By: Jennifer Vernam on January 29, 2024
This week, I started reading Russell Moore’s new book Losing Our Religion[1].In the first chapter, he reflects on a crisis that he had earlier in life when he recognized the failings of his faith community. He states that this crisis surfaced “a deep dread… that Christianity might just be [a] southern culture of politics, with…
By: John Fehlen on January 29, 2024
At the height of the collective (and largely warranted) backlash following the murder of George Floyd, I asked my team to compile a resource list that could be made available on our church website. The resources were intended to express our value for people of color, a strong rejection of racism, and ways we could…
By: Travis Vaughn on January 29, 2024
In Evangelization and Ideology: How to Understand and Respond To The Political Culture[1] Matthew Petrusek wants to equip “evangelists” to be able to engage the political realm as he believes “the evangelist’s work includes evangelizing the political culture.”[2] He wants his readers to have the right methodological tools[3] to address what he calls “secular political…
By: Jeff Styer on January 29, 2024
There were many directions that I could go in writing my post this week. I saw the role of the leader in Joseph Campbell’s work, for example, “The Call to Adventure” and “Supernatural Aid.”[1]. I also cannot watch television or movies in the same way due to looking for these concepts imbedded within. However, there…
By: Kally Elliott on January 29, 2024
“If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” (1 Corinthians 13:1) I couldn’t help but think of this verse when reading Matthew Petrusek’s book, Evangelization and Ideology: How to Understand and Respond to the Political Culture. In his…
By: Glyn Barrett on January 29, 2024
I love history. “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” is a brilliant synthesis of the world’s major religions, and faiths. I have no doubt that the author has excelled in his endeavours in drawing together the similarities of each (Pxiii). At first glance, a young, unlearned Christian may be confused or put off by the…
By: Erica Briggs on January 27, 2024
My cousin and I had two favorite childhood games. The first was “Little House on the Prairie.” We lived in the country so it was easy to perform in such a setting. We’d act out our favorite episodes or make up new drama that allowed us to practice our problem solving skills. The second game…
By: Jana Dluehosh on January 27, 2024
When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic, Time takes on the strain until it breaks; Then all the unattended stress falls in On the mind like an endless, increasing weight. The light in the mind becomes dim. Things you could take in your stride before Now become laborsome events of will. Weariness invades your…
By: Akwese on January 26, 2024
Reflecting on insights from this week’s exploration of threshold concept theory I’ve come to understand threshold concepts as “aha” moments or paradigm shifts that allow so many other things within a discipline, field, or practice to “click”, come together, and/or make sense in the mind of the learner. A threshold concept becomes a lens through…
By: Noel Liemam on January 26, 2024
As we all read about ‘threshold concept’ each has shared various ideas, knowledge or experiences that have relation to this concept. I myself would like to start by saying this concept or word, ‘threshold concept’ which is also interchangeable with crossing a barrier can be part of each and everyone’s everyday life as we grow…
By: Mathieu Yuill on January 25, 2024
For a while, I hosted a podcast which featured several interviews with people from all walks of life. Some authors, others business leaders, nonprofit executives and more. One of my favourites was author, Joseph Michelli[1]. He had written a book, The Starbucks Experience, that really changed the way I looked at customer service and fuelled…
By: Esther Edwards on January 25, 2024
I will never forget the day the world shut down. The closing on our 65-year-old church building was just a week away and we were 80% of the way moved out with just a few more things to donate and sell. The storage units were filled. We had already started meeting at a movie theatre…
By: Chad Warren on January 25, 2024
I have spent several years teaching middle school and high school students. Watching some some wrestle more than others over foundational concepts. Those kinds of concepts are that are absolutely crucial if one is to move forward to a deeper and more clear understanding. I can remember working to find ways for more students to…
By: Julie O'Hara on January 25, 2024
I have been trying to use the idea of threshold concepts to put language to what I have observed with ministerial development candidates during my participation in the annual interview process occurring every January. Candidates initially interview for their first district license, then every year for renewal culminating in a final interview to be recommended…
By: Todd E Henley on January 25, 2024
Drawing from nearly two decades of conversations with Fortune 500 executives, Susan Scott offers fresh and surprising alternatives to the “best practices” wreaking havoc on today’s businesses. In her book, Fierce Leadership, she states, “Our careers, our companies, our personal relationships, and our very lives succeed or fail, gradually then suddenly-one conversation at a time.”1…
By: Jenny Dooley on January 25, 2024
The COVID-19 pandemic happened to all of us. It is our common lived experience. Though not as globally impactful I experienced regional viral epidemics and the ensuing public health interventions while living in Vietnam. The first in 2003 when SARS was diagnosed in Hanoi, quickly followed in 2004 by H5N1 better known as the Avian…
By: Chris Blackman on January 25, 2024
I am fascinated by this approach. I wish it had been taught to me when I was young, as I always struggled to learn. I had a brother who got straight A’s in every class he took. He never seemed to do homework, he never opened books, he wrote his own algebraic equations and came…
By: Joel Zantingh on January 25, 2024
I love the rich visual imagery in liminality, crossing a threshold from one room to another and embracing the experience of the known past, gathering it with the unknown future. As I read “Overcoming Barriers to Student Learning”, I appreciated that Jan H. F. Meyer and Ray Land did not explain the nature of any…
By: Daren Jaime on January 25, 2024
High school and college all-nighters were a constant in most of our educational upbringing. It feels just like yesterday. The agonizing thoughts surrounding an upcoming paper in that subject you were shaky in, or even worse, that dreaded midterm or final exam. Those memorable, miserable thoughts of reading, rereading, cramming, comprehending, anticipating, sweating, and then…
By: Jennifer Eckert on January 25, 2024
I did not find the topic of threshold concepts particularly exciting, certainly not one I would study by choice, but I understood the idea. After numerous starts and stops, and with a bit of prayer and coaching from my spouse, I opted to illustrate my notion of concept thresholds as it applies to social services,…
