I have been in 12 credits this semester. I have had Personal Spiritual Formation (PSF) and History & Philosophy of Ministry on Monday's, Christian Theology on Tuesday evenings and Ministry in Culture on Thursday afternoons.
Personal Spiritual Formation has been an interesting class. We chose two different spiritual disciplines to work on throughout the semester and we report on them along the way. We, also, had to write our spiritual autobiography. Even though it's labeled our "spiritual" autobiography they were mostly just autobiography and different things that influence who we are today. We then had to present on our papers that we wrote. This has been a interesting process of a class, but a very good one that has helped me to work somethings out.
History & Philosophy of Ministry: If I had blogged this earlier in the semester I would not have had much positive to say. HOWEVER, things turned around when we read the book Education that is Christian by Lois LeBar. THis book really changed my whole view of the class and even life. Then after fall break we read Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together (ok, 3 out of 5 chapters, not the whole book). Bonhoeffer was absolutely phenomenal. It is a book about Christian Life and community. I feel that every Christian should read this and apply it to their lives. PSF has helped our class to do just that. And the relationships I am forming are helping us to do it, as well. I just finished a Historical Mentor Paper on Robert Raikes, the founder of the Sunday School Movement. It was so cool to learn about a man who wanted to help poor children and the Sunday School movement came out of it.
Christian Theology: the foundation of everything we believe. This class has been so great to broaden my knowledge of the faith that I have claimed since I was a child. I had no idea over half of the things that I learned in this class. It has been completely eye-opening, sometimes shocking to me that people believe somethings because they are so different from what I grew up knowing. We have had to write creedal statements of what we believe on certain doctrines. Our professor wants us to wrestle with Scripture and know why we actually believe something and state that in our creeds. I am realizing that I agree doctrinally a lot with what I grew up in, yet in other areas I do not agree. I do not always agree with the practices that we do or our position papers. However, I am formulating what I believe and why I believe it due to the Scripture. I have loved this class and my prof has been so good and interesting to learn from.
Ministry in Culture: This is the one class I have not particularly enjoyed. It's a culture class and we used a text book from one of my undergrad classes (which I did not enjoy the second time around, but very good the first time). I have enjoyed a small portion of the first book we read, but the next two were not enjoyable for me. Plus other things have been annoying along the way.
The thing that I do like about this class is that we were forced to get involved in a cross-cultural engagement for at least 10 hours this semester. I started working with the Glen Ellyn Children's Resource Center (GECRC). I go every Thursday and work with students at Lincoln Elementary. I have loved working with these kids that not only am I continuing through the end of the semester, but through the end of the school year, as well! That's where I got the background picture currently on my blog. I'm gonna post more below, from my time there. We had to do a presentation on our experiences so Lauren, a fellow CFM-er in my class, took pictures and video for it!
Beyond my classes, I have met some really awesome people and been making great friends in some of them! I have been really enjoying my time at Wheaton and am excited for next semester! I'll be in Children's Ministry, Family Ministry, Human Development and Research, and History & Traditions. Super excited to see where God takes me through the course of my time here in the Christian Formation and Ministry Program.
So, yeah that's my update on the semester... not really the social side, but the academic side... maybe I'll update on the social side soon... maybe in between dishes and their drying periods, today...
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