with my dissertation research. I will look for associations that will help strengthen my research question that uses Biblical solutions to help prepare,…
By: Jean Ollis on October 25, 2018
Geopolitics: a study of the influence of such factors as geography, economics, and demography on the politics and especially the foreign policy of a state[1] Peter Frankopan admittedly was inspired to write his text based on the current state of geopolitics.[2] He aims to challenge the paradigm of “our” western view of history, specifically to challenge assumptions about…
By: Mark Petersen on October 25, 2018
First off, I loved this book. Not only was it written by a historian (my undergrad major), he was taking a contrarian view that brings a fresh and much-needed counterpoint to the traditional “accepted and lazy history of civilization … where Ancient Greece begat Rome, Rome begat Christian Europe, Christian Europe begat the Renaissance, the…
By: Rhonda Davis on October 25, 2018
When I was growing up, members of my church hosted a “progressive dinner” every Christmas. Those who had the most elaborately decorated homes would host portions of the dinner. Appetizers would be at the first home, soup and salad at the next, entrée at the third, ending with a dessert buffet at the fourth home.…
By: Tammy Dunahoo on October 25, 2018
Bayard’s How to Talk About a Book You Haven’t Read and Adler’s How to Read a Book became irrelevant when approaching the potent twenty-four-page work of Richard Paul and Linda Elder, Critical Thinking Concepts & Tools. The words were few but packed with truly societal changing possibilities that took this reader on a journey of…
By: Colleen Batchelder on October 25, 2018
Diversity is not simply a subset of culture, but a dialect of nuance, perspective and narrative. It is the pen by which men and women express their story and expose their truth. The English playwright, Edward Bulwer-Lytton captured this beautifully when he stated, “The pen is mightier than the sword.”[1] Peter Frankopan, historian and director…
By: Andrea Lathrop on October 25, 2018
I had a counselor and coach who I started meeting with in 2002. He would ask me such difficult questions in our sessions together, usually along the lines of ‘why do you think that is?’ or ‘what do you think about that?’. My default answer was more often than not ‘I don’t know.’ One session…
By: Mario Hood on October 25, 2018
What is the name of the symbol in this image? Chances are you will say the symbol in the image is a hashtag to be used on social media but before August 27th, 2007 most people would have known this symbol as a pound sign primarily associated with the telephone or with numbers. August 27th,…
By: Sean Dean on October 25, 2018
I grew up in a town on the coast of Maine. The majority of the people in my community were Quebecois, immigrants or children of immigrants from the Canadian province of Quebec. This fact made it so that our city was very white and not just because of the mounds of snow that would fall…
By: Jennifer Williamson on October 25, 2018
As I leafed through the pages of Peter Frankopan’s, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, my mind was elsewhere. This weekend, for the first time since our arrival in France eight and a half years ago, we will be hosting a short-term team from our home church in Spokane, WA. I’ve instructed…
By: Harry Edwards on October 24, 2018
“I wonder…” Those words shared by Dr. Jason Clark was meant to convey a particular posture in how we study and learn. I forget exactly the context in which it was shared, but it was one of his talks meant to encourage our cohort to hold our ideas, thoughts and learnings loosely. The memory still…
