Week Five

3 December 2012 / Kerygma

This week we’re going to be working with what Maria Harris calls the curriculum of kerygma.

My reflection:

Individual work

Find two children’s books — one which explicitly uses a Bible story, and one which does not use explicit religious imagery or language, but which taps into some element or theme that is evoked in the first book. Here you might be helped by the Children’s Literature: A Resource for Ministry site.

Focal (kerygma) work

This week I want each of you to talk with the education leaders in your home or contextual education congregation about the ways in which they approach helping adults learn the Bible. What are their key learning goals for the whole congregation on this topic? What are the goals they manage for individual groups of members? (children, young adults, elders, etc.)

If you’re in a Lutheran congregation, check in with them about the ideas from the Book of Faith text. To what extent do these ideas ring true for them? To what extent do they differ? If you’re not in a Lutheran congregation, seek out the central ways in which your congregation thinks about the Bible, and how these might be the same or different from a Lutheran perspective.

By Wednesday summarize what you’ve learned from your individual explorations with the children’s books, and with your contextual congregations, and share your ideas with the large group. In particular, see if you can detect ways in which these congregations engage all four quadrants of the Faith20/20 matrix. If they do not, which ones don’t they engage, and why?

By Friday post at least two substantial responses in the discussion.