By: Jake Dean-Hill on October 24, 2018
As I painfully trudged through Peter Frankopan’s The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, it was interesting to learn about his new take on the history of the world. He claims…“From the beginning of time, the centre of Asia was where empires were made. The alluvial lowlands of Mesopotamia, fed by the Tigris…
By: Digby Wilkinson on October 24, 2018
Wahoo. After learning how to read (Adler), and then not read (Bayard), and then to synthesise what we have or haven’t read in some useful way (Rowntree), we now get to think about what we have or haven’t read, in a critical way (Elder). So, after zipping through Paul and Linda Elder’s Critical Thinking: Concepts…
By: Jenn Burnett on October 24, 2018
Imperialism is out of vogue these days. Truth be told, even the game Risk makes me uncomfortable. I think my children hesitate to invite me to play for fear I digress into a rant on the tyranny of imperialism instead of just rolling my handful of dice. The trade off is that I can’t bring…
By: Dave Watermulder on October 24, 2018
Some months ago, I was visiting a woman from my congregation in the hospital. She had undergone an emergency procedure and she was recovering in the ICU. By the time I visited her, she was feeling much better, sitting up in her bed and looking ahead to a full recovery. She was told she would…
By: Rev Jacob Bolton on October 24, 2018
Egocentric thinking results from the unfortunate fact that humans do not naturally consider the rights and needs of others…We do not naturally recognize our egocentric assumptions, the egocentric way we use information, the egocentric way we interpret data, the source of our egocentric concepts and ideas, the implications of our egocentric thought. We do not…
By: Kyle Chalko on October 20, 2018
William A. Dyrness’ book Visual Faith: Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialoguge is in a unique category. Not many people can engage with theology and art in current culture as thoroughly as Dyrness did. Many theologians might do art, or some artist might implement some theology but Dyrness approaches the topic with authority and with…
By: Trisha Welstad on October 20, 2018
As I write this blog, my house is full of artists: Musicians, song-writers, singers, creatives. Fifteen plus women and men from the Northwest and beyond, creating music in a retreat setting over three days. Four production spaces are set with groups of three to five people at each. The groups have eight hours to write…
By: Nancy VanderRoest on October 19, 2018
So…what’s the point? Why would anyone write a book about telling someone else about ways to study? Rowntree noted that he didn’t write the book to tell anyone how to study, but instead to introduce various ways of learning. Yup, that makes it clear as mud! Sometimes, books really hold little meaning, as noted in…
By: Jay Forseth on October 19, 2018
Cohort LGP8’s Mark Peterson, in a former Zoom chat session, made a comment that I have not easily forgotten. I won’t get the wording exactly right, but he referred to aesthetic beauty enhancing worship–like stained glass, church architecture, and other scenic surroundings. I believe I remember him saying he wished we would return to more…
By: Wallace Kamau on October 19, 2018
I have always been very keen on issues about healthy living and I have read alot about keeping healthy in a wholistic way. It’s common knowledge among my friends that I am well informed on matters of health and they consult me frequently. I fear that when I am finally conferred the Dmin degree, many…
By: John Muhanji on October 19, 2018
What a Relieve! From the time we left Hong Kong, the challenge of self-organisation has been significant and especially balancing the work-related, family and reading assignments. On arriving back home, there was much waiting for me and without settling down to access the situation before getting straight into them, I jumped into them. There was…
By: Shermika Harvey on October 19, 2018
Greetings to the lucky finder of this GOLDEN TICKET from Professor Derek Rowntree!. Present this ticket at the main entrance of this educational journey at nine o’clock in the morning of the fourth day of September. Do not be late for the book given on this day will unlock critical patterns to change the course…
By: Jake Dean-Hill on October 18, 2018
After experiencing the incredible visual beauty of China, William Dyrness’s book, Visual Faith (Engaging Culture): Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialogue, put words to how that beauty relates to the Christian Faith and Church. Art and beauty have always seemed to point me to the Creator and been a form of worship for me. And…
By: Shawn Hart on October 18, 2018
“Christians already recognized that while images could be useful in promoting appropriate worship, they were also dangerous. Not only were there the biblical warnings about idolatry, but there were also pagan and political connotations that needed to be avoided[1].” What a thought-provoking book on a topic I can honestly say I have never read a…
By: Karen Rouggly on October 18, 2018
Have you ever heard the phrase, “It’s in the bones” or that heard that you might feel something “deep in your bones”? Essentially, it means that when you learn or understand something so deeply that it becomes a part of you. “While bones frequently evoke images of death, they also may evoke resilient images of…
By: Harry Fritzenschaft on October 18, 2018
Rowntree asks us the question, more frankly asks me the question, “Why are you studying?”[1] Perhaps more contextually, the question should be, “Why are you pursuing a doctoral degree (the glamorous DMin LGP)?” Upon starting my seminary education in January 2017, my original purpose was to acquire a doctoral degree, a terminal degree so my…
By: Jean Ollis on October 18, 2018
This era of hyper focus – and even addiction – to Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and google images reinforces Dryness’ premise that visual images are their own substantial narrative. Dyrness, in his work Visual Faith (Engaging Culture): Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialogue focuses on the importance of introducing/reintroducing the visual experience as a tool in…
By: Greg on October 18, 2018
“Come in and find a station”, the teacher said, “we are going to make Halloween cupcakes.” The parents and their kids came in, sitting around many tables ready to work together on this Saturday cooking class. After everyone washed hands they began to mix, mingle and make and only is done when dealing with adults…
By: Jason Turbeville on October 18, 2018
“In some mysterious sense, all art aspires to be worship”[1] In this statement William Dyrness closes his chapter, Reflecting Theologically on the Visual Arts, with a call to understand that all art, whether by Christians or not, cries out to aspire to something greater than the artist. He goes onto argue the artist whether wanting…
By: Mary Mims on October 18, 2018
I graduated from high school over 40 years ago. I spent around 18 years taking college and graduate level courses. And now I am just reading books on How to Study correctly? I guess I should be a bit angry that no one told me there was a secret to all of this book learning. …
