Abilene Christian University
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Doctor of Ministry Project/Theses
Doctor of Ministry
5-2009
Totally Devoted: Developing a Holistic Spiritual
Formation Course for Western Christian College
Stanley N. Helton
snhelton@gmail.com
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ABSTRACT
This thesis reports research results from a learning community composed of
faculty, support staff, ministry leaders, and students who collaborated in a professor’s
development of a new course proposal in Christian spiritual formation at Western
Christian College in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. The professor used qualitative
research methods in the analysis and evaluation of the data produced by the group. The
outcome of the project was ethnographic data that informed the creation of the course
proposal that included new course application, course syllabus with course schedule,
planned activities, bibliography, initial classroom assignments, and initial assessment
tools.
TOTALLY DEVOTED: DEVELOPING A HOLISTIC SPIRITUAL
FORMATION COURSE FOR WESTERN CHRISTIAN COLLEGE
A Thesis
Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School
Abilene Christian University
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Ministry
by
Stanley N. Helton
May 1, 2009
This thesis, directed and approved by the candidate’s committee, has been accepted by the Graduate Council of Abilene Christian University in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree
Doctor of Ministry
____________________________________
Dean of the Graduate School
Date
____________________________________
Thesis committee
____________________________________
Chair
____________________________________
____________________________________
To Pat and Rachel
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I gratefully acknowledge Rachel Husband, Deanna Cook, Jennifer Kerr, Pamela
Stonehouse, Carolyn McMillan and, especially, Vicky Meekins, who read and offered
correction on part or all of this thesis in preparation for its presentation to faculty of the
Graduate School of Theology at Abilene Christian University.
I must extend my appreciation to Kevin Vance, the president of Western Christian
College, for giving me the opportunity to teach. I wish to acknowledge also those who
joined me in this project as my learning community and those who served as my independent experts, Calum MacFarlane and Murray Sanders. Without their help, I could not
have done this.
Special thanks go to my primary and secondary professors on this project, Dr.
David Wray and Dr. Rodney Ashlock. They worked persistently with me throughout the
process and found the right measure of admonishment and encouragement to inspire me
to bring this thesis to fruition.
I thank Dr. Charles Siburt for his enduring loyalty to me. I also acknowledge the
encouragement and direction I have received from Dr. Jack Reese. Through encouragement of both these men, I entered the doctor of ministry program. Because of Jack, I accepted the leadership role I now have.
Finally, I would like to thank the many teachers—too many to name—who have
invested in me over the years. Because of them, I look more like Jesus. Their labors have
not been in vain.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES.............................................................................................................. v
LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... vi
I.
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 1
Title of Project ........................................................................................................ 2
Ministry Setting ...................................................................................................... 3
Establishment of the College ...................................................................... 3
The Development of the Encounter Program ............................................. 6
Proposed Programming for the Encounter Program................................... 8
Problem: Background and Importance ................................................................... 9
Purpose: Summary of Desired Process and Outcome........................................... 10
A Spiritual Formation Model................................................................................ 10
Delimitations and Definitions ............................................................................... 15
Basic Assumptions................................................................................................ 18
Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 19
II.
THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS AND SURVEY OF LITERATURE .......... 21
Introducing Christian Spirituality and Spiritual Formation .................................. 21
Theology and Spiritual Formation ........................................................................ 24
The Nature of God as Foundation of Christian Spiritual Formation ........ 25
Jesus as the Way of Christian Spiritual Formation................................... 27
Jesus: The Love of God ................................................................ 28
The Shema according to Jesus ...................................................... 32
The Shema as Prism for Christian Spiritual Formation ............................ 33
Hear, O Israel ................................................................................ 33
Love the Lord, Your God.............................................................. 36
With All Your Heart, Soul, and Strength...................................... 37
With All Your Mind...................................................................... 40
With Your All ............................................................................... 41
The Practice of Christian Spiritual Formation ...................................................... 42
The Shema as a Way of Christian Spiritual Formation ............................ 42
Christian Spiritual Formation Shapes the Heart ........................... 43
Christian Spiritual Formation Shapes the Soul............................. 44
Christian Spiritual Formation Shapes the Mind............................ 44
Christian Spiritual Formation Shapes the Body............................ 45
Survey of Literature .............................................................................................. 46
Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 52
III.
METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................... 53
Format of the Project ............................................................................................ 53
Description of the Praxis and Reflection Sessions ............................................... 56
Praxis-Reflection Cycles....................................................................................... 56
Activity Session 1: The Inner Life............................................................ 57
Activity Session 2: Societal Regeneration................................................ 59
Activity Session 3: Personal Renewal ...................................................... 60
Activity Session 4: Theological Renewal ................................................. 61
Methods of Evaluation.......................................................................................... 62
Nature of Qualitative Research................................................................. 62
Role of Triangulation................................................................................ 63
Data Collection ..................................................................................................... 65
Field Notes Protocol ................................................................................. 65
Team Questionnaire .................................................................................. 67
Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 67
IV.
RESULTS ............................................................................................................. 68
Discerning the Data............................................................................................... 68
Interpretive Narrative................................................................................ 69
Reflection Session 1: The Inner Life ............................................ 69
Reflection Session 2: Societal Regeneration ................................ 72
Reflection Session 3: Personal Renewal....................................... 75
Reflection Session 4: Theological Knowledge ............................. 77
Observations from Final Questionnaire .................................................... 80
Analyzing the Data ............................................................................................... 83
Results from Open Coding........................................................................ 83
Results from Isolating Question 7............................................................. 83
Results from Selective Coding.................................................................. 85
Observation from Independent Experts .................................................... 87
Concluding Synthesis ........................................................................................... 90
V.
DISCUSSION ....................................................................................................... 91
Reflections ............................................................................................................ 92
Reflection on Process and Product ........................................................... 92
Toward the Elusive Assessment of Christian Spiritual Formation........... 96
Reconsiderations ....................................................................................... 96
Some Final Theological Reflections......................................................... 97
Implications........................................................................................................... 99
For the Encounter Program....................................................................... 99
For Ministry in the Church ..................................................................... 100
Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 101
WORKS CITED ............................................................................................................. 103
APPENDICES ................................................................................................................ 111
Appendix A: New Course Application ............................................................... 112
Appendix B: Invitation Letter............................................................................. 122
Appendix C: Informed Consent Form ................................................................ 123
Appendix D: Stenographer’s Certificate and Examples of Transcriptions......... 124
Appendix E: Session Discussion Questions ....................................................... 127
Appendix F: Final Group Questionnaire............................................................. 128
Appendix G: Curricular Framework................................................................... 129
Appendix H: Description of Encounter for WCC’s Calendar ............................ 132
Appendix I: Expert Evaluations.......................................................................... 133
Appendix J: Christian Spiritual Formation Course Syllabus.............................. 137
Appendix K: Assignments .................................................................................. 147
Appendix L: Classroom Assessment Tools and Assignment Rubrics................ 153
Appendix M: Course Evaluations....................................................................... 160
LIST OF TABLES
1. Words in the Greatest Commandment.......................................................................... 40
v
LIST OF FIGURES
1. Circle of Sensibility ...................................................................................................... 12
2. Types of Christian Spirituality...................................................................................... 14
vi
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
This doctor of ministry thesis reports how a learning community composed of
faculty, support staff, ministry leaders, and potential students collaborated in the
development of a new course in Christian spiritual formation at Western Christian
College (WCC) in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.1 Chapter 1 introduces the project,
explains the rationale for the title, and offers a model for conceptualizing the practices of
Christian spiritual formation. The chapter also offers a brief history of Western Christian
College and its development of a spiritual formation initiative called Encounter.
Additionally, the chapter describes the importance of the deficiency addressed in this
project, details the purpose and the anticipated outcomes, and introduces important
definitions, delimitations and assumptions. Chapter 2 addresses the theology, praxis, and
literature relevant to this project, then presents the theological principles for assessing the
various activities humans may engage in as means of Christian spiritual formation.
Chapter 3 outlines the methodology of the project—the shape of it and how to evaluate
it—by describing the format of the project, the team sessions, the field methodology
used, the selection of the team, and the qualitative methods employed to evaluate this
1
This research constitutes program development (also product and curriculum
development). For this type of project, see Nancy Jean Vyhmeister, Quality Research
Papers: For Students of Religion and Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
2008), 163-69.
1
2
project. Chapter 4 treats specifically the results, and chapter 5 reports reflections and
implications resulting from this intervention.
Title of Project
The title of this project, “Totally Devoted: Developing a Holistic Spiritual Formation Course for Western Christian College,” plays both on students’ overuse of the word
“totally” and on the biblical narrator’s critique of Solomon and Jeroboam as not fully, or
totally, devoted to God (1 Kgs 11:4 and 15:3).2 My quest was to develop a holistic spiritual formation course in which Christian students could find themselves on the journey of
becoming fully committed to God.3
In the title, “developing” refers to the collaborative process of the team to create
this course proposal. Professors and teachers, including me, have developed many
courses in the solitude of their offices with little interference, assistance, or collaboration
with their academic deans, colleagues, or students. This project, on the other hand,
afforded the opportunity to work alongside colleagues, ministers, and students in
developing a course proposal in Christian spiritual formation.
The keyword “holistic” conveys the desire that students who take the course
planned in this project will be inspired to love the Lord with the whole self: their hearts,
souls, minds, and bodies. This sense of a holistic experience prevails throughout this thesis and will be further developed below.
2
The word “wholly,” or “fully,” relates to the Hebrew shalom, which denotes
peace in the sense of being whole, or complete.
3
See, e.g., Alister E. McGrath, The Journey: A Pilgrim in the Land of the Spirit
(New York: Doubleday, 2000). To be fully committed to God means not to do the humanly impossible but to move in the direction of full reunion with God. This move toward reunion will also move the disciple to be more like God or more like Christ. In
Christian theology, this is not fully possible until the consummation of the ages.
3
Ministry Setting
The founders of Western Christian College began the school to “teach the Bible,”4
and transmitting the meaning of the Bible into the lives of students remains a central focus of the school.5 The following brief historical account sets the social and historical
context out of which this project originated.
Establishment of the College
According to the school’s published calendar (called a catalogue in the United
States), WCC grew out of “summer and winter Bible schools conducted by the Churches
of Christ in southern Saskatchewan in the early 1930s.”6 The school began in 1945 in
Radville, Saskatchewan, under the name Radville Christian College.7 The following year
the formal high school program began. Twelve years later, the school moved to Weyburn,
4
Roger W. Peterson, Dan Wieb and Lillian M. Torkelson, Western Christian College: Background and Historical Perspective, 1931-1995, http://www.mun.ca/rels
/restmov/canada/contents.html (accessed 21 July 2008).
5
Given this focus, one entry point into Christian spiritual formation would be an
approach such as that of M. Robert Mulholland Jr., Shaped by the Word: The Power of
Scripture in Spiritual Formation (Nashville: Upper Room, 2000).
6
2008-2009 Calendar of Western Christian College (Regina, SK: Future Print,
2008), 4.
7
The development of Western Christian College belongs to a larger cultural and
historical movement known in Canada as the Bible College movement. For those interested in this background, see Robert A. Wright, “The Canadian Protestant Tradition
1914-1945,” in George A. Rawlyk, ed., The Canadian Protestant Experience, 1760-1990
(Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990), 139-97. See especially table 2 (16667), “Founding of Prairie Bible Schools, 1921-1947.” This table originates with W. E.
Mann, Sect, Cult and Church in Alberta (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1955),
83. In Canada, “college” or “collegiate” can refer to either high school or post-secondary
education. Canadians sometimes call high schools colleges or collegiate schools, which
further compounds misunderstanding. For this reason, it has become commonplace here
to refer to the Bible college as the “college program.” Thus Western Christian College
has both a high school program and a college program.
4
Saskatchewan, to reside in a former military base. The leaders of the school renamed it
Western Christian College and added a post-secondary program with the introduction of a
junior college program in 1968. Since that time the school has operated under the authority of the Province of Saskatchewan to offer theological degrees up to the bachelor’s level
(except the time the college was in Manitoba).8 In 1989, WCC moved to Dauphin, Manitoba, because a more suitable property became available, but in 2003, when the former
campus of Canadian Bible College (associated with the Christian Missionary Alliance)
became available, the school relocated to the provincial capital, Regina.9 (I joined the college staff when the school moved to Regina).
When the college began in 1968, James Pennington announced the purpose of the
program in that year’s calendar. He stated that WCC would be “focused in the belief that
the Bible is God’s revealed will and that it should be the core of the education of man.”
The program was “designed to prepare [young people] for more complete service in the
kingdom of Christ.” Pennington stressed several fundamentals for a college offering a
“Bible-Centered Education” and concluded that “we are convinced that such a program
will be a blessing to Canadian youth, to Canadian congregations, and to Canadian generations, some of which are yet unborn.”10
8
BILL 301 of 2003; “An Act to amend an Act to incorporate Radville Christian
College.” Regina, SK: Queen’s Printer, 2003. Available at http://www.qp.gov.sk.ca
/index.cfm?fuseaction=publications.details&p=4460. This document lists all previous
acts related to the school for those interested in the history and the relationship of WCC
to higher education and to the provincial government.
9
2008-2009 Calendar of Western Christian College (Regina, SK: Future Print,
2008), 4. The history of WCC is well documented; the most accessible history of the
school is Roger W. Peterson, Dan Wieb, and Lilliam M. Torkelson, Western Christian
College.
10
Peterson, Wieb, and Torkelson, Western Christian College, 78.
5
Pennington, as one would expect of an educational leader from the Churches of
Christ, stressed the role of the “Restoration Principle,” which he defined as “a philosophy
that teaches that the original pattern of faith and practice was intended to be passed from
generation to generation without alteration.” Pennington emphasized that “Bible instruction would be based on an evangelical scholarship,” which, for him, meant “emphasis
will be placed on evangelism rather than intellectual (or pseudo-intellectual) approaches
so common in some religious schools.”11 So began the Bible college program at Western
Christian.12
Now some forty years later, the leaders of the college maintain many of the same
concerns. They still seek to serve young people, although today they are concerned about
serving as many young people outside the historical boundaries of the Churches of Christ
as possible. Canadian culture continues to marginalize Christianity, influencing adversely
the recruiting and retention of students.13 While still informed by evangelical scholarship,
11
Ibid., 78-79.
12
Western Christian College is the corporate name of the entire institution, both
high school and collegelevel.
13
One should not minimize the cultural differences between the United States and
Canada. The far more secular culture and the strong sense of ecclesiastical hierarchalism
create a very different environment from that which most American Christians and
churches face. Several authors have helped me find my social location in Canada.
Particularly important is Reginal W. Bibby, sociologist from the University of
Lethbridge, AB. He has written several books setting forth his findings on the nature of
spirituality and religiosity in Canada. His more important works include Fragmented
Gods: The Poverty and Potential of Religion in Canada (Toronto: Irwin, 1987);
Unknown Gods: The Ongoing Story of Religion in Canada (Toronto: Stoddart, 1993);
and Restless Gods: The Renaissance of Religion in Canada (Toronto: Stoddart, 2002).
Also relevant for understanding Canadian teens is his Canadian Teens: Today, Yesterday,
and Tomorrow (Toronto: Irwin, 2001). For the only study of the difference between
American and Canadian evangelicals, see Sam Reimer, Evangelicals and the Continental
Divide: The Conservative Protestant Subculture in Canada and the United States
(Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003). The definitive study of the
6
the college concerns itself more today with the holistic maturation and development of
our young people as Christians. An internal slogan states that WCC seeks to “Keep
Christian kids Christian.” While WCC remains loyal to the history and heritage of the
Restoration Movement, today we feel more concern for experiential and ethical restoration of the early church than for the more traditional restoration of church forms and
practices.14 This concern is reflected in the development over the past two years of a
Christian spiritual formation initiative called Encounter. The college faculty and staff developed this program out of the need to attract today’s student.
The Development of the Encounter Program
According to my job description, I serve as the “chief academic officer of the
college program,” and I am “responsible for the operation and strategic development of
the department, including the delivery of an excellent post-secondary academic
difference between the United States and Canada remains Seymour Martin Lipset,
Continental Divide: The Values and Institutions of the United States and Canada (New
York: Routledge, 1990). See also the more recent book by Mark A. Noll, What Happened
to Christian Canada (Vancouver, BC: Regents College Publishing, 2007). I also add for
the general context of Christianity and religions in Canada, Terrence Murphy and
Roberto Perin, A Concise History of Christianity in Canada (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1996) and Robert Choquette, Canada’s Religions: A Historical Introduction,
Religions and Beliefs Series, 12 (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2004).
14
This typology of restorations or primitivisms is detailed in Richard T. Hughes,
“Christian Primitivism: From Anabaptists to Pentecostals,” in Stanley M. Burgess, ed.,
Reaching Beyond—Chapters in the History of Perfectionism (Peabody, MA:
Hendrickson, 1986), 213-55. Interestingly, both experiential and ethical primitivism are
more closely akin to spiritual formation than the ecclesiological, which has historically
been the domain of the Stone-Campbell movement churches. This will explain, in large
part, why Churches of Christ have had such a hard time comprehending and embracing
spiritual disciplines as a path to God and why they seem so hungry for them now.
7
program.”15 My staff team and I, in collaboration with the president of the college and the
marketing department, developed Encounter to meet two basic needs. First, considering
the declining enrollment over the last four years, the school needed a program that would
attract the newest generation of young people, who tend to value experience over
education. Second, based on the nature of students today, my team sensed a need to move
pedagogical methods more toward the experiential and away from a heavy,
intellectualized learning style. The original proposal for Encounter described it as
a holistic first-year college program that seeks to provide structure and support for
college students who have recently left home but who need a transition between
parents and living independently. This program extends beyond the normal concerns of college with a focus on how academics integrate into the experiences of
the student and how experience informs learning.
The faculty and staff built the model around four values. The team wanted students (1) to
discover who they are, (2) to experience God, (3) to be part of a wholesome community,
and (4) to explore the world as those on God’s mission. The team dreamed that “Encounter [would combine] quality education and personal spiritual formation with reliable
spiritual guidance.”16
Now in the second year of the program, the faculty has made several modifications and adjustments. In an internal document to other administrators, I explained:
We discovered that some of our plans were more ambitious than the demands of
other aspects of school life would allow. For the coming academic year, we have
re-scripted some of our basic strategies. The first move is to integrate spiritual
formation more intentionally into what is already a large part of students’ lives.
15
Current job description for college academic dean of Western Christian
College, Human Resource Office, Regina, SK: Western Christian College, 2008.
16
“It’s All About Life: A Proposal for the Encounter Program,” internal document (Regina: Western Christian College, 2006). The goals of the Encounter program
and this project line up with WCC’s board policy on “Community Life Statement,” Board
Policy 2035, revised Feb. 25, 2008.
8
We will require that each course contain a spiritual formation objective. Additionally, we are in the process of reformulating the Spiritual Formation course itself.
This class traditionally has been taught in a single semester course starting with a
retreat at the beginning of the semester. Beginning this next year, the course will
be spread through two semesters. This will give our students more time to create
habits and disciplines that will serve them for life. This class will hold regular
meetings for discussion, prayer and scripture reading.17
Proposed Programming for the Encounter Program
As Encounter enters its second year, it is time to give focused attention to the
centerpiece of the program: a course on spiritual formation itself. Our academic program,
deeply influenced by the demands of accreditation, has elevated critical thinking to the
highest level of what it means to be educated in a Christian college. In the institutional
goals of the college, critical thinking shows up in the sub-area of Christian higher
education as one of the outcomes as well under the sub-area of spiritual formation.18
Amazingly, what critical thinking means is not defined in the calendar or in the last
assessment plan seeking to measure such. However, Stevens and Levi offer a clear and
concise definition. Critical thinking is “the ability to think, reason, and make judgments
based on an independent, accurate accumulation of data and an open-minded
approach.”19 Assessing critical thinking alone, or even primarily, is not holistic as it tends
to minimize other facets of what it means to be human. Spiritual formation as defined in
this project concerns the education of the heart, soul, and body as well as the mind.
17
“Encounter Enters Second Year,” internal document (Regina: Western
Christian College, 2007).
18
See the institutional goals for the one-year programs in 2008-09 Course Calendar, 5. See Mulholland’s critique of how critical thinking has impaired the reading of
Scripture in Shaped by the Word, 19-23.
19
Dannelle D. Stevens and Antonia J. Levi, Introduction to Rubrics: An Assessment Tool to Save Grading Time, Convey Effective Feedback and Promote Student
Learning (Sterling, VA: Stylist Publishing, 2005), 21.
9
Besides, Christian academics have been concerned for some time about the nature of
theological education, and a growing consensus maintains that theological education
must become more experiential and praxis-oriented to be effective in preparing people for
ministry.20 The goal of Christian education should not be just the acquisition of
knowledge but also the assistance of students in their journeys toward becoming more
like Christ.
Problem: Background and Importance
To understand the need for this project, one must realize WCC’s social location in
the Churches of Christ and in the cultural context of Canada. WCC’s “one-year of Bible
study” often provides Canadian members of the Churches of Christ with their only exposure to an intentional preparation in Bible and Christian spiritual formation. Consequently, this course (within the larger Encounter program) is important as it addresses the
spiritual formation of the people who will lead and make decisions in the future in
Churches of Christ, particularly in Western Canada.21
WCC’s location—in a much more secular environment than most Christian colleges related to the Churches of Christ in the United States—furnishes it an important
role in training young people (and others interested in preparing for Christian ministry) in
20
Robert Banks provides a good place to begin exploring this conversation in
Reenvisioning Theological Education: Exploring a Missional Alternative to Current
Models (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999). More recently, Charles R. Foster, et al., Educating Clergy: Teaching Practices and Pastoral Imagination, Preparation for the Professions Series (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006), addresses this concern.
21
“Western Canada” refers to every province west of Ontario, which includes
Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. It can also encompass the northern territories, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon, though generally the designation
refers to the lower provinces.
10
the ways of Jesus in a post-denominational and post-Christian context. The cultural attrition of the Christian faith, coupled with a strong Canadian sense of multiculturalism, creates a difficult environment for Christian spiritual formation.22 The school now finds itself in a new social location from the one in which it originated. Therefore, the larger issue relevant to living as believers in Jesus within a Canadian context is the need to keep
our Christian young people Christian. For this reason, the lack of adequate attention to
Christian spiritual formation in WCC’s Encounter (one-year Bible) program merits the
attention I have focused on it in this project.
Purpose: Summary of Desired Process and Outcome
I desired through this project to acquire community data thatI could use to create a
proposal for a course in Christian spiritual formation. Specifically, I planned to lead a
team in the development of a new course proposal in Christian spiritual formation for
WCC’s Encounter program. I used the insights I discovered through this group process to
inform the course syllabus, course schedule, planned activities, bibliography, initial classroom assignments, and some initial assessment tools.
A Spiritual Formation Model
Christian spiritual formation does not occur in a vacuum, but in conversation with
those who have traveled the path already. Among those helpful on this journey, Urban
Holmes offers a heuristic model for conceiving spiritual formation in a holistic fashion.
In A History of Christian Spirituality, he develops a model comprehensive enough to
22
Noll, What Happened to Christian Canada, 30-35.
11
account for practices of spiritual formation within the whole of the Christian tradition.23
Holmes’s model uses two scales, or continuums, to capture practices of Christian spiritual
formation. One scale charts God’s involvement, the other human engagement.
The first scale, the horizontal continuum, measures God’s role in Christian spiritual transformation. This continuum, then, holds the tension between what Holmes calls
the apophatic and the kataphatic poles.24 These poles are based on how God has (or has
not) revealed himself. On one end, God is mysterious (apophatic), yet, on the other, he
has made himself knowable (kataphatic).
The second scale, the vertical continuum, charts human engagement. This scale
holds in tension the speculative and the affective poles, which capture how humans experience the revelation of God. The process of Christian spiritual formation in this model
involves both head and heart.
Accordingly, Holmes observes, Christian spiritual formation must attend to all
these poles: the intellectual, the emotional, the apophatic (mystery of God), and the kataphatic (God revealed). In Holmes’s model, the speculative (intellectual) and the affective
form the y-axis while the apophatic and the kataphatic form the x-axis (see figure 1 below).25
23
Urban T. Holmes III, A History of Christian Spirituality: An Analytical Introduction (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse, 2002). Holmes did not originally design his model
in reference to all spiritual disciplines but as a model for a phenomenology of prayer (see
pp. 3-5).
24
See Harvey D. Egan, “Christian Apophatic and Kataphatic Mysticisms,” Theological Studies 39 (1978): 399-426, and Verna E. F. Harrison, “The Relationship between
Apophatic and Kataphatic Theology,” Pro Ecclesia 4 (1995): 318-32, for a detailed discussion of these terms.
25
Holmes, History of Christian Spirituality, 4.
12
Figure 1. Circle of Sensibility26
This model allows areas between the poles: apophatic/speculative, speculative/kataphatic, kataphatic/affective, and affective/apophatic.27 These quadrants, while all
necessary to a holistic model of spiritual formation, are prone to historic excesses (for
example, encratism, rationalism, quietism, and pietism). Practices that fall into Holmes’s
“circle of sensibility” do not fall into these excesses. 28
26
Ibid.
27
See a similar schema in Skylight Paths, Who Is My God? An Innovative Guide
to Finding Your Spiritual Identity (Woodstock, VT: Skylight Paths Publishing, 2000), 17.
However, this book addresses spirituality in its broadest global expressions.
28
Ibid., 4-5. Holmes notes, “By the use of these two scales it is possible to make
comparisons between spiritual masters of the church and to define spiritual practice and
its immediate objectives with some clarity—the assumptions being that in all methods the
ultimate goal is union with God. We can speak of options without being judgmental.”
While this contention is debatable, the model still provides a place where discussions of
the merits of spiritual practices can begin.
13
Allen H. Sager, as well as others, has further refined this model,29 and Kenneth
Boa presents a convenient synthesis in his model.30 Boa concurs with Holmes and Sager
that the vertical line, or continuum, represents a person’s relationship with God and
ranges from the emotional to the intellectual extremes. The horizontal line represents an
individual’s (or group’s) preferred way of apprehending the transcendent, or pursuing the
spiritual life. The kataphatic pole refers to the via affirmativa, or the “way of affirmation,” denoting what God has revealed. This pole, according to Boa, is more at home in
the West and affirms “the knowledge of God through general and special revelation.” On
the other hand, the apophatic pole, the via negativa, stresses that humans cannot fully
know God. This perspective, more at home in the Orthodox tradition, emphasizes that
God is transcendent and will ever remain a mystery. Between the poles, where possible
extremes can develop, the model creates four quadrants where “actions” of spiritual formation occur (see figure 2 below).31
29
Allen H. Sager, Gospel-Centered Spirituality (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1990),
30-56. Sager credits Holmes and John H. Westerhoff with developing the more detailed
model in figure 2 below. Corinne Ware, Discover Your Spiritual Type: A Guide to Individual and Congregational Growth (Bethesda, MD: The Alban Institute, 1995), also
makes use of this model.
30
Kenneth Boa, Conformed to His Image: Biblical and Practical Approaches to
Spiritual Formation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001). In Boa, see his table A.1 on p.
469, reproduced in figure 2 in this chapter of the thesis.
31
Boa, Conformed to His Image, 468-69.
14
Figure 2. Types of Christian Spirituality32
Chapter 2 of this thesis links four biblical categories—heart, soul, mind, and
strength—to the four quadrants above: personal renewal (heart—emotions), the inner life
(soul—inner life), theological renewal (mind—knowledge), and societal regeneration
(strength—somatic engagement).33 Chapter 2 also explores the intersection of praxis and
32
33
Ibid., 469.
In the case of the fourth area, societal regeneration and strength connect
through what believers do with their bodies to make a difference in the world. Of course,
15
theology introduced in this model. The quadrants represent the four loci of Christian
spiritual formation and provide the rationale for structuring this project as set forth in
chapter 3.34
Delimitations and Definitions
Since I am creating and designing this course for the Encounter program at WCC,
this project took place in the context and under the policies of that school. Important
definitions that are useful for this project include “Christian spiritual formation” (as a
subset of spirituality), “classroom assessment,” “rubric,” and “curricula framework.”
Understanding Christian spiritual formation requires a larger context since it belongs to the category of Christian spirituality in general. Walter Principe views Christian
spirituality at three levels. First, Christian spirituality refers to the academic discipline
that studies it. Second, it can refer to the formulation of teaching in the sense that people
can describe the dynamics of how to have a relationship with God. Third, Christian spirituality can refer to the practice of the lived relationship one has with God.35 In this project, I consider and address all three.
this is not all that people do with their bodies in the process of Christian spiritual formation.
34
Additionally, see Richard E. Averbeck, “Spirit, Community, and Mission: A
Biblical Theology for Spiritual Formation,” Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul
Care 1.1 (2008), 27-53. See also James C. Wilhoit, Spiritual Formation As If the Church
Mattered: Growing in Christ through Community (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), for a
similar typology. Wilhoit lists receiving, remembering, responding, and relating. See also
Peter Adam, Hearing God’s Words: Exploring Biblical Spirituality. New Studies in Biblical Theology 16 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004).
35
Walter Principe, “Toward Defining Spirituality,” Studies in Religion 12.2
(1983): 127-41. Evan B. Howard, The Brazos Introduction to Christian Spirituality
(Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2008), 15-36, explores each of these levels at some length.
16
The variety of essays collected by Kenneth J. Collins in Exploring Christian
Spirituality: An Ecumenical Reader attests to the difficulty of defining spirituality.36 One
factor affecting this difficulty is the fragmented state of Christianity. For example, one
can speak of Carmelite, Orthodox, Luther Reformed, Anglican, Methodist, and Evangelical spiritualities.37 Nevertheless, Robert Mulholland offers a good definition for the purposes of this project. He defines Christian spiritual formation as “the process of being
conformed to the image of Christ by the gracious working of God’s spirit, for the transformation of the world.”38 Similarly, James C. Wilhoit says that Christian spiritual formation “(1) is intentional; (2) is communal; (3) requires our engagement; (4) is accomplished by the Holy Spirit; (5) is for the glory of God and the service of others; and
(6) has as its means and end the imitation of Christ.”39 Willard concurs when he suggests
that Christian “spiritual formation in Christ is the process leading to that ideal end, and its
result is love of God with all of the heart, soul, mind, and strength, and of the neighbor as
36
Kenneth J. Collins, ed., Exploring Christian Spirituality: An Ecumenical
Reader (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000). See especially the essays by Philip Sheldrake, “What is Spirituality” (21-42) and Walter Principe, “Toward Defining Spirituality”
(43-59).
37
Ibid. See the respective essays by Keith Egan, an anonymous monk, Bengt
Hoffman, Howard G. Hageman, Harvey H. Guthrie, David Lowes Watson, and Richard
F. Lovelace in this volume.
38
Robert Mulholland, Invitation to a Journey (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity
Press, 1993), 15-17, and Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2002), 22. Willard defines Christian spiritual formation as “the Spirit-driven process of forming the inner world of the human self
in such a way that it becomes like the inner being of Christ himself.” For a comprehensive overview of the quest for a definition of spiritual formation, see Bernard McGinn,
“The Letter and the Spirit: Spirituality as an Academic Discipline,” Christian Spirituality
Bulletin 1.2 (Fall 1993): 1-10 and Philip Sheldrake, Spirituality and History: Questions of
Interpretation and Method (New York: Crossroads, 1992), 32-56.
39
James C. Wilhoit, Spiritual Formation, 23.
17
oneself. The human self is then fully integrated under God.”40 The nature of Christian
spirituality and Christian spiritual formation will be revisited in chapter 2.
Since this project concerns a course proposal for teaching Christian spiritual formation in a classroom context, the field of education provides other useful definitions.
Classroom assessment, for instance, is defined by Angelo and Cross as “an approach designed to help teachers find out what students are learning in the classroom and how well
they are learning it.”41 These educators have also collected assessment tools and techniques related to measuring learning in the classroom. Class assessment in this project
deals primarily with the achievability of the course’s proposed objectives. Its importance
stems from the difficulty of measuring how much a student has gained in spirituality as
the result of classroom teaching.
One standard assessment tool used in the educational world today for measuring
classroom learning is the assignment rubric. Stevens and Levi define a rubric as “a scoring tool that lays out the specific expectations for an assignment.” These tools “divide an
40
Willard, Renovation of the Heart, 31. Correspondingly, Harner defined Christian education as “a reverent attempt to discover the divinely ordained process by which
individuals grow in Christlikeness, and to work with that process” in Nevin Harner, The
Educational Work of the Church (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1939), 20, as cited in
Klaus Issler, “Theological Foundations of Christian Educations,” in Introducing Christian Education: Foundations for the Twenty-first Century, ed. Michael J. Anthony (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 2001), 35.
41
Thomas A. Angelo and K. Patricia Cross, Classroom Assessment Techniques: A
Handbook for College Teachers, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993), 4. These
authors assert that their assessment models are “learner-centered, teacher-directed, mutually beneficial, formative, context-specific, ongoing and firmly rooted in good practice.”
Classroom assessment is a focused subset of institutional or programmatic assessment.
For this, see Trudy W. Banta, Jon P. Lund, Karen Black, and Frances W. Oblander, Assessment in Practice: Putting Principles to Work on College Campuses (San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, 1997).
18
assignment into its component parts and provide a detailed description of what constitutes
acceptable or unacceptable levels of performance for each of these parts.”42
Considering education from a wider vantage point, curricula framework, or design
refers to the larger educational plan into which a course fits. In the case of this project, it
refers to the Encounter program, which then fits within the associate of arts degree or any
higher degree offered by WCC (see appendix G). “Curriculum” derives from the Latin
currere, meaning “to run.” Thus a curriculum is a course of learning through which the
student runs to reach anticipated goals. In the educational field, curriculum may refer to
all of life, specific experiences under guidance, or the resources used in the processes. In
this project, the term curriculum signifies experience under guidance and the resources
related to that guidance.43
According to this definition, a curriculum design “describes the parameters within
which the curriculum will occur” and “enunciates the essential considerations with which
designers must deal.” Within this framework, “a curriculum plan is a detailed blueprint or
system for implementing a design.”44 The primary result of this project lies in the data
compiled—data that will inform such a blueprint, or course proposal.
Basic Assumptions
Because WCC is a small school and many of its processes remain casual and informal, this project adapted the new course application process developed by sister insti42
Stevens and Levi, Introduction to Rubrics.
43
M. K. Smith, “Curriculum Theory and Practice,” in The Encyclopedia of Informal Education (1996, 2000), www.infed.org/biblio/b-curric.htm (accessed October 18,
2008).
44
Leroy Ford, A Curriculum Design Manual for Theological Education: A Learning Outcomes Focus (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2002).
19
tution Abilene Christian University (ACU) under the auspices of the Adams Center for
Teaching Excellence (see appendix A).45
I make the assumption in this project that all theological education contributes to
the process of Christian spiritual formation.46 Moreover, I assume that this course will be
the students’ introduction to the study of Christian spiritual formation. Yet even as I presume that the development of the new course will remedy a deficiency in WCC’s Encounter program when it comes to spiritual formation, I realize that it cannot meet every
need students may have regarding Christian spiritual formation.
Conclusion
This chapter has presented the purpose and goal of this thesis as well as explained
the rationale behind its title. Specifically, this thesis reports on a ministry/educational
intervention designed to address the lack of adequate attention to Christian spiritual
formation in WCC’s Encounter (one-year Bible) program. The project upon which this
thesis is based consisted of leading a team in the development of a new course proposal
45
46
Available for download at www.acu.edu/academics/adamscenter/index.html.
Robert Banks, in Reenvisioning Theological Education: Exploring a Missional
Alternative to Current Models, 142, struggles with the current state of theological education and proposes a model he calls missional. Banks explains what he means by “missional”: “By ‘missional,’ I mean theological education that is wholly or partly field
based, and that involves some measure of doing what is being studied. This may take the
form of action-reflection or reflection-action, distinctions that in any case are useful only
up to a point, since effective action involves some element of or relationship with reflection, and effective reflection involves some element of or relationship with action.” This
would not be my use of the word missional; I would connect primarily with the mission
of God in the world. Banks does approximate this understanding when he writes, “By
mission I mean not just ‘mission-oriented,’ but an education undertaken with a view to
what God is doing in the world, considered from a global perspective.”
Additionally I would go so far as to say that Christian education, in all its forms,
is a means of spiritual formation as in Charles R. Foster, et al., Educating Clergy:
Teaching Practices and Pastoral Imagination.
20
in Christian spiritual formation for WCC’s Encounter program. The following chapter
addresses matters related to the theology and praxes, and it reviews literature relevant to
the project.
CHAPTER TWO
THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS AND SURVEY OF LITERATURE
This chapter presents the theological foundation for the project, beginning with a
discussion of the basic nature of Christian spirituality and spiritual formation, followed
by an exploration of the biblical tradition regarding what it means to love God with one’s
full humanity—heart, soul, mind, and body—and an explanation of how the cross of Jesus provides the theological foundation for Christian spiritual formation. Next, the chapter presents theological and practical principles, based on Jesus’ teaching, for assessing
the various activities in which humans may engage during the process of Christian spiritual formation. The chapter closes with an engagement of the scholarly and devotional
literature relevant to the completion of this project.
Introducing Christian Spirituality and Spiritual Formation
Originally, Christian spirituality grew out of the Hebrew tradition of the Old Testament (OT). Later Jesus accepted, transmitted and transformed this tradition of spirituality though his life and teachings, which then became the practices of the early church as
recorded in the New Testament (NT). In both testaments, “spirituality” deals with what
occurs when the human spirit encounters the divine Spirit, or vice versa.1
1
Collins, Exploring Christian Spirituality, 10. Alister E. McGrath, Christian
Spirituality, 2, states that all spiritualities concern “the quest for a fulfilled and authentic
religious life, involving the bringing together of the ideas distinctive of that religion and
the whole experience of living on the basis of and within the scope of that religion.” For
other attempts at defining spirituality, see pp. 3-4.
21
22
Both testaments consistently portray spirituality as more concerned with the possibility of connecting with God than with enhancing human internal experience, though
encounters with the divine often do change people.2 Gordon Mursell describes the Hebrew understanding of spirituality as “the process by which God seeks continually to
work upon, or address, the raw unstable chaos of our lives and experience, and of our
world, drawing forth meaning, identity, order, and purpose.”3 The OT Hebrew tradition,
according to Mursell, underscores integration in spirituality, while the Greek tradition of
the NT stresses desire.4 The practice of Christian spiritual formation, then, seeks to integrate human desires toward God.5 Mursell defines such desire as “an insistent longing not
only, or even primarily, to leave this world for the next one, but to experience and manifest the next one in the midst of this one, until the whole creation is transformed and
made new.”6 In this sense, Christian spirituality is about experiencing, and even participating in, the mission of God in converting chaos into order.
2
Robert E. Webber, The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual
Life (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), strongly emphasizes this point. Further, it remains true
in Christian spirituality until at least the third or fourth century.
3
Gordon Mursell, ed., The Story of Christian Spirituality: Two Thousand Years
from East to West (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 9.
4
Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, Spiritual Discipline Handbook: Practices that Transform Us (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 11-21, explores the connection
between desire and spiritual disciplines.
5
Søren Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart Is to Will the One Thing (Wilder Publications, 2008), uses the phrase “to desire the one thing.”
6
Mursell, The Story of Christian Spirituality, 10. Ronald Rolheiser, The Holy
Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality (New York: Doubleday, 1999), also sees
spirituality primarily in terms of desire or rather what people do with their desire. He
notes, “Spirituality is about what we do with the fire inside of us, about how we channel
our eros” (11). Earlier, Rolheiser noted, “And what shapes our actions is basically what
shapes our desire. … The habits and disciplines we use to shape our desire form the basis
23
Mulholland, as noted in chapter 1, defines Christian spiritual formation as “the
process of being conformed to the image of Christ by the gracious working of God’s
spirit, for the transformation of the world.”7 While no definition can cover every aspect of
Christian spiritual formation, Mulholland’s definition provides a useful context for this
project since he sees spiritual formation as a process (or journey) that results in believers’, and the communities (churches) to which they belong, becoming shaped into the image of Christ. Authentic Christian spiritual formation involves the transformation of the
self, participation in a redemptive community, and making a difference in the world. In
other words, Christian spiritual formation results in believers’ becoming increasingly like
Jesus by participating in the life of God but for the sake of the world.8
Consequently, Christian spiritual formation requires living a certain kind of life, a
life rooted in the nature of God but exemplified by the life and death of Jesus Christ.
Scripture is clear in two regards: the Christian spiritual life can be lived only out of a
God-centered, God-focused life; and people can find this life only by following, or imitating Jesus Christ.
for a spirituality, regardless of whether these have an explicit religious dimension to them
or even whether they are consciously expressed at all” (7).
7
8
Mulholland, Invitation to a Journey, 15-17.
C. Leonard Allen and Danny Gray Swick, Participating in God’s Life: Two
Crossroads for Churches of Christ (Orange, CA: New Leaf Books, 2001), 186. McGrath,
Christian Spirituality: An Introduction, 2, sees Christian spiritual formation as “the quest
for a fulfilled and authentic Christian existence, involving the bringing together of the
fundamental ideas of Christianity and the whole experience of living on the basis of and
within the scope of the Christian faith.”
24
Theology and Spiritual Formation
The Bible is the “grand narrative” of the mission of God,9 and the biblical story
provides an important avenue through which Christians access this life. The ancient writers of the OT recorded their experience with a God of covenant love who would risk his
very name, if not his nature, for their good. The NT continues the story of this God who
sent his only Son to die to demonstrate his love. This narrative of love constitutes the
main storyline of the Bible.
Early Christians understood the aim of the Bible to be the formation of those who
belong to God.10 The apostle Paul, for example, notes that through attention to Scripture
Timothy could become “thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16-17 NIV;
cf. also Col 1:28-29 and Eph 4:7-16). From this point of view, the Bible serves as the
primary text for conceiving and nurturing Christian spiritual formation.
The Bible, therefore, must be a source for any theology that can sustain and
support Christian spiritual formation. While no consensus exists among biblical
theologians as to the precise theological center of either the Old or the New Testament,
Hasel points in the right direction. For him, the biblical revelation centers on God: the OT
9
Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand
Narrative (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006).
10
See this emphasis in M. Robert Mulholland Jr., Shaped by the Word. Ellen T.
Charry, By the Renewing of Your Minds: The Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), presents a convincing case that the purpose
not only of the Bible, but also of Christian doctrine generally, is to foster human dignity,
calling people to excellence. Christian doctrine is not just about knowledge but ethics
and, I would even add, spiritual formation. She further demonstrates this in Paul’s writings (35-60) and in the Sermon on the Mount (61-83).
25
is theocentric, while the NT is christocentric.11 Any useful theology of Christian spiritual
formation must connect with these theological centers.
The Nature of God as Foundation of Christian Spiritual Formation
The prophet Jonah describes YHWH as a “gracious and compassionate God, slow
to anger, and abounding in love, [and] a God who relents from sending calamity” (Jonah
4:2). Other OT witnesses share Jonah’s perception (cf. Exod 34:6-7; 2 Chr 30:9; Neh
9:17; Pss 86:15; 103:8; 111:4; 112:4; 145:8; and Joel 2:13 for other renditions of the
credo). Each trait ascribed to God by the biblical writers is relational, thus emotional, in
nature. YHWH, as presented in the OT, is a God of relationship. While each item in the
list is noteworthy, one characteristic, “abounding in love,” deserves much more attention
because of its importance in OT theology.
The Hebrew word translated “love” here is the theologically loaded covenantal
word chesed (dsj). Brown, Drivers, and Briggs’ lexicon notes the basic meaning of chesed to be “goodness” or “kindness.” While the word may describe human relationships, it
rarely refers to Israel’s response to God (as in Jer 2:2 and Hos 6:4). Instead, chesed predominantly speaks to God’s nature. God is kind and good; he shows loving kindness
when he redeems Israel from its enemies and trouble, when he preserves and sustains the
nation, when he provides redemption from sin, and especially, when he keeps his covenants with his people. The OT testifies to the abundance of God’s covenant love. God’s
11
Gerhard Hasel, Old Testament Theology: Basic Issues in the Current Debate,
3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 139-40. For an update on the current state of
OT theology, see Walter Brueggemann’s, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony,
Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008), 61-114; and his Old Testament Theology: Essays on Structure, Theme, and Text, ed. Patrick D. Miller (Minneapolis: Fortress,
1992).
26
chesed even counteracts his wrath (as in the credo, he “relents from sending calamity”).
This steadfast love, as some translate chesed, is enduring, persistent, and even eternal12;
therefore it plays a significant role in the “inner and communal life of God’s people.”
God’s love guides the people to God (Exod 15:13) by “serving a pedagogical function as
it is remembered, recounted, and meditated upon” (Pss 40:10 [11], 48:9 [10]; 92:1-4 [25]; and 106:7).13 The objective of this project is to mirror this guidance.
Baer and Gordon show that chesed presupposes mutuality (2 Sam 22:26; 1 Kgs
3:6; Hos 10:12; Pss 18: 25 [26]; 36:10; Hos 6:6; Mic 6:8, et al.). Consequently, God’s
love provides the basis for approaching God (as in Num 14:17-19).14 Likewise, Brueggemann asserts that the term denotes a “tenacious fidelity in a relationship of readiness
and resolve to continue to be loyal to those to whom one is bound.”15 He emphasizes that
in the OT God defines Israel but Israel also gives definition to who God is. Israel’s very
existence depends upon God’s commitment to the nation. Therefore, the OT commonly
expresses Israel’s responsibility to see its existence as contingent on God.
12
F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the
Old Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1907), s.v., “dsj.” Hereinafter abbreviated BDB. See also G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren, Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, trans. John T. Willis (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 5.44-64.
Hereinafter abbreviated TDOT.
All scholarly abbreviations used in this thesis follow those recommended in Patrick H. Alexander, et al., The SBL Handbook of Style: For Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical
and Early Christian Studies (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999).
13
NIDOTTE, s.v., “dsj.” See Walter Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament,
trans. J. A. Baker (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961), 1:232-39, for his treatment of this
word in relationship to God’s covenant.
14
15
NIDOTTE, s.v., “dsj.”
Walter Brueggemann, Old Testament Theology: An Introduction, Library of
Biblical Theology (Nashville: Abingdon, 2008), 217. See fn. 9 for the previous studies on
this word on which Brueggemann bases his observations. See Eichrodt, Theology of the
Old Testament, 1:250-58, on God’s love in general in the OT.
27
Consistent with his nature, God makes the first move. He loves Israel before the
nation comes into being. God’s love calls Israel into being (Deut 7:8) and singles it out
from all other possible nations; God treats Israel as no other nation (Hos 3:1; 11:1). Even
when Israel languishes in exile and it appears that God has no more love to give, the
prophets proclaim that God’s love is yet available (see Jer 31:3 and Isa 43:3-4).16
In light of God’s love for his people, God expects the people to respond by returning that love.17 While ancient Israel, according to the OT, never quite meets this expectation, Jesus does meet it through his life, ministry, and death, as shown in the NT.
Jesus as the Way of Christian Spiritual Formation
The NT makes a surprising claim, given the OT’s assertions regarding the oneness of God: Jesus is the embodiment of God. Mark, for example, equates Jesus with
Yahweh when citing a combined text from Isaiah and Malachi in his introduction (Mark
1:1-3). Other writers are not so veiled. The Pastoral Epistles acknowledge Jesus as the
only God (1 Tim 1:17; Tit 3:4; et al.), while the writer of Hebrews cites Ps 45:6-7, a passage originally referring to Yahweh, as a text applying to Christ. Paul claims that the
fullness of the deity lives in Jesus in bodily form (Col 1:9) and that Jesus is the “icon” of
the invisible God, that all things were created for him and by him, and that he is to have
preeminence since all things are held together by him (Col 1:20). In this same text, Paul
points out that it pleased God to have all his fullness live in Jesus. In the same vein, the
anonymous author of the letter to the Hebrews describes Jesus as the exact representation
of God and the very image of God’s existence (Heb 1:3).
16
Brueggemann, Old Testament Theology: An Introduction, 414-15.
17
Ibid., 414.
28
Just as the NT writers affirm the deity of Jesus, they equally affirm his full humanity. In addition to the many texts that speak of his human activities, like all humans,
Jesus is a body that has temporal and spatial limitations.18 The most telling biblical testimony to the humanity of Jesus is that he died. Presumably, most theologians would agree
that this would not be a possibility for God.19 The church struggled with the mystery of
this dual reality of the God-Man for several centuries, until the councils of Nicea and
Constantinople concurred that Jesus is best understood as fully divine and fully human.20
Jesus: The Love of God
Christians believe that Jesus embodies the complete revelation of God and the full
realization of what God intends humans to be. Therefore, Jesus, by nature, is the complete demonstration of what it means to love God. Accordingly, Jesus becomes the basic
paradigm for Christian spiritual formation. To be a Christian is not merely to acknowledge the truth of the Christian story, but as McGrath says, “it is to enter into it, and accept
18
“Is a body” is preferred to “has a body” since in the case of the latter it sounds
as if the “soul” is a real person without the body. This does not align with the biblical understanding that God created the first human from the dust of the ground and breathed
into the dust and it became a living soul (Gen 2:7).
19
Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation
and Criticism of Christian Theology (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), explores this
theme.
20
See Everett Ferguson, Church History: From Christ to Pre-Reformation (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 255-67, for historical development and Alister E. McGrath,
Christian Theology: An Introduction, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 351-79, for
theological development. See also N. T. Wright’s defense of the divinity of Jesus in
Marcus J. Borg and N. T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (San Francisco:
HarperCollins, 1998), 157-68.
29
it as part of our own existence.”21 To enter the story is to follow Jesus since Jesus teaches
the “way” and is himself the way.22
Since Jesus fully exemplifies what it means to love God wholly, almost any event
from his life qualifies to illustrate what it means to love God completely. However, one
event stands out as the essential episode for any theology claiming to be Christian. That
event is the death of Jesus, or, in shorthand, the cross. Christ’s giving his life on the cross
demonstrates what it means for God to love humanity and what it means for humans to
love God. Consequently, for any Christian spiritual formation to be considered truly
Christian, it must connect with not just the life of Jesus but particularly with the meaning
of the cross: the place where God’s love and human love meet.
Each of the four gospel accounts testifies to the centrality of the cross event in the
story of Jesus. Not only does each tell the story of the crucifixion (Matt 27:32-56; Mark
15:21-41; Luke 23:26-49; and John 19:17-30); each gospel, in its own way, climaxes on a
note of “it is finished” (John 19:30). The gospels further support the importance of the
cross because the cross is the subtext toward which everything before the passion narrative leads. Without the cross, the rest of the story has no meaning beyond biographical
information about another good teacher. Jesus calls people to follow him by taking up
their own crosses.
As each Synoptic gospel writer tells it, the night before Jesus faces his death, he
wrestles with God in prayer.23 Ultimately, accepting that God wills him to face this sort
21
McGrath, Christian Spirituality, 119.
22
Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is
the Way (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), esp. 1-41.
23
John’s gospel features Jesus’ intercessory, or high priestly, prayer in chapter 17.
Here Jesus prepares to send his disciples out into the world.
30
of end, he submits. The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews later reflects that Jesus became “perfect” by what he suffered (Heb 5:8-9). In the temptation story Satan taunts Jesus, urging him to prove that he really is the Son of God (Matt 4:3, 6); in Jesus’ final
moments, the crowds taunt him to prove his divinity (Matt 27:40, 43). In both instances,
Jesus refuses to satisfy his audience—and perhaps even himself. In obedience, Jesus accepts death on a cross (Phil 2:5-10).
The gospel writers frame the meaning of the cross of Jesus in various ways. Matthew and Mark record Jesus as referring to his life as a ransom for many (Matt 20:28;
Mark 10:45; cf. 1 Tim 2:6 and Heb 9:15), and all three Synoptic Gospels recall Jesus’
speaking of the blood of the covenant that is poured out for the forgiveness of sins (Mark
14:24; Matt 26:28; and Luke 20:22). The Gospel of John introduces Jesus as the “Lamb
of God” who “takes away the sins of the world” (Jn 1:29), a theme prevalent in the last
book of the NT as well (see Rev 5:6, 8, 12-13; 6:1, 3, 5, 7, 16; 7:9-10, 14, 17; 12:11;
13:8, 11; 14:1, 4, 10; 15:3; 17:14; 19:7, 9; 21:9, 14, 22-23; and 22:1, 3). The Johannine
author reminds his readers that “We love because [God] first loved us” (1 John 4:19 NIV)
and summarizes what that means when he writes:
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who
loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not
know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He
sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is
love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning
sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love
one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in
us and his love is made complete in us. (1 John 4:7-12 NIV)
The apostle Paul, in one of many places, captures the meaning of the love of God
as demonstrated in the cross of Jesus when he writes in Rom 5:6-11:
31
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the
ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man
someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in
this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we
be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s enemies,
we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having
been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we
also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now
received reconciliation.
Perhaps no one comes closer to the meaning of the cross of Jesus as a focus for
Christian spiritual formation than the author of 1 Peter:
To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example,
that you should follow in his steps. “He committed no sin, and no deceit was
found in his mouth.” When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate;
when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who
judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might
die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For
you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and
Overseer of your souls. (1Pet 2:21-25 NIV; emphasis added)
Ultimately, Jesus’ death becomes the focal point for defining Christian spirituality
throughout history. In his life and in his death, Jesus gives his all to God: his heart, soul,
mind, and body. Therefore, it follows that those committed to being shaped into the
image of Jesus would seek, in order to become like Jesus, to give all to God. Jesus
demonstrates both God’s love for humanity and how humans are to love God. For this
reason, Jesus becomes the nexus, the mediator (1Tim 2:5; Heb 8:6, 9:15, and 12:24)
between God and humans. Consequently, Christians seek to follow Jesus and to become
more like him; they listen carefully to the teachings of Jesus. However, the significance
32
and authority of Jesus’ teachings hang on the meaning of the cross. For this reason, as
Allen notes, the church, God’s people, live “under the cross.”24
The Shema according to Jesus
Christians do not consider Jesus just a good or wise teacher, but the teacher extraordinaire.25 Christians accord him this status based not on the profundity of his teaching—though the profound is there—but based on the meaning of his life and, more importantly, the meaning of his death. Jesus’ death verifies that he understands God well
enough to show others the way to God. His resurrection validates his death as meaningful
in ways that those who follow him will ponder until the end.
Jesus taught that the greatest command from the OT was to love God with one’s
whole heart, soul, mind, and strength.26 According to Luke’s gospel (10:25-28), a lawyer
of religion, or the Law (nomikovV) once asked Jesus about the most important commandment in the OT. The evangelist records this encounter:
On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked,
“what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
He answered: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all
your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your
neighbor as yourself.’”
“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will
live.”27
24
C. Leonard Allen, The Cruciform Church: Becoming a Cross-Shaped People in
a Secular World, 2nd ed. (Abilene, TX: ACU Press, 1990), 113-47.
25
Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God
(San Francisco: Harper, 1998), 271-310, explores the relationship between Jesus’
teaching and discipleship.
26
27
As noted by Brueggemann, Old Testament Theology: An Introduction, 121.
While the other gospel writers (Mark 12:28-34 and Matt 22:34-40) place this
citation of the greatest command in a slightly different context, they agree on linking the
love of God with the love of neighbor. This coupling makes explicit that loving God
33
Luke quotes Jesus as teaching that one should love God with heart, soul, strength, and
mind.28 Jesus places this teaching, the shema from Deut 6:5-6, as the “greatest command,” or in the Lukan context, as “the path to eternal life.” Since Jesus then centers his
teaching here, those who seek to become like him would do well to heed him.
The Shema as Prism for Christian Spiritual Formation
Because the shema was a centerpiece in the faith of Israel and in the teachings of
Jesus, I wanted to establish that the shema provides a functional prism through which
humans can live out a cross-shaped love for God in its constituent parts, yet without atomizing the whole.29 Those who follow Jesus can express their love for God in response
to God’s love demonstrated in the cross through their full humanity: with their hearts,
souls, minds, and bodies.
Hear, O Israel
The shema articulated Israel’s expected response to God’s love:
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD
your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your
hearts. (Deut 6:5-6)
transcends merely personal self-improvement and should lead believers to connect
relationally with others.
28
However, the Synoptic traditions diverge on the exact wording of this particular
saying. For example, Mark notes that we should love God with all of our heart, soul,
mind, and strength, a four-fold demarcation, while Matthew lists heart, soul, and mind.
Luke follows Mark more closely in listing four items: heart, soul, strength, and mind,
though he transposes the last two (see table 1).
29
Scot McKnight, The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others (Brewster, MA:
Paraclete Press, 2004), uses Jesus’ use of the shema as a launching pad for this popular
work on Christian spiritual formation, but exegesis and theological reflection is cursory.
34
In the first movement, this text summons Israel with the imperative “to hear.” This summons, according to Brueggemann, calls for a “radical obedience to the will and purpose
of YHWH.”30 This call to love God hangs on God’s nature, particularly on God’s covenant love, or integrity, that is rooted in God’s essential nature. God’s nature is unified,
unfragmented, and whole.31 While the exact rendering of the credo in verse 6 cannot be
easily explained, the overall point is that there is no other God for them; there is only one
God to whom Israel should be loyal.32
Brueggemann observes that shema’s call to love YHWH “refers to a wholehearted, unreserved loyalty.” He notes that scholars agree that “love,” in covenantal contexts, refers to “adherence to commandments in obedience.”33 Yet obedience without the
30
Brueggemann, Old Testament Theology: An Introduction, 121. On the centrality of the shema to the book of Deuteronomy, see Patrick D. Miller, Deuteronomy, Interpretation (Louisville: John Knox, 1990), 98.
31
I do not intend by this to deny the Trinitarian nature of God but to reflect a conscious choice to focus on the unity of God for this project. See Gerhard von Rad, Deuteronomy: A Commentary, The Old Testament Library (Philadelphia: Westminister, 1966),
63, on translating the sentence.
32
Brueggeman, Old Testament Theology: An Introduction, 122. Walter Eichrodt,
Theology of the Old Testament,1:226, calls the statement of God’s oneness “a most valuable and vital element in the sum of human knowledge.” In 2:296, Eichrodt notes that the
command to love provides “an inner unity and at the same time that direct impact in pastoral exhortation and education which continually brings men back from all the various
forms of externalism to the most inward decision of conscience.”
33
Brueggemann, Old Testament Theology: An Introduction, 122. Barry L. Bandstra, Reading the Old Testament:Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, 4th ed. (Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth, 2009), 171, also notes, “the command to love YHWH is central to the book
of Deuteronomy,” which “is not a theological or philosophical treatise but an encouragement to Israel to remain in covenant relationship with the God [emphasis added] who
brought them out of Egypt and preserved them through the wilderness.” Furthermore, von
Rad, Old Testament Theology, 1:230, notes, “all the commandments are simply a grand
explanation of the command to love Jahweh and to cling to him alone (Deut 6:4f.). And
this love is Israel’s return of the divine love bestowed upon her.”
35
affective misses the mark.34 In this context, Brueggemann labels love a “dense term.” It
not only includes the more political dimension of accepting the sovereignty of YHWH
and being loyal to the covenant, it includes an affective response as well. At the center of
Israelite obligation to God is the desire to please YHWH and to be with him (as in Pss
27:4 and 73:25). This obligation also involves a level of joy as Israel lives out its genuine
“character and identity.”35 Thus “we may focus the obligation of Israel around a yearning
devotion for Yahweh; but with that focus we must recognize that the enactment of that
obligation takes many different forms, depending on time, place, circumstances, and perspective.”36
The shema, when placed in its larger context, begins with the premise that
Yahweh delivered the children of Israel from Egyptian captivity; that is, God loved Israel
first. The Torah calls for the people to respond with a love “undivided and total.”37 The
meaning of the shema is to be the lived-out reality of daily life in Israel. While this may
not actually have happened often in the story of Israel, shema points to the goal of being
loyal to God.
34
Brueggemann, Old Testament Theology: An Introduction, 122. He quotes
Jacqueline E. Lapsley, “Feeling Our Way: Love for God in Deuteronomy,” Catholic
Biblical Quarterly 65 (2003): 368, as saying, “Actions devoid of feeling and love, even
those that fulfill commandments, are morally suspect.”
35
Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy, 420. Likewise, Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, 261, comments,
“‘Love’ is the big word in Deuteronomy, the most characteristic word.”
36
Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy,
421. Bandstra, Reading the Old Testament, 171, notes that this command “would keep
the covenant always in front of each Israelite as a guide for everyday living.”
37
Paul D. Hanson, The People Called: The Growth of Community in the Bible
(Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 171.
36
Love the Lord, Your God
To review briefly, God’s oneness calls for a certain response from God’s people.
In this particular text, God’s oneness calls his people to love God wholly—that is, with
their hearts, souls, and strength. The following discussion sorts through the various meanings of these words and the bearing they might have on understanding what it means to
love God as Jesus did.
Love is an important word in Deuteronomy 6. In Hebrew, the word bha covers a
semantic range related to the affections, whether pure or impure, whether divine or human. This word can even refer to the appetites or desires of people for such things as
food, drink, and sex, though it is used this way less often than other usages. In Hebrew
parallelism, it means “yearning to be near someone physically” (as in 1 Sam 18:1) as well
as conveying the notion of being faithful to someone (as in Jer 31:3 and Hos 11:4). The
authors of the OT use this word to describe Yahweh’s relationship with his people (as
Deut 10:12; 11:13, 22; 19:9; 30:6; Josh 22:5; 23:11; and Jer 2:2).38 Because such love is a
“complete love which demands all of one’s energies,”39 to love God in this way means
“to love God completely, wholeheartedly, without any reservations.”40
Furthermore, the word bha possesses communal significance. The biblical writer
uses this word to describe the way Jonathan feels about David. Because Jonathan “love[s]
[David] as his own soul,” Jonathan makes a covenant with him (1 Sam 18:1-4). The love
of friendship between these two men forms the basis for a covenant between them. In this
38
BDB, s.v., “bha”; TDOT, 1.99-118.
39
TDOT, 1.104.
40
Robert G. Bratcher and Howard A. Hatton, A Handbook on Deuteronomy, UBS
Handbook Series (New York: United Bible Society, 2000), s.v., “6.1-9.”
37
context the concept implies not just affection but loyalty and trust.41 As Patrick D. Miller
stresses, the love envisioned in Deuteronomy is not primarily affective, but deeper, yet it
touches fear and reverence and results in obedience. In this way, the term comes to express notions of loyalty and service.42
It is no surprise then that the LXX, followed by the NT, translates this Hebrew
word with the Greek ajgapavw, which means “love (primarily of Christian love); show or
prove one’s love; long for, desire,” or “place first in one’s affections.”43 Love, in light of
this project, connects with what humans crave or desire. Concomitantly, the text calls for
the Israelites to love the Lord with all of their being: heart, soul, and strength. This love,
as Miller notes, calls absolutely and resolutely for “a total commitment.”44
With All Your Heart, Soul, and Strength
In keeping with the notion that the shema functions as prism, breaking a whole
love for God into constituent parts, some attention is required to explain what it means to
41
TDOT, 1.105. Gerhard von Rad, Deuteronomy, 63, writes, “So far as the demand to love God is concerned, we must bear in mind that the covenant-relationship established by Yahweh had always allowed for a variety of feelings, and not for one alone.”
Peter C. Craigie, The Book of Deuteronomy, The New International Commentary on the
Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), 169-70, observes, “The command to
love is central because the whole book [of Deuteronomy] is concerned with the renewing
of the covenant with God, and although the renewal demanded obedience, that obedience
would be possible only when it was a response of love to the God who had brought the
people out of Egypt and was leading them into the promised land.”
42
Miller, Deuteronomy, 102.
43
Barclay M. Newman, Jr., A Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament (New York: United Bible Societies, 1993), s.v., “ajgapavw.” Eugene H. Peterson,
Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 263, notes that the shema “provides the unifying focus (God only)
and integrating motive (love).” On the LXX’s use of ajgapavw rather than other possible
Greek words for love, see TDOT, 103, which discusses how carefully the word bha was
used in the Hebrew Scriptures.
44
Miller, Deuteronomy, 102.
38
love God with each human dimension: heart, soul, and might. The broad semantic range
of these words overlaps considerably, causing translators much frustration.45
In the Hebrew language, heart can denote the “inner man, mind, will,” or
“heart.”46 Likewise, in Greek, heart covers “the causative source of a person’s psychological life in its various aspects, but with special emphasis upon thoughts — ‘heart, inner
self, mind.’”47 Bowling concurs when he notes that “heart” can refer to “the three traditional personality functions” of humans: “emotion, thought, and will.”48 Sorg asserts,
“The meaning of heart as the inner life, the centre of the personality and as the place in
which God reveals himself to men is even more clearly expressed in the NT than in the
OT.”49 Thus in the NT the heart is often the “seat of intellectual and spiritual life.” The
biblical writers speak of the condition of the heart as reflecting a person’s “standing before God.” God addresses himself to the heart in a person.50
The next word isolating a human dimension is vpn. According to standard lexicons, the word refers to “soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, appetite, emotion,
45
Bratcher and Hatton, A Handbook on Deuteronomy, s.v., “6.1-9,” states, “For
the Hebrews the heart generally refers to the activities of the mind rather than to emotions. The soul refers to the emotions (see also 4.29). In some languages, however, the
functions of heart and soul will be . . . identical. Might refers to physical strength.”
46
BDB, s.v. “bbl.”
47
J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament:
Based on Semantic Domains, 2nd ed. (New York: United Bible Societies, 1988, 1989),
26.3. Hereinafter abbreviated L&N.
48
R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer, Jr. and Bruce K. Waltke, Theological
Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1980), s.v., “bbl.” Hereinafter
cited as TWOT.
49
Colin Brown, ed., New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, 4
vols. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975-1985), s.v., “kardiva.” Hereinafter abbreviated
NIDNTT.
50
Ibid.
39
and passion,”51 and its Greek counterpart yuchv can mean “the essence of life in terms of
thinking, willing, and feeling—‘inner self, mind, thoughts, feelings, heart, being.’”52 This
word describes what the first human became when God breathed into him the “breath of
life” (Gen 2:7) and points to the human’s essential self; it can be translated in the NT as
“self,” “life,” or “soul.”
The last Hebrew term, dam, can connote “muchness, force, abundance, exceedingly” and when not functioning as an idiom expressing magnitude or degree, can mean
“force” or “might.”53 Likewise, the Greek term duvnamiV, as used in the gospel tradition, means “the ability to perform a particular activity or to undergo some experience—
‘ability, capability.’”54 Its synonym i∆scuvß means “exceptional capability, with the
probable implication of personal potential—capability, strength.’”55 This term, while not
limited to physical strength alone, does touch upon what people do with their bodies.
In summary, the terms for heart, soul, and strength used in the OT shema, while
potentially overlapping in meaning, communicated to ancient Israel that God expected
them to return his love by giving of their mind/emotions, their life-energy, and their abilities. Jesus taught his followers to do the same.
51
BDB, s.v., “vpn.”
52
L&N, 26.4.
53
BDB, s.v., “dam.”
54
L&N, 74.1.
55
L&N, 74.8.
40
With All Your Mind
In their references to the shema, all three Synoptic Gospels depart from the original Hebrew by supplying an additional word referring specifically to the mind or thinking, though this may be the writers’ attempt to capture in Greek the full meaning of the
Hebrew word for “heart,” which can include both the thinking and the emotions (as noted
above). Louw and Nida understand dianoiva to relate to “the psychological faculty of
understanding, reasoning, thinking, and deciding—‘mind.’”56 This is true also for the
other word for “thinking” (suvnesiß in Mark 12:33). Again, Louw and Nida define this
word to signify “to be able to understand and evaluate—to be able to comprehend, to understand, to be intelligent; insight, intelligence.’”57 In this way, the gospel tradition
transmits an additional element specifically related to loving God with the intellect. Table
1 below shows all words used in both the OT and NT versions of the shema and suggests
the larger semantic domain that connects with each.
Table 1. Words in the Greatest Commandment
Hebrew
LXX
Mark
Matthew
Luke
Domain
bbl
kardiva
kardiva
kardiva
kardiva
affective
vpn
yuchv
yuchv
yuchv
yuchv
inner life
dianoiva
dianoiva
intellect
i∆scuvß
energy
dianoiva
suvnesiß58
dam
duvnamiV
i∆scuvß59
56
L&N, 26.14
57
L&N, 32.26.
58
In Mark 12:33, the lawyer repeats what Jesus had previously quoted in 12:30.
59
Not in the lawyer’s quotation in Mark 12:33.
41
With Your All
Louw and Nida rightly stress that it “is important to note that in a passage such as
Mark 12:30 the terms in the series . . . do not refer to completely different parts or aspects
of human personality; rather, the four are combined to emphasize the totality of the individual.”60 Thus the best way to translate this series in some languages would be “to love
him completely with all you feel and all you think.”61 However, Christensen disagrees
slightly, noting that the use of the Hebrew words for heart, soul, and strength “suggests
that a distinction of some sort is being made between the mental and emotional energy
and activity,” yet “our love for God is to embrace the whole of our mind, both conscious
and unconscious.” Thus Christensen continues, “Self-discipline is required, in that we are
to love God with all our might as well.”62
Lexical analysis makes it clear that these terms are not precise. They overlap significantly with each other. However, these terms approximate what people see as different parts of themselves, and students can readily relate to these categories pedagogically.
Thus “heart” indicates either the intellect or the emotions, “soul” speaks of a person’s
essential self, “mind” clearly denotes the intellect, and “strength” refers to what people
can do with their bodies.
Based on this reading of the shema in both the OT and the NT, one can discern
four “colors” radiating from the metaphorical prism: to love God fully means to love God
60
L&N, 74.8.
61
Ibid. Kaiser concurs in TWOT, s.v. “dam,” that these terms were “chosen to
reinforce the absolute singularity of personal devotion to God.”
62
Duane L. Christensen, Deuteronomy 1:1-21:9, 2nd ed., Word Biblical Commentary, 6A (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001), 143.
42
with heart, soul, mind, and body (or strength). Jesus loved God in precisely this way, and
he calls his followers to so love God as well. It is possible, if not dogmatically pressed, to
see these four areas as domains, or spheres, through which humans can express and experience spiritual formation. These domains include the affective (how people feel), the inner life (who people are), the intellect (what and how people think), and the energetic
(what people do).63 As noted in chapter 1, these domains can find expressions in the various quadrants of Holmes’s model. Ultimately any holistic spiritual formation model
would have to involve each of these areas.64
The Practice of Christian Spiritual Formation
We have examined the theological foundation for Christian spiritual formation
centered in the cross of Jesus. But what practical implications and applications arise from
reflecting on Jesus’ teaching on the greatest command?
The Shema as a Way of Christian Spiritual Formation
For a curriculum of Christian spiritual formation to be truly holistic, involving the
whole person, it must seek to engage heart, soul, mind, and body. Additionally, a holistic
spiritual formation moves people into the areas of theological renewal, personal renewal,
a deepening of the inner life, and societal regeneration. Not only is this truth consistent
with God’s expectation of his ancient people Israel; Jesus lives his life on its basis and in
63
For a similar approach to holistic Christian spiritual formation, see Willard,
Renovation of the Heart, esp. 27-44. Willard also sees human beings as consisting of six
basic aspects: thoughts, feelings, choice, body, social context, and soul (30).
64
Boa, Conformed to His Image, 31, stresses, “Loving God completely involves
our whole personality—our intellect, emotion, and will.”
43
his teaching stresses loving God with heart, soul, mind, and body. The following four
axioms capture this.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Christian spiritual formation shapes the heart.
Christian spiritual formation shapes the soul.
Christian spiritual formation shapes the mind.
Christian spiritual formation shapes the body.
Each of these statements deserves further elaboration.65
Christian Spiritual Formation Shapes the Heart
People are inherently emotional. While emotions can be false guides at times,
some of the most significant decisions people make originate from this arena of human
personality. Daniel Goldman contends that emotional intelligence may be a more significant factor in success than IQ.66 From a theological point of view, the Bible—particularly
the OT—presents God as an emotional being. For example, the oft-repeated credo concerning God’s nature asserts that he is gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, abounding
in love and one who changes his mind regarding the sending of calamity (Exod 34:6; Neh
9:17; Pss 86:15; 103:8; Joel 2:13; and Jonah 4:2). Since these characteristics are emotional in nature, it follows naturally that his creatures would also be emotional. Therefore,
loving God with our emotions involves human desires and affections—the directing of
the human heart toward filling that desire. Thus a spiritual formation claiming holism
65
Although I formulated these axioms from the preceding investigation into the
biblical theology, they do follow a similar model to that of Dallas Willard in Renovation
of the Heart where he sees “heart” as the comprehensive category. Thus in his work
chapters 6-11 deal with transforming a person’s thought life, feelings, will (heart or
spirit), body, social dimension, and soul.
66
Daniel Goldman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ
(New York: Bantam, 1995).
44
would need to touch and engage human emotions as it leads them into arenas of personal
renewal.
Christian Spiritual Formation Shapes the Soul
Christian theology gives testimony that humans are “soulish” beings, who, by virtue of that fact, have an inner or interior life (as in Mark 7:14-23). Jesus taught that defilement for a person comes from his or her interior life. This lines up well with Paul’s
dichotomy between the “inner man” and the “outer man” and his insistence that what
takes place in the inner person holds far more significance than what takes place on the
outside (for example, Eph 4-5; Col 3). In a rather incidental note at the end of a letter,
Paul prays God’s blessing on his readers’ “whole spirit, soul and body” (1 Thess 5:23).
While scholars are hard pressed to distinguish with any precision the difference between
“spirit” and “soul,” none can deny that human composition includes both the physical
(body) and the more ephemeral, whether called “spirit” or “soul.” The author of Hebrews
speaks of how the word of God can cut even to the dividing of “soul and spirit, joints and
marrow” (Heb 4:12), again showing that humans consist of both body and soul. Christian
spiritual formation, accordingly, seeks to deepen the “inner life” of believers.
Christian Spiritual Formation Shapes the Mind
Mark Noll says astutely that the challenge of the Evangelical mind is that there is
not much of one.67 In his book, Noll points to developing the life of the mind as a worthy
enterprise for those who name Jesus as Lord. Scholars of the Restoration Movement have
noted the existence of anti-intellectual tendencies within the movement; still, loving God
67
1994), 3.
Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
45
with one’s mind comprises an important element of Christian spiritual formation. When
Christians move toward pietistic extremes, they can easily dismiss the role of intellectual
development; even in centers of Christian education, this viewpoint seems to gain currency. Yet Jesus, by his study of Scripture and debates with religious leaders, showed that
the dedication of one’s mind to God could yield favorable fruit. Thus there is room for
richer theological knowledge in the Christian spiritual formation.
Christian Spiritual Formation Shapes the Body
I have often noted that when Christians speak of being holy, which is an inner life
issue, what humans do with their bodies lags not far behind in the discussion.68 What
people do with their bodies indicates to some degree what is going on inside of them. Accordingly, an attempt at spiritual formation that ignores the role of the body in spiritual
life is inadequate, for the body provides the means of influencing the outside world.
When people live out their spiritual formation, it involves the body since bodily actions
serve as good indicators of internal realities. Consequently, through the giving of their
bodies, humans transform their circles of influence. Any hope of societal regeneration
will come about because those dedicated to God have given their bodies in significant
ways, whether in time or effort.
In summary, holistic spiritual formation must involve the whole of what it means
to be human. By giving heart, soul, mind, and body, people participate in the mission of
68
This topic is explored in Samuel M. Powell and Michael E. Lodahl, eds., Embodied Holiness: Toward a Corporate Theology of Growth (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999). These essays explore the place of holiness in both the life of the individual and the life of the Christian community. See also Ignacio L. Götz, “Spirituality
and the Body,” Religious Education 96.1 (Winter 2001): 2-19, who seeks to dispel the
spirit/body dichotomy.
46
God. Participation in Christian spiritual formation urges believers into areas of personal
renewal, inner life growth, theological knowledge, and societal regeneration.69
Survey of Literature
This section engages the scholarly and devotional literature relevant to framing,
understanding, and implementing a course proposal in Christian spiritual formation. I
have included works of history, theology, practices, and pedagogy. These works have influenced and shaped my understanding of Christian spiritual formation, thus this project,
but these works are also important resources for understanding, teaching, and practicing
Christian spiritual formation.
For understanding the history of Christian spirituality and spiritual formation, one
should consult Urban T. Holmes’ A History of Christian Spirituality, Robert Webber’s
The Divine Embrace, as well as Mursell’s work mentioned previously.70 Mursell’s book
is a comprehensive survey of the history of Christian spirituality. More focused than
Mursell, Holmes begins with a phenomenology of prayer, important to the model introduced in chapter 1, then places the development of Christian spirituality in historic periods: early church, medieval, and modern, with a brief foray into Eastern, or Byzantine,
spirituality (89-92). Webber, also following a chronological arrangement, includes postmodern developments after the modern period, with a focus on the historic separation of
69
Willard, Renovation of the Heart, 31, agrees when he writes, “Spiritual formation in Christ is the process leading to that ideal end, and its result is love of God with all
of the heart, soul, mind, and strength, and of the neighbor as oneself. The human self is
then fully integrated under God.”
70
Robert E. Webber, The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual
Life; Urban T. Holmes, III, A History of Christian Spirituality: An Analytical Introduction; and Mursell, The Story of Christian Spirituality.
47
spirituality from theology. Then Alister McGrath’s introduction to Christian Spirituality
offers a much more analytical history of the development of Christian spirituality but follows a topical, rather than strictly chronological, arrangement.71 These books are important in locating oneself in history, for in so doing, the teacher of Christian spiritual formation will know what resources are available from the whole Christian tradition. By exploring other traditions of spiritual formation, one finds other resources for teaching. For
example, the Orthodox understanding of theosis provides a rich venue for exploring what
it means to become like God. Furthermore, locating one’s students in history can aid professors in knowing where their students are and assessing where they need to learn and
grow.
Additionally, Mark A. McIntosh’s Mystical Theology helps the scholar and practitioner reconnect spiritual theology with academic study. McIntosh argues that Christians
need not separate the mind and the heart and, in addition, attempts to show that classic
spiritual texts can serves as sources for theology.72 As a practical theologian in the context of a Bible college, I seek to function as if there were no tension between theology
and spirituality, but I am deeply conscious that this is not the case in North American culture and in the history of Western Christianity. Macintosh and Webber were especially
helpful in helping me see how serious the rift is. To realize that what I am doing in this
project can participate in the healing of that rift is humbling.
71
Alister E. McGrath, Christian Spirituality: An Introduction (Malden, MA:
Blackwell, 1999).
72
Mark A. McIntosh, Mystical Theology: The Integrity of Spirituality and Theology, Challenges in Contemporary Theology Series (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1998).
48
Evan B. Howard furnishes an all-inclusive reference work on Christian spirituality with his new introduction to the field. Howard draws from a variety of resources, historical and theological, as well as the human sciences, particularly the social sciences. He
also seeks to place Christian spirituality into a “single coherent framework” to bring a
synthesis to this vast field of study.73 Additionally, Kenneth J. Collins has collected a
number of impressive essays on Christian spirituality in Exploring Christian Spirituality:
An Ecumenical Reader.74 Part 4 of Collins’s collection contains essays that discuss specifically the relationship between spirituality and theology. These works contributed to
this project and the eventual outcome of this project a framework for understanding the
historical development of Christian spiritual formation and for locating oneself in that
history. Again, this background is also important for providing the resources and informing practices that have developed in the Christian tradition.
Important texts on the nature of Christian spiritual formation include Dallas
Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy and his more recent Renovation of the Heart.75 This
first work explores the philosophical issues related to the difficulty of practicing spiritual
formation in the modern and postmodern world. Getting a sense of these philosophical
issues can educate the teacher of Christian spiritual formation both of the challenges and
the opportunities of conveying these practices to the current generation of students. The
second book is devotional in nature yet provides a good model for teaching Christian
spiritual formation. For the course under development in this project, Kenneth Boa’s
73
Evan B. Howard, The Brazos Introduction to Christian Spirituality (Grand
Rapids: Brazos Press, 2008), 10-11.
74
75
(Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000).
Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God
and Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ.
49
Conformed to His Image: Biblical and Practical Approaches to Spiritual Formation76
received strong consideration. This work breaks Christian spiritual formation into twelve
facets: relational, paradigm, disciplined, exchange life, motivated, devotional, holistic,
process, Spirit-filled, warfare, nurturing, and corporate. He understands these categories
as compatible with Holmes’s model, discussed in chapter 1 of this thesis.77 While I find
some of these categories somewhat artificial, his approach is beneficial from a pedagogical point of view. This well-laid-out textbook offers clear objectives for the book and
each chapter, making the complexity of Christian spiritual formation palatable for college-age students.
Likewise, Eugene Peterson’s recent four-volume series offers excellent introductions to spiritual theology and the practice thereof. His Christ Plays in Ten Thousand
Places introduces his project by establishing the link—broken in modern theology—
between theology and spirituality. In this work, he proposes that Christ “plays” in creation, history, and community, thus giving the reader a theological framework for doing
spiritual theology. His second volume explores lectio divina, or the art of spiritual reading, while his third and fourth volumes conduct “conversations” on how to follow Jesus
as the way.78 In the third volume, he explores alternative ways to the way of Jesus while
the fourth book explores the evocative language of Jesus as found in his prayers and stories. Peterson is a suitable mentor for those who seek to practice spiritual disciplines as
76
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001).
77
Boa, Conformed to his Image, 21 and 467-70.
78
Eugene H. Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in
Spiritual Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005); Eat This Book: A Conversation in
the Art of Spiritual Reading (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006); The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way; and Tell it Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008).
50
well as those who seek to teach them. His third and fourth volumes are particularly useful
for the teacher looking for exemplars of how to move from the biblical text to teaching
Christian spiritual formation.
Dallas Willard and Eugene Peterson continually teach me how to transmit spiritual formation to students. What I learned most from them was not only how to do spiritual theology but how to teach students in a way they can comprehend and engage. Peterson demonstrates how to teach the profound with ease.
Karen M. Yust and E. Byron Anderson, Taught by God: Teaching and Spiritual
Formation and Parker J. Palmer, To Know as We are Known: Education as a Spiritual
Journey79 are among those writing on the relationship between spirituality and teaching,
These works guide the teacher/practitioner through the process of being shaped and in
shaping others. Palmer’s little volume reminded me that being an educator is itself a
spiritual journey. His book provided needed spiritual and theological reflection for me as
a teacher and caused me to pause to meditate on what God was doing in my life as an
educator.
Another significant work concerning the relationship between Christian spiritual
formation and the classroom was the Carnegie Foundation’s volume Educating Clergy,
found in their Preparation for the Professions series.80 This series is concerned with how
79
Karen M. Yust and E. Byron Anderson, Taught by God: Teaching and Spiritual
Formation (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2006) and Parker J. Palmer, To Know as We are
Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey (NEW YORK: HarperCollins, 1993).
80
Charles R. Foster, Lisa E. Dahill, et al., Educating Clergy: Teaching Practices
and Pastoral Imagination. See also the thoughtful essay on ministerial education by John
P. Wagenhofer, “Spiritual Leadership: A Matrix for Ministerial Education,” in Robert J.
Wicks, Handbook of Spirituality for Ministers, vol. 1 (New York: Paulist Press, 1994),
531-44. I would also add as useful for my particular context, James L. Drexler, ed. School
as Communities: Educational Leadership, Relationships and the Eternal Value of
51
various professions train those who practice those professions. The particular volume
Educating Clergy is concerned with the teaching practices of those who train clergy, but
the concern is not just content of that education but how ministerial education forms certain kinds of people who have cultivated “a pastoral, priestly, or rabbinic imagination for
clergy work.”81 In investigating how this cultivation is accomplished, the book examines
four classroom pedagogies for forming such an imagination: pedagogies of interpretation,
pedagogies of formation, pedagogies of contextualization, and pedagogies of performance. The second of these—pedagogies of formation—is most important to this project.
The authors captured my attention when they stated, “At the center of this pedagogy is
the idea of formation: the recognition that teaching and learning are about much more
than transferring facts or even cognitive tools. Learning in the formative sense is a process by which students become a certain kind of thinking, feeling, and acting being.”82
This is exactly the outcome in the lives of students I sought in creating a new course in
Christian spiritual formation.
As the preceding literature review shows, the teaching of Christian spiritual formation is a complex exercise. It requires simultaneous cross-disciplinary conversations
with history, theology, both theoretical and practical, and educational theory and pedagogy.
Christian Schooling (Colorado Springs: Purposeful Design, 2007), and Stephen T. Beers,
ed., The Soul of the Christian University: A Field Guide for Educators (Abilene, TX:
ACU Press, 2008).
81
82
Ibid., 19.
Foster, Dahill, et al., Educating Clergy: Teaching Practices and Pastoral
Imagination, 10.
52
Conclusion
As this chapter presents the theological and practical framework for this project,
the theological section articulates a biblical theology to support the concept of being fully
devoted to God and explores what it means to seek and to love God with one’s full humanity. God demonstrates this kind of love in the cross, the venue through which he reveals both his love for humanity and the possibility of human love returned to him. In
addition, I offer practical principles, rooted in loving God with heart, soul, mind, and
strength, as a paradigm for the process of Christian spiritual formation. These principles
and the supporting scholarly and devotional literature guided the selection and shaping of
each session planned for this project, as delineated in chapter 3’s consideration of methodology.
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
The aim of this project was to form a team to support me in the development of a
new course proposal in Christian spiritual formation for Western Christian College’s Encounter program. In this chapter, I describe the format of the project, the team sessions,
the field methodology used, the selection of the team, and the qualitative methods used to
evaluate the project.
Format of the Project
The team was not formed to develop the course but to serve as a resource and to
function as a sounding board for me. The group experience alternated between an
activity/teaching session and a corresponding reflection session. In all, the group
experienced three activity sessions while also reading a book as the fourth activity
session. Corresponding to each of these were four reflection sessions that took place after
each activity session, with the exception of the last session, which responded to the book.
The action sessions presented an opportunity to explore the four areas of Christian
spirituality as proposed by the Holmes and Sager model and presented by Boa (as
outlined in chapter 1).1 The purpose of each reflection session was to provide a forum for
the group to explore the meaning of the previous activity session. The data that resulted
1
Holmes, A History of Christian Spirituality; Sager, Gospel-Centered Spirituality; and Boa, Conformed to His Image.
53
54
from these reflection sessions provided new information, and if appropriate, I
incorporated it into the final course proposal.
In preparation for these sessions, I addressed several items of prolegomena. First,
since WCC is a small school, many of the school processes are informal, and no formal
policy exists regarding how to propose new courses. Therefore, I adapted the course application policy used by WCC’s sister institution, Abilene Christian University (see appendix A).2 Second, I planned the logistics of the meetings, including inviting guests, arranging locations, setting up the stenographer’s computer and peripheral equipment, and
aligning schedules of the participants. Invitations were sent to potential participants on
August 19, 2008 (see appendix B). Everyone invited accepted. At the first meeting I described the project, stated the ground rules for the meetings, and asked them to sign a
human subject waiver as required by Abilene Christian University, which they did (see
appendix C).
All of the meetings, except one, occurred in WCC’s primary college classroom,
known as the Peterson Room. The classroom arrangement features tables in a horseshoeshape, allowing students to sit around the outside of the tables and the instructor to work
from the middle of the classroom. This arrangement accommodated the guest speakers
who joined us. Afterward, the group members arranged their chairs to accommodate a
small group discussion concerning their experiences in the previous action session. The
second reflection meeting took place at a hospitality room of a local church. In this environment, the group sat in a circle in comfortable chairs and sofas.
2
ACU’s new course applications packets may be downloaded via the Internet
from http://www.acu.edu/academics/admscenter/instruct_dev.html.
55
I invited several people to participate in this project. From the faculty and staff, I
invited my administrative assistant, who doubles as the college’s registrar, to join. She
recently accepted her current job at WCC, but is a graduate of the school and has collectively over four years of missions experience in Brazil and, more recently, India. Because
of the role she occupies, her input and participation were important for any initiative I
hoped to develop at WCC. Another selected staff member, a mid-forties Bible and ministry professor at WCC, is in his second year of teaching after some twenty years of pastoral ministry and holds the M.Div. degree from Canadian Theological Seminary. He has
begun work toward his M.Th. degree at the Wycliffe College at Toronto’s School of
Theology and has a strong interest in the spiritual formation of students. I also invited a
local minister serving a Church of Christ in Regina. He too holds the M.Div. degree from
Canadian Theological Seminary. Though still in his late twenties, he shows a depth in
spiritual matters not often seen in one his age. He is an engaging preacher, whose topics
frequently touch on matters of spiritual formation. In addition, he possesses a deep desire
to see young people grow in the Lord.
From the student body, I invited an attentive fourth-year ministry student who
cares more about spiritual development than knowledge acquisition. Having grown up in
the Mennonite tradition, he brought a different perspective to nearly every discussion we
had. Next, I invited a second-year student from Arkansas who has family roots in Canada. He is enthusiastic but scattered in his interests and activities. Finally, I asked a firstyear student from British Columbia who has a great desire to become more like Jesus.3
3
An interesting feature of Canadian educational nomenclature is the preference to
refer to each level of high school and college by years, such as “a grade nine student,” or
56
Still in her mid-twenties, she has suspended her career in early childhood development to
dedicate a year of her life to the concentrated study of Bible and ministry.
Twyla Grieves, Certified Shorthand Reporter (CSR), Official Queen’s Bench
Court Reporter, recorded and transcribed each of the reflection sessions. She holds an
official certificate as a court reporter. (See her certification stamp and examples of the
transcriptions in appendix D).
Description of the Praxis and Reflection Sessions
In my quest for a holistic Christian spiritual formation course, I chose to use the
model developed by Holmes and Sager and presented in Boa, in conversation with the
theological principles enunciated in chapter 2. As noted in that chapter, these scholars see
Christian spiritual formation as needing to address four quadrants: societal regeneration,
theological renewal, the inner life, and personal renewal. Chapter 2 aligned these categories with heart, soul, mind, and strength from the biblical tradition.
Praxis-Reflection Cycles
Each of the following reflection sessions gave the group time to ponder and discuss the nature of Christian spiritual formation based on the previous experience.4 To
give some structure to the group’s reflection, the following discussion questions (in appendix E) guided the conversation following each activity:
“a fourth-year college student” rather than freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior. In
Canada, seniors refer to the elderly.
4
This is similar to what Jackson W. Carroll suggests as the way of ministry in
Ministry as Reflective Practice: A New Look at the Professional Model (Washington,
DC: Alban Institute, 1986). A more complex model of this cycle by Gailyn Van Rheenan
can be found in his material in Paul E. Engle and Gary L. McIntosh, eds., Evaluating the
Church Growth Movement: Five Views (Grand Rapid: Zondervan, 2004), 167-89, though
Van Rheenan begins with theological reflection and assumes praxis.
57
1. What was familiar (or something you assume should be a part of the Christian
life) in this experience?
2. What was unfamiliar or made you uncomfortable about this experience?
3. Where did you sense the presence of God in this experience?
4. What Scriptures came to mind as you engaged in this activity?
5. What other spiritual practices should accompany activities such as this one?
6. Would you recommend this experience for students in a class on spiritual
formation?
7. Does this activity connect with heart, soul, mind or body (strength)?5
I did not intend these questions to stifle conversation but to keep the conversation moving
should the group stall. This never happened, and several times the group wanted to continue the conversation after the “official” time was over. In some cases, I modified questions on the spot to connect more readily with their prior experience. Given the nature of
qualitative analysis executed in this project, this alteration should have no appreciable
adverse effects on the results. (See questions in appendix E.)
Since the activity sessions form part of the methodology used to set up the reflection sessions, they are described in this chapter. However, the reflection sessions, which
are themselves results, yielded the primary data for the project and will be described in
the next chapter.
Activity Session 1: The Inner Life
This first praxis-reflection session occurred on 9 October 2008 and explored the
apophatic pole of the Holmes-Sager model (dealing with the mystery of God)—without
using the word apophatic. I invited a local Orthodox Church priest to discuss the Orthodox notion of union with God, or theosis. Before this meeting, I sent participants a link to
5
Judith Bell, Doing Your Own Research Project: A Guide for First Time Researchers in Education, Health, Social Science, 4th ed. (Buckingham: Open University
Press, 2005), 118-33, would label most of these questions as “open questions,” while the
last question seeks to find a “category.” See also Vyhmeister, Quality Research Papers,
157-61.
58
a web article on theosis to prepare them with a sense of what the term means.6 I had
never met the priest before this meeting and had originally wanted the group to meet at
his church so they could experience the rich art typical of the Orthodox tradition. However, since work crews were remodeling his cathedral, he insisted he would like to come
to the college (he had never been there) and assured me the video he was bringing would
be a better introduction into Orthodox spirituality than the current state of his church
building.
Although the young priest was of Romanian origin and spoke with an accent, his
English was quite understandable. Though excited and a bit nervous about the opportunity to share, he clearly enjoyed teaching about his faith. He gave the group a thorough
but quick historical survey of the development of the Orthodox Church from Pentecost
through the Great Schism to modern times. He spoke of the Orthodox Church’s migration
to North America through Siberian fur trading immigrants and how this was just the beginning of what became the current “ethnic” divide characteristic among the various
branches of the Orthodox Church in North America. Then he showed the group a video
called “A Tour of an Orthodox Church,” which introduced the layout of an Orthodox
Church, icons, the nature of Orthodox faith and worship, and the role of tradition. A
priest in the film commented that Orthodox tradition engaged “the whole person” in the
church’s worship.
In the last twenty minutes of the hour, the priest gave a passionate biblical
discourse on theosis. He traced the Greek root of “God” to a verb denoting “fire” or,
“energy,” and explained theosis as the union between humans and the divine fire, or
6
“Theosis,” http://orthodoxwiki.org/Theosis (accessed October 2, 2008). This article was chosen because participants had ready access to it via the Internet.
59
energy.7 Next, he distinguished between “likeness” and “image” before discussing theosis
from the vantage of the Gospel of John, centering on John 1:1-14, 15:4-5, and 17:20-21.
He stressed the Johannine “abiding” language and how the believers’ unity with God
creates cooperation and synergy with God. Other texts important to his argument
included Gal 2:20, 2 Pet 1:4, and Rom 12:1-2. The priest ended with an emphasis on how
salvation in biblical terms involves the redemption of the whole world as discussed by
Paul (for example, Rom 8).
Activity Session 2: Societal Regeneration
On 16 October 2008, the team joined an urban youth minister, a graduate of
WCC, in his “Cross Rox” ministry with a local Church of Christ. The mid-twenties minister sports prominent earrings and tattoos. He helped to found a successful alternative
Christian musical group, but left the group because of his responsibility to his new family. In every way, he fits the part of an urban youth minister.
I invited the team to meet at the church’s facility to “hang out” with some urban
teens and to observe the ministry.8 The team joined young people in their scheduled activities for the evening. As various members of the team arrived, they fought their disorientation to find where they might be helpful. Some of the children were shooting baskets,
some talking with one another, and others running through the building chasing one another. Eventually the youth minister corralled the young people into the youth room for
the evening’s activity. Once he quieted his group, he reiterated the standards for the
7
NIDNTT, s.v., “qeovV,” states, “The etymology of the Greek word has not yet
been clarified; the only thing that is certain is that it was originally a title.”
8
One member was not able to attend this session. Everyone attended all the sessions except this one.
60
young people’s behavior and then moved the group into the game of the evening, an improvisation game inspired by Drew Cary’s “Whose Line Is It?” The team observed the
interaction between the youth minister and the young people as well as the young people
amongst themselves.
Activity Session 3: Personal Renewal
The third session occurred on 6 November 2008. Its purpose was to explore the
role that emotions and feelings play in the process of spiritual formation. I invited a Pentecostal pastor who preaches for a local church. A stocky man with an incessant smile, he
exudes energy, passion, and conviction. I had invited him to discuss the role of the Holy
Spirit in Christian spiritual transformation; however, he focused his presentation on the
role of the Holy Spirit in conversion rather than the long-term work of the Holy Spirit in
sanctification. Nonetheless, this substitution did lead to some important insights on the
part of the group related to how Churches of Christ tend also to focus on initial conversion and seem to lack much to say about the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.
According to the pastor, the Bible outlines three experiences of the Holy Spirit.
First, the Holy Spirit is active in leading a person to conversion in Christ (citing 1 Cor
12:13). Second, the Holy Spirit empowers people, particularly in the act of speaking in
tongues (glossolalia); and, third, the Holy Spirit works in the lives of believers to make
them holy. He primarily discussed the Holy Spirit’s role in empowering believers with
the gift of tongues. He understands glossolalia as the sine qua non evidence of full salvation. In his presentation, the pastor followed the general teaching of the Pentecostal tradition. However, he did make a few points the group had not heard before. For example, he
talked of the experience of being baptized into the Holy Spirit as a “saturation by the
61
Holy Spirit,” that the Holy Spirit would “take control” and that one so blessed would be
“soaked in the environment” of the Holy Spirit. Additionally, the pastor tied the warning
about the use of the tongue (in James 3:1-12) to glossolalia by suggesting the experience
of speaking in tongues involves giving control of the tongue to God.
In the remainder of his presentation, the pastor offered proof-texts from Luke,
Acts and the Gospel of John for his understanding of the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and
he closed with a presentation distinguishing the various Pentecostal movements of the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He wanted us to understand that he stood in the tradition of classic Pentecostalism.
Activity Session 4: Theological Renewal
This final conversation occurred on 12 November 2008. At the beginning of the
project, each member of the team began reading the new novel The Shack.9 The author
offers a non-traditional vision of the nature of God as a response to the problem of theodicy.
Young tells the story of Mackenzie Allen Phillips whose youngest child, Missy,
goes missing during a family vacation. Though not conclusive, the evidence suggests that
someone has brutally murdered Missy in an abandoned shack in the Oregon wilderness.
Four years later Mack, still deeply depressed because of the “Great Sadness,” makes his
way down the icy driveway to his rural mailbox. There he finds a note claiming to be
from God and inviting him to revisit the shack.
9
William P Young, The Shack (Newbury Park, CA: Wind Blown Media, 2008).
For a review of the book, see http://www.challies.com/media/The_Shack.pdf (accessed
December 7, 2008).
62
After Mack arrives at the shack, he enters a world of theophanic visions. God appears to him as a portly African-American woman who goes by the name Papa. Jesus appears more appropriately as a Middle Eastern laborer, while the Holy Spirit, named
Sarayu, incarnates as a small Asian woman who moves with ephemeral lightness. Over
the rest of the weekend (and the book), Mack converses with the Trinity about the nature
of God, the place of suffering in the world, and the necessity of his own suffering.
While engaging, entertaining and somewhat intriguing, the book has some serious
theological failings, which most evangelical readers will not catch—as indicated by the
wide reception the book has already received. In my opinion, the book does not adequately account for the role of evil in the world. However, for the purposes of this project
my interest lay in hearing how the group would process the role of “truth” in Christian
spiritual formation.
Methods of Evaluation
Nature of Qualitative Research
This project used a particular type of qualitative research.10 Corbin and Strauss
define qualitative analysis as a “process of examining and interpreting data in order to
elicit meaning, gain understanding, and develop empirical knowledge.”11 Researchers,
according to Flick, use qualitative methods when they need “to design methods so open
10
Thomas W. Lee, Using Qualitative Methods in Organizational Research
(Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1999), 42. Another useful tool is Norman K. Denzin and
Yvonna S. Lincoln, eds., Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd ed. (Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage, 2000).
11
Juliet Corbin and Anselm Strauss, Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques
and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory, 3rd ed. (Los Angeles: Sage, 2008), 1.
63
that they do justice to the complexity of the object under study.” Thus the primary
features of qualitative research are the appropriateness of the methods and theories, the
perspectives of the participants and their diversity, the reflexivity of the researcher and
the research, and the variety of approaches and methods in qualitative research.12 “[T]he
object under study is the determining factor for choosing a method and not the other way
round.” Flick continues, “ [T]he validity of the study is assessed with reference to the
object under study and does not exclusively follow abstract academic criteria of science
as in quantitative research.”13 This project utilized a particular type of qualitative method
known as program evaluation. Program evaluation “is the systematic collection of
information about the activities, characteristics, and outcomes of programs to make
judgments about the program, improve program effectiveness, and/or inform decisions
about future programming.”14 A primary tool for validating the results of this project
involves the triangulation of several perspectives and observers.
Role of Triangulation
The use of triangulation ensured and controlled the validity of this project.15 Michael Patton describes four forms of triangulation used in qualitative research: methods,
12
Uwe Flick, An Introduction to Qualitative Research (London: Sage, 1998), 5.
13
Ibid.
14
Michael Quinn Patton, Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods, 3rd ed.
(Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2002), 10.
15
See Norman Denzin, The Research Act: A Theoretical Introduction to Sociological Methods, 3rd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1989), 307: “By combining multiple observers, theories, methods, and data sources, researchers can hope to overcome the intrinsic bias that comes from single-methods, single-observer, and singletheory studies.”
64
sources, the use of an analyst, and the theory or perspective employed.16 In this project,
the three poles of triangulation included the “participant-as-observer”17 (me), the data set
gleaned from the group process of the team, and outside experts.18
Because I led the group in this project, I came to it as an “expert.” I bring some
twenty years of pastoral experience in addition to five years of teaching and educational
administrative experience, as well as previous academic education and training. Ultimately, I was responsible to determine what went into the course proposal created from
this project. Thus as “participant-as-observer,” I brought both my gifts and biases to this
enterprise. However, in this role, because of the nature of the project, I also served as a
spiritual guide for participant members. This reality became clear in the transcripts of
each reflection session.
Because of the team’s respect for me and the likelihood that they would want to
please and help me, I coached the team on avoiding the Hawthorne effect—the temptation of groups to tell their leader what they believe the leader wants to hear.19 In the initial session, I attempted to create space where people could speak freely and openly, even
if such conversation involved criticism of this project or me.
16
Patton, Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods, 556.
17
See Chava Frankfort-Nachmias and David Nachmias, Research Methods in the
Social Sciences, 5th ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 282-85, on my role as
“participant-as-observer.” These authors note: “With this method, the field worker gains
a deeper appreciation of the group and its way of life and may also gain different levels
of insight by actually participating rather than only observing” (285).
18
See Patton, Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods, 321, on the role of
“key informants” in qualitative research.
19
See Elton Mayo, Hawthorne and the Western Electric Company: The Social
Problems of an Industrial Civilisation (London: Routledge, 1949); Berkeley Rice, “The
Hawthorne defect: Persistence of a flawed theory,” http://www.cs.unc.edu/~stotts
/204/nohawth.html (accessed June 5, 2008).
65
Lastly, I employed two independent experts. Calum Mcfarlane, PhD., an
experienced professor of Christian spiritual formation at Briercrest Seminary in
Caronport, Saskatchewan, evaluated the course proposal for its “holism” as a course in
spiritual formation. I also invited Murray Sanders, M.Ed., retired superintendent of the
Prairie Valley School System in Saskatchewan to review the syllabus from a pedagogical
point of view.
Data Collection
In each of the four reflection sessions, a court stenographer captured verbatim
notes of the conversation. These field notes crystallized the data set for this project.
Field Notes Protocol
Field note protocol followed this procedure:20 Grieves, the stenographer, took the
field notes as a verbatim transcript from each of the reflection sessions.21 As soon as
Grieves returned the “dirty notes” (unedited by her), I reviewed the notes and wrote a
summary of the meeting (which became the basis for the narrative descriptions in the
next chapter). I forwarded the summary to each member of the group by email for
20
According to Patton, Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods, 302-04,
field notes can come in many forms; however, they “should contain descriptions of what
has been observed,” i.e., “they should contain everything that the observer believes to be
worth noting.” Therefore, field notes should be descriptive; they should contain what
people say and the “observer’s own feelings, reactions to the experience and reflections
about the personal meaning and significance of what has been observed. Lastly, field
notes should “include your insights, interpretations, beginning analyses, and working hypotheses about what is happening in the setting and what it means.” However, my methodology departed from this since I was seeking a particular kind of data.
21
See Michael Quinn Patton, How to Use Qualitative Methods in Research, 2nd
ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1988), 70-107, and Bell, Doing Your Own Research Project, 184-98.
66
correction, modification or clarification.22 The final form of the field notes summary,
once amended, became the basis for the ethnographic narrative description in the next
chapter of this thesis.23
I coded the transcriptions of the group sessions based on theme words, such as
body, soul, heart, and mind. However, here I found a surprise, which I relate in the next
chapter. I also looked for themes that surfaced repeatedly in the transcription. I looked for
clues to the group’s perception of what would constitute a holistic course in spiritual formation. Berg notes that this process is not an “exact science.”24 Ethnographic research,
according to Berg, uses two main tools: inductive content analysis and ethnographic narrative accounts. I employed both tools in this project, and the process of analysis followed this pattern: My first reading of the transcript yielded the ethnographic narrative
account. My subsequent readings of the data used open and selective coding to isolate the
main themes that surfaced in the reflection sessions.
Once the themes were isolated, I probed the data for indications as to what the
group accorded primary importance regarding spiritual formation. At the same time, I
opened my mind to other insights that might arise from the data. I looked for patterns,
22
Carol A. Bailey, A Guide to Field Research, 115-16, speaks of sharing the final
analysis of the data with the members of the project to “see if it rings true with them.”
23
Bruce L. Berg, Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences, 147-48;
see also John W. Creswell, Research Design: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches,
148-49, for data collection procedures to be followed in this project. Original transcriptions will remain anonymous and will be kept on file until the project is completed.
24
Berg, Qualitative Research Methods, 151-53.
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themes and any indication of silences25—that is, observations I expected to surface in the
group that did not.
Team Questionnaire
In addition to the questions for each reflection session, I presented the team with a
concluding questionnaire intended to gather final observations, reflections and suggestions.26 (See appendix E for the questionnaire.)
Conclusion
The purpose of this project was to form a team to inform the development of a
new course proposal in Christian spiritual formation. This chapter has described the format of this project, the nature of the team sessions, the field methodology used, the selection and composition of the team, and the methods of evaluation employed in this project.
The next chapter describes the results of the project.
25
See Flick, Introduction to Qualitative Research, 187-92, where “Thematic Coding,” developed on the background of Anselm L. Strauss, Qualitative Analysis for Social
Scientists, is discussed. See a critique of coding in A. Clavarino, J. Najman, and D. Silverman, “Assessing the Quality of Qualitative Data,” 223-42.
26
See Bell, Doing Your Own Research Project, 118-133, and William E. Myers,
Research in Ministry: A Primer for the Doctor of Ministry Program, 3rd ed., Studies in
Ministry and Parish Life (Chicago: Exploration Press, 2000), 62-65. See also FrankfortNachmias and Nachmias, Research Methods in the Social Sciences, 249-78, on “Questionnaire Construction.”
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS
The sessions described in the previous chapter produced several results. For example, the transcripts for each of the reflection sessions provided the structure for an ethnographic-type narrative account of each of the group meetings. Also, an analysis of the
coded data revealed information useful in the formation of a course proposal for Christian
spiritual formation. In the end, the independent experts supported the quality of the resulting course proposal with reservations. This chapter closes with a concluding synthesis.
Discerning the Data
The field notes, verbatim by the court stenographer, yielded forty-two pages of
transcription from the first reflection session, thirty-two pages from the second, twenty
pages from the third, and fifty-three pages from the final session, totaling 147 pages of
transcription. (See appendix D for stenographer certificate and excerpted pages of the
transcription.) These transcriptions provided the raw data for this project.
To evaluate the outcomes of this project, I employed three basic methods. First, I
functioned as a participant-as-observer.1 In this role, I sought not so much ethnographic
information about the participants as the data arising from the conversation of the group
as a whole. Second, the learning community that yielded these data functioned
1
Chava Frankfort-Nachmias and David Nachmias, Research Methods in the Social Sciences, 282-85.
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secondarily as corrective to the bias of the participant-as-observer. They validated, and if
necessary corrected, my interpretation of each reflection section by approving the
summaries of each meeting. Since these dated exchanges took place via email, they are
saved and available in an electronic file. Their approved summaries form the basis for the
ethnographic narrative below. Finally, I sought the proficiency of independent experts to
examine the course syllabus I produced in conversation with the data.
In addition to composing the interpretative narrative (below), I also examined the
data set for connections to the axioms related to loving God with heart, soul, mind, and
body (found in chapter 2). Finally, I sought to bring the results together to create some
useful synthesis. I repeatedly asked one driving question during this analysis phase of the
project: what belongs in a holistic course in Christian spiritual formation?
Interpretive Narrative
Reflection Session 1: The Inner Life
The first session opened at 8:00 P.M. on Thursday, 9 October 2008, and closed at
9:05 P.M. This session took place in the Peterson room, the major classroom for college
instruction. While I invited guest speakers to present from the center of the room, I always took one of the chairs around the table to position myself as a participant.
After the group assembled, I opened the session with prayer and introduced the
speaker. In this first meeting I explained (as I had in the previous emails and letters of
invitation to each group member) the purpose of the group and stressed again that they
could comment freely without concern for how their comments might reflect on me or the
process.
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In this first reflection session, team members discussed the preceding presentation
by the orthodox priest (introduced in the previous chapter). One member noted that the
priest started his story of the Orthodox Church with Pentecost and even tied the founding
of the Orthodox Church to the story of creation. Another member added that Churches of
Christ generally use the same approach. Later, a group member commented on the
priest’s emphasis on correct worship and noted that Churches of Christ feel the same
concern.
The priest’s presentation on the topic of theosis furnished an engaging starting
point for group discussion. The team observed that this notion contains a heightened
sense of what salvation means. Normally, the group observed, Churches of Christ (and
Protestantism, in general) break salvation into separate components: salvation precedes
sanctification rather than sanctification’s being a subset or part of the process of salvation. Orthodox believers view salvation as much more holistic and cosmic, as the group
noted later in the conversation. The team appreciated the Orthodox tradition of keeping
the connection between heaven and earth visible in their church buildings and worship.
One member approved their method of remembering the faithful deceased in their services and in the Eucharist.
Several commented that the goal of Christianity, in all its varied forms, should be
to seek one thing: the union between God and humanity. Along these same lines, the
group observed that Orthodox spirituality involves the spiritual transformation of the
whole person, though some in the group modified this assessment when questioned as to
whether theosis was most concerned about the heart, soul, mind, or body.
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One of the female members of the group, who had toured an Orthodox church
previously, commented that the wall of icons and the platform in the front of the church
that the priest said symbolized access to God actually created a division because Orthodox tradition forbids women from going behind the screen. The tradition, to her, created a
sense of distance from God, not union. Several others agreed that this and other developing traditions within the Orthodox faith seem to work against theosis.
When asked about where the group experienced God in our journey, a member
commented that when one enters an Orthodox church building, one knows that it is time
for silence because “[t]his is a quiet place; this is a worship place.” Another person noted
the role that candles play in the life of the worshiping church. He said, “But after the
people paid for the candles, they would light them . . . and people would cry.” To him,
these actions demonstrated humility before God. He asked, “What do we do in our worship that brings us to tears before God?”
Unexpectedly, this conversation about candles may have been the most fruitful
part of the discussion related to the nature of Christian spiritual formation. The minister
in the group commented that a simple candle could have a profound effect on a person.
He wondered how his church could incorporate actions and symbols that are “simple,
plain, harmless,” allowing people to become “more involved,” with “hands-on” participation. Another person commented that, culturally, lighting candles serves as a “spiritual
symbol to people.” The group agreed their worship experiences tended to be especially
passive.
The biblical text the team discussed the most was 2 Peter 1:4 (which contains the
phrase “that you may participate in the divine nature”). The minister commented that the
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words theosis and deification did not help as much as the notion of participating in the
divine nature. This biblical language would be more useful to him and the congregation
he serves.
When asked whether introducing first-year college students to the concept of
theosis and to Orthodox tradition and worship seemed a good idea, one person expressed
reservation, but the whole group agreed that if a teacher properly prepared the class ahead
of time, it would be appropriate. The team concurred that the teacher should guide students into this area by stages because of the unfamiliarity of Protestant students with the
Orthodox tradition. For example, the teacher should first introduce the students to the notion of theosis, then invite an Orthodox priest to explain it, next show the video, and finally give the students a tour of the Orthodox church building.
This reflection session explored the role of theosis, the other-worldliness of Orthodox worship, and how a conversation with the Orthodox tradition might enrich the
journey of Christian spiritual formation for others.
Reflection Session 2: Societal Regeneration
The second session opened at 8:00 P.M. on Thursday, 16 October 2008, and
closed at 8:50 P.M. The purpose of this meeting was to explore the meaning that societal
regeneration might have in Christian spiritual formation. Team members responded specifically based on time spent with the urban youth minister and the children in that ministry.
The group convened in the church’s fireside room. While not an optimum setting
because of the noise coming from the gym nearby, it provided a more convenient option
than returning to the school. I began our time together with a prayer.
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One member reflected on a recent book that discusses five “worship languages,”
commenting that one of those languages was service. He further observed that service
should be a part of everyone’s experience. Others agreed. Another member recalled her
service time volunteering for hospice and the impact it had had on her life. Another person acknowledged the spiritually formative effect service had had upon him.
The professor in the group made an important observation about the relationship
between service and spiritual formation when he asked, “Does service grow out of our
spiritual formation or is service part of our spiritual formation?” The heart of his question
dealt with motivation. One member responded that a person should have a mindset characterized by a desire to give. Ministry of this nature (reaching out to urban teens) would
require repeated giving and long-term commitment because just doing it infrequently
would not make much difference. This kind of ministry, another noted later, centered on
changing lives and building relationships—both of which require a heavy time commitment.
Several team members noted how important prayer would be in a ministry such as
CrossRox—especially when one considers the possibility that ministry such as this could
be thankless and unrewarding at times. This observation led into the question of where
the group could see God at work. One team member, who previously had volunteered in
this ministry, drew attention to the children who came back every week. In his
estimation, the repeat visits indicated that God was “doing something there.” On the other
hand, someone countered, the church members’ own children—who attended regularly
on Sunday—did not attend. This remark led to another observation that perhaps that is
“why our adult people are the way they are and don’t want to be involved [with] non-
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church people.” The group noted the risk and the engagement required in working with
outsiders (from the church’s perspective). A student in the group reflected that she saw
God in the minister because of his willingness to take such risks. She noted how patient
and kind he was with the children, while still challenging them to a higher level of living.
When asked which Scriptures came to mind, one person mentioned the fulfilling
of the Great Commission (Matt 28:19-20) that was taking place in the ministry. Another
recalled the parable in which Jesus told the people to go into the highways and byways of
their neighborhoods to invite people in (Luke 14:21). One student, who has been dwelling in Luke 10 in college small-group chapel over the past semester, cited Jesus’ telling
his disciples that he was sending them out as sheep among wolves. I reminded the group
of the time when Jesus called the children to himself and told his disciples not to hinder
the children from coming to him (Matt 19:14; Mark 10:14; and Luke 18:16). Another
group member brought up Matthew 25, where Jesus promises to separate the sheep from
the goats on the Day of Judgment based on their responses to those in need.
Next the group explored what other spiritual disciplines would be needed to sustain a service-based ministry such as CrossRox. Prayer headed the list. In fact, one student mentioned, teaching the children themselves to pray would need to be central. That
student then mentioned Bible study. However, as the group conversed, they concluded
that Bible study would take a different shape in this context. It would be less analytical
and exegetical and more meditative and devotional. I mentioned that times of fasting
would also be appropriate in the face of loss, which happens often in urban settings.
In this reflection session, the team explored the importance of ministry and why
serving others, especially the poor, belongs within Christian spiritual formation.
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Reflection Session 3: Personal Renewal
This meeting took place in the Peterson classroom, opening shortly after 8:00
P.M. on Thursday, 6 November 2008, and closing at 8:50 P.M.2 The purpose of this
meeting was to explore the role of the Holy Spirit in Christian spiritual formation by reflecting on the presentation from the Pentecostal pastor.
From the beginning of our meeting, one student in the group struggled with the
doctrinal implications of what the pastor had shared. I expected that the student would
struggle with the speaker’s declaration that one could be a Christian before baptism, but
what really caught the student’s attention was how the pastor had used the same texts he
would have used himself to teach someone how to be a Christian. Yet the pastor came to
very different conclusions from what the student had reached.
Several in the group shared their disappointment that he had not developed the
role of the Holy Spirit in daily Christian living. The pastor instead focused on the initial
reception of the Holy Spirit as evidenced by speaking in tongues. Several probable reasons for this surfaced in the discussion. First, this was very important to the Pentecostal
tradition that the pastor represented. Second, this gave the preacher an opportunity to
share with a group who did not believe what he believed to be essential to Christian faith.
Third, because of his denomination’s focus on initiation, the pastor and his tradition
probably do not spend as much time thinking out the implications of the Holy Sprit for
daily living. This latter observation drew attention to a similar pattern found within the
Churches of Christ.
2
The Pentecostal preacher exceeded his time in the preceding session.
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Speaking in tongues as a spiritual phenomenon fell outside the realm of experience for all those in the group. Several group members expressed confusion about some
aspects of the pastor’s presentation, but as the transcripts reflect, this may also connect
with the group’s own confusion regarding the work of the Holy Spirit. One member
noted that when people deal with the Holy Spirit, they are dealing with a being who is
“fairly fuzzy,” or later, “a little blurry.” He pressed this point further by noting that when
people think of spiritual disciplines, they usually think of systematic methods, a recipe
one can follow for developing a better relationship with God. However, he implied, that
may not be the way of the Spirit of God.
When the group discussed their sense of where God was in what the pastor
shared, one member remembered he had encouraged people “not [to] seek after the manifestations, but seek after the giver.” Another noted that he passionately communicated a
sense of expectation uncommon to the participant’s church experience. Another member
commented that “waiting” should be a spiritual discipline as well. Someone also connected the pastor’s description of “being saturated by the Holy Spirit” or “being soaked in
the Holy Spirit” to theosis from our first week’s conversation. The Pentecostal pastor
“seemed to have been completely caught up in the Spirit.”
Our reflection session processed what the Pentecostal pastor had shared with us
regarding his understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit in spiritual formation. While
the group found this session to be the least helpful to them in our subsequent discussion,
primarily due to the presenter’s focus on conversion, not sanctification, what the students
longed to hear did inform my understanding of what belongs in a holistic course in Christian spiritual formation.
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Reflection Session 4: Theological Knowledge
This meeting began at 7:00 P.M. on Wednesday, 12 November 2008, and closed
shortly after 8:00 P.M., though some members lingered to share refreshments and to visit.
The meeting was again held in the Peterson classroom. In this meeting, the group discussed William Young’s The Shack and the implications for the process of Christian
spiritual formation found in gaining theological knowledge. This final meeting proved
one of the most engaging.
Young’s choice to characterize God as an African-American woman named Papa
stirred several comments from the group. For one member, God as a woman reminded
him of the Oracle in the movie The Matrix. Nevertheless, the team agreed that Young
was not trying to make a feminist statement about God but to cast God’s character in a
way that would jolt the reader to think differently about him. One participant commented
that this characterization of God “made God very small.” He later clarified that he believed Young treated only one side of God, his nurturing nature.
Another member commented that the driving edge of the book stemmed from the
innocuous way in which Young framed theological questions most people have asked.
When polled about which theological issues the book touched upon, the group recalled
the problem of evil, the nature of God (that is, the nature of the Trinity), and human free
will. Other themes noted later were the role of Christian community and the place of forgiveness in the Christian life.
One person summed up the thrust of the book: “Christianity is simply . . . through
relationship.” After having read the author’s web site, one member imparted that Young
does not attend any church. While consistent with the author’s critique of institutional
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religion as not being the way of Jesus, one member astutely noted of this disclosure, “If
God is relationship and God [is] inviting us into relations, that seems to me then to flow
out [that] we have to have relationship with one another as well.”
The group enjoyed a lengthy conversation about the form of the story as a medium for communicating theology and enriching spiritual formation. Someone noted that
[Protestant] Christians do not generally know how to appropriate the arts. Consequently,
they do not know how the imagination fits into Christian spiritual formation. The group
debated how narrative, metaphor, and story function as “truth” and whether truth needs to
be “factual” in nature. One member commented, “I’m not sure you’d have to be right at
all to experience God.” Another supported him by pointing out that the goal of spiritual
formation is “certainly not higher levels of knowledge,” but “to be formed like him, and
there is [a] fair bit of that ‘forming’ that happens apart from [the] ability or inability to
grasp all that’s going on.” Comparing to a dance the relationship of the Trinity to each
other, one member cited as the goal of Christian spiritual formation being “invited into
the dance.”
Several group members reacted to Young’s proposal that one can have an equal
relationship with God. One noted that, for him, this “was a new way of viewing God.”
Someone else recalled the text from 2 Peter 1:4, where the author invites his readers to
participate in the divine nature. Although several people agreed that they would like to
have this kind of intimacy with God, this closeness with God, a relationship much like
“sitting around the dinner table and chatting with God,” one person countered that this
might be too familiar with God.
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If Young intended the book to be a serious attempt at offering a theodicy, most of
the group believed that it did not resolve the problem of evil. One group member said the
book worked out to what felt like “a five-minute” hug at the end of a tragedy and “life
doesn’t work that way.” I reminded the group of the line in the book where Papa says to
the main character: “We’re not here to justify [the way the world works]; we’re here to
redeem it.”3 One student added that while the book made God too small in focusing on
one attribute of Deity, the book also made the problem of evil too small.
Perhaps because of the fictional nature of the book, the group could not recall any
Scriptures that the experience of reading this book brought to mind, but one member reminded us that “when we make scripture our final authority, we sometimes rule out other
ways that God might reveal himself to us.” The fact that the group, composed of faculty
and Bible students, did not think of a biblical passage related to the reading suggests to
me that fiction that engages the imagination may have a way of disengaging or suspending critical thinking.
When asked about attendant spiritual disciplines that might support the experience
of spiritual reading, one person noted the role community could play in discernment. She
said, “I think it is helpful to have other people’s input and hear other people’s opinions.” I
suggested that a series of readings and discussion groups could easily grow out of this
book. One member of the group said he had read the book with his wife (or rather, his
wife had read to him), and he had benefited from the discussion that developed between
them. The group clearly articulated that there are different ways of reading. They drew
3
Young, The Shack, 127: “We’re not justifying it. We are redeeming it.”
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the distinction between “reading for spiritual formation” and reading “theologically”—
meaning, for the speakers, analytically. This fact was telling.
Observations from Final Questionnaire
All but one of the participants returned answers to the final questionnaire. The
non-participant was a student who had left town for personal and family issues. The following analysis synthesizes the five completed questionnaires.
In answering the question regarding what was the most important aspect of the
entire experience as a group member, the members most valued the “discussion among
the participants.” One person found the questions, replies, and debates “good for formation.” As I look back over the transcripts, I must agree. The discussion added enormously
to my own experience of thinking out the nature of Christian spiritual formation and what
a course on such formation should include.
Another member found beneficial the exposure to “other faith backgrounds and
why they may do the things they do.” She acknowledged that others, who are not like her,
might have some things to teach her.
When asked what the group found the least helpful, one member responded that
the familiar in the activity sessions actually provided the least help, as she already knew
about the familiar activity. Two members commented that the presentation on the Holy
Spirit had not met their expectations, one noting especially that understanding more of
the role of the Holy Spirit is “of the utmost importance to . . . formation.” One commented that he would have liked to hear more on how the Spirit forms people.
Concerning feeling a sense of God’s presence, one member of the group said that
she experienced God most in the discussion after the activity session, “when everyone
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was talking about what they had experienced personally.” Another member expressed
that he saw the work of God in our group process because “hearts were seeking Him,
lives were interacting, minds were open to wondering.” One member commented that he
experienced God in different ways. During the discussion of Orthodox spirituality, he
sensed the transcendence of God or, as he stated, “Almighty Powerful God of all History,” yet through The Shack he encountered the more immanent “buddy, buddy” side of
God. Reading this response caused me to reflect again on how apophatic and kataphatic
spiritualities see and approach God.
When asked how participating in this project had helped them to become more
like Christ, a student on the team answered that participating in this group made her
“more aware of the different characteristics of Christ” and thus “how to be like him in
different areas” of her life. Another member commented that while he would not remember later the group’s time together as a significant “life-forming” event, the team was
nonetheless “part of this stretch of my road, and a good part while [it] lasted.” In like
vein, another person appreciated hearing different viewpoints on how people worship.
In responding to the question “Do you love God most with your heart, soul, mind,
or strength?” the group predominantly answered with the heart and mind. One participant
said he loves God most with his heart and soul but then commented that heart and soul
remain for him abstract terms. He also recognized the danger of loving God with one’s
mind, as it can be merely academic. However in response to the opposite question, “Do
you love God least with your heart, soul, mind, or strength?” the group responded that
they had difficulty in loving God with their strength. It occurred to me that throughout
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this project, people struggled to see the role the body played in spiritual formation. One
member did note that the whole of life relates to what we do and thus is “body-related.”
When asked to explain why they answered the last two questions the way they
did, one person expressed that she loved God with her heart because she would sometimes experience an “overwhelmingly strong emotion,” but at the same time, she remained uncertain as to how to demonstrate her “love for God all the time.” Another
member confessed that his tradition had wired him to be logical and oriented toward
study. In his view, people tend to see loving God with soul and mind as less significant
when compared to loving God with one’s heart. He followed this by noting that loving
God with our strength “rarely enters our discussion.” Another echoed these sentiments,
saying that his decreased involvement in church life indicated that he loved God least
with his strength.
When asked the important question regarding what should receive non-negotiable
inclusion in a course on Christian spiritual formation, one respondent wrote that the Orthodox insights needed to be incorporated into such a course, but added that this inclusion
would be “totally foreign to Western Christians.” One of the students noted that the time
the group spent together held the most meaning to her. She found the sessions thought
provoking and a “definite learning experience.” For this reason, she stressed that the reflection discussion sessions were a “definite must” in helping people process the activity
to discern where God was in it. One of the students in the group considered learning from
other denominational traditions important. Another member listed three non-negotiable
topics: an exploration of union with God (theosis), the role of the Holy Spirit in spiritual
formation, and a discussion of The Shack or other popular work. Another member agreed
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that fiction has formative value and suggested several works that might be useful in this
regard, including Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code.
Finally, the professor in the group noted that it would be interesting to explore
how hymnody functions in spiritual formation since much time in worship services is
given to singing. We did not explore this subject in the project.
Analyzing the Data
Results from Open Coding
My original plan was to analyze the transcript by isolating words such as heart,
soul, mind, and body. However, in reviewing the transcripts I found that I was the only
one actually using the terms and that the group only touched on these words when responding to the last group question (Does this activity connect with heart, soul, mind, or
body [strength]?). While open coding yielded nothing of importance, the answer to this
question did. What follows, therefore, is a focused look at how the group answered this
particular question in each of the reflection sessions.
Results from Isolating Question 7
In the first reflection session on Orthodox spirituality and theosis, the group noticed that Orthodoxy seeks to involve the whole person. One member did object that “it
leaves the mind out quite a bit.” However, the group countered that the mind functions
differently here. While the mind is involved, the group recognized that it is less rational
here. This significant insight recognizes that radical rationalism forms one of the barriers
toward helping students in Western culture toward Christian spiritual formation. Thus
through this first conversation, the group encountered the possibility of more than one
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way for the mind to work in seeking to know God. The team acknowledged the experiential nature of Orthodox spirituality and ended the evening wondering what an average
Orthodox church member understands about theosis and the theology related to it.
When I asked the same question in the second session, this time related to service
in an urban setting, another member noticed that the mind was minimized. However, the
group again corrected this when they concurred that the mind would function differently
here. One member spoke for the group in noting the role of the heart and soul in giving
one’s life to another because of the emotional investment in this kind of service. The
group seemed oblivious to the role of the body in this kind of service. I found this interesting with my background in urban ministry since I remember days I was so tired that I
did not think I could take another step.
In the third session, reflecting on the presentation from the Pentecostal minister,
one member of the group was quick to respond, “this leaves out the mind almost completely.” Similarly, another observed that the experience seems to come before doctrinal
formulation: “they have the experience . . . then they have gone back to try to explain,
understand, justify the experience.” While some members recognized the role of the
heart, soul, and body in Pentecostal spirituality, the group really struggled with the nonrational side of Pentecostal experience. One of the group members raised the question,
then, if this is not “real,” is it of value “if it leads you back to God?” Another framed the
question this way: “I [may] totally disagree with your experience, but, in the end, if it
make[s] you want to follow God, was it really God?” I brought up that while the
Churches of Christ might not be at home with some Pentecostal practices, those within
that tradition find them useful in their walk with God. Consequently, a question arose as
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to whether something had to be true or real if it connected people with God. This provided a great place to stop as it prepared us for the next conversation.
In the final session, which reflected on The Shack, the group agreed that reading
the book engages all dimensions of humanity. Obviously, as reading material, it engages
the mind, but a group member noted that the storyline targets the heart, the emotions—
perhaps as a backdoor into the mind. As mentioned above in the narrative summary, this
observation led into a fuller conversation around the relationship of truth, narrative, fiction, and metaphor. It is not surprising, given the backgrounds of the team members, that
they struggled most with non-rational uses of the mind. No one commented on the role of
the body in spiritual reading. I found this silence worthy of note, as reading requires more
effort from the body than people usually acknowledge.
Results from Selective Coding
My second round of coding sought out spiritual disciplines. The most-mentioned
spiritual discipline was prayer. The group assumed the centrality of prayer among the
spiritual disciplines, and in each reflection session prayer surfaced at least once.
The team also emphasized the role of corporate worship in Christian spiritual
formation. They noticed in the Pentecostal perspective a level of expectation in worship
that was largely unfamiliar to them. Yet they remembered from their own worship experiences at Bible camp in the summer something of this same expectation—particularly
around the campfire. Additional practices of corporate worship mentioned by the group
included tithing and singing. Confession was mentioned once as a valuable corporate discipline, even if rarely practiced.
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Despite all the concern about the non-rational or supra-rational role of the mind,
the group did seem to long wistfully for some mysticism in their lives. They noted the
role of silence, reverence, and waiting as spiritual disciplines. Several in the group noted
the role that space, architecture, and art could play in the process of Christian spiritual
formation. They also observed how far removed they felt from these expressions of spirituality.
The group affirmed the importance of service in Christian spiritual formation, noting that service has the capacity to stretch one’s comfort zone. In relationship to the urban
service the group witnessed, the team believed that youth activities could be a spiritually
formative pathway to God if coupled with relationship and conversation.
As I expected, the group considered the role of the Bible non-negotiable. One particularly interesting moment occurred in our second reflection session. As mentioned
previously, when asked about which text came to mind involving service, one member
mentioned Luke 10. The student had been reading this text repeatedly for several weeks
in small group chapel. This connection underscored the value of lectio divina in the student’s spiritual formation. Coupled with Bible study, the group noted the importance of
meditation, but only in passing.
The group clearly saw the importance of theological reflection that surfaced significantly in the final session on The Shack. Here the group acknowledged the role of
spiritual reading (other than the Bible) and the role of imagination.
In the second session, as something of a sidebar, I mentioned my own struggle
with the relationship of Christian spiritual formation to the context of a classroom structure. I commented that I found the structure of the classroom model artificial. Internally, I
87
was wrestling with the notion that the Holy Spirit probably does not need a classroom to
form people spiritually and that the structure of syllabus, assignments, deadlines, and
grades could actually impede spiritual development. One member of the team responded
that the value lies in the working together of a group of people. The classroom provides,
according to this member, a place of intentionality, where a “conscientious effort” can
occur. This same member argued that, “a class can give you tools you need to be able to
continue.” Her comment ended my struggle.
Using Foster’s classic list of spiritual disciplines as a norm, the group did not explore simplicity, submission, guidance, or celebration in any complete way. 4 I was the
only one who mentioned fasting and only once in one of the sessions. However, these
absences should not be amplified since the particular experiences I selected to explore
and the related questions controlled the content of each reflection session. Additionally,
the group may have assumed these in other places. For example, corporate worship
probably assumes celebration, particularly in the conversation about expectation. The urban youth minister’s role, for example, serves as an example of offering spiritual guidance.
Observation from Independent Experts
Lastly, I employed two independent experts. Calum MacFarlane, Ph.D., is an
experienced professor of Christian spiritual formation at Briercrest Seminary, Caronport,
Saskatchewan. Macfarlane, an Anglican priest and chaplin of the seminary, evaluated the
syllabus as a course in spiritual formation. (see appendix I.) His impression of the
4
Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth (San
Francisco: HarperCollins, 1998). Foster’s list includes meditation, prayer, fasting, study,
simplicity, solitude, submission, service, confession, worship, guidance, and celebration.
88
syllabus was favorable; he concluded that the syllabus is “a well put together syllabus
that, when fleshed out in the classroom, will provide students with a great opportunity to
learn much about the traditions of spiritual formation within the Church while offering
them experiences which will enrich their own journey of faith.”
He did raise a couple of issues. First, the syllabus objectives need measurability,
but “not in a quantitative sense.” The course needs to answer the question: “How will this
course help students to love the Lord their God with all their heart? What might that look
like?” Second, the assignments, according to him, are balanced but would be improved
with the assignments that “engaged the students’ creative and aesthetic sensibilities.”
Third, the bibliography is well developed but the students would benefit from an asterisk
marking the most important works.
Murray Sanders, M.Ed., former superintendent of the Prairie Valley School in
Saskatchewan, reviewed the syllabus from a pedagogical point of view. Sanders expressed concern about three issues in the evaluation of the syllabus (see appendix I). In
his assessment, Sanders notes the difficulty in evaluating a syllabus. He faults this syllabus, as he would most syllabi, for being too vague. In his opinion, “students need much
more than [what is] found in most syllabi.” He further comments that a course on spiritual development will be vague, in some regards, because of the subject matter, though he
does recognize that “much thought and planning” went into developing the syllabus. The
remainder of his evaluation covers curriculum, assessment, and learning environment.
Under curriculum, Sanders sees the objectives as too vague but did appreciate the
objective related to praxis, theological reflection, and articulation. He would like to see
the other objectives feature “definite markers” for “measuring success.” I agree and
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would seek to become more specific in this area before teaching the class. He raises some
concern that the course goal of looking at various religious traditions does not find expression in the rest of the syllabus. This criticism has some merit regarding syllabus design, but those more familiar with Christian spirituality as an academic discipline will
probably see the goal attained through class topics, assignments, and projects. Nonetheless, it is fair to criticize its apparent absence in the syllabus. Concomitantly, Sanders
would like more clearly defined parameters to clarify the focus of the class. This objective can be accomplished, according to him, by adding more detail to the reading schedule.
Sanders raises one of my concerns when he questions how to assess student learning in a class on spiritual development. He suggests a rubric be used with journaling,
which was, in fact, my own answer to the concern. (He did not have access to my assessment tools, just the syllabus—a sample rubric for journaling can be found in appendix L.) Sanders correctly states: “Each objective should have some measurable achievements.” He suggests adding assignments designed to acknowledge that students learn differently. Some of his suggestions include using the fine arts, making a movie, or creating
an online blog.
Regarding learning environment, Sanders points out that students most likely to
take this class will be in their late teens or early twenties and that students making the
transition from high school to college may need directed learning built into the activities.
Again, Sanders had access only to the syllabus, but his point is correct. (See appendix K
for some potential assignments that will meet his concern.)
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Concluding Synthesis
Several key observations came forth from each of the sessions themselves as
noted in the narrative at the beginning of this chapter. First, concerning introducing students to theosis and the Orthodox tradition, the group noted that, given where students in
Western culture are, professors should introduce this new information in stages. The
group made the point that, for this topic, students should receive information, participate
in conversation, and then share in experiences in order to appreciate the benefits that
might come from interaction with other spiritualities, such as Roman Catholicism or Orthodoxy. This idea represents sound pedagogical advice. Additionally, the group resonated with the theme of theosis as a notion rich in currency for teaching students about
God’s continuing work in peoples’ lives. They saw the role of service as necessary in any
holistic spiritual formation. The disappointment among the group regarding the conversation about the role of the Holy Spirit showed, first, how much the participants wanted to
know, and, second, the importance of a good biblical theology of the Holy Spirit as a
foundation for Christian spiritual formation. While a theology related to the work of the
Holy Spirit is beyond the scope of this thesis, I meet this deficiency in the use of Boa’s
textbook, especially chapter 9. Lastly, the reading of a provocative work, such as The
Shack, has great value in helping students explore Christian spiritual formation, even if—
particularly if—the work pushes readers out of the mainstream.
Finally, the experts agreed that the course planned was of a good quality; however, they both agreed that objectives needed measurability and that some attention to
alternate learning sensibilities would improve the course. The input of both will be important for improving and perfecting the new course proposal.
CHAPTER FIVE
DISCUSSION
This doctor of ministry project sought to meet a deficiency in the Encounter program at Western Christian College by forming a team that, by their participation in a
learning community, would provide data useful to the development of a course proposal
in Christian spiritual formation. The previous chapter offered a summary of the team
process with some of the more important observations noted in the concluding synthesis.
This chapter explores my reflections on the project, some implications this project has for
future ministry, and the possibility of replicating what I have learned in this project in the
church.
Unfortunately, I will not be able to implement the course proposal. After this project had begun, the administration and the board of Western Christian College decided to
align the programming of the college with a university in the United States. This decision
will make Western Christian College an international extension site, completely under
that university’s academic regulations, policies, and curriculum. While the realities that
gave rise to this project continue to exist, they will not be addressed in that university’s
curricular framework. In the midst of these changes, I have decided to return to pastoral
ministry at the end of the current academic year. These changes call forth reflections
somewhat different from those originally envisioned. Still, I would contend, the process
of doing this project and the resulting thesis have been beneficial in shaping me as a person, teacher, and minister.
91
92
Reflections
I found the process of doing the project and writing this thesis itself an act of
spiritual formation. Not only have I become more proficient in the literature related to the
academic discipline of Christian spirituality, but also I have discovered more clearly who
I am before God. Meditating on the love of God, as modeled in his love for Israel and his
expected love from Israel in return, has challenged me to new levels of commitment. Seeing this love demonstrated in the life of Jesus has called me to a new level of devotion. I
have examined my life in terms of whether I love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and
body. I am more aware that, while I want to be more mystical and engaged in soul and
heart, it comes more naturally to me to love the Lord with my mind. Correspondingly, I
confess that my heavy investment in the quest for theological knowledge needs more balance in the direction of inner life renewal, societal regeneration, and personal renewal.
While I have taught Christian spiritual formation previously as a course, this project created the space for me to re-conceptualize my approach and understandings. I
benefited from the opportunity to think, pray, and reflect on what it means to teach Christian spiritual formation in a classroom setting.
Reflection on Process and Product
The course proposal is now complete with application process, syllabus for the
course that includes the course schedule, planned activities, bibliography, and some initial classroom assignments, along with some potential assessment tools that are in the
various appendices.
This project involved the convening of a group, to serve as resource and sounding
board, that would fund a new course proposal in Christian spiritual formation. The group
93
was not directly responsible for creating the course or any of the activities or assignments
for the course. The process from group input to the development of the course proposal
occurred in the following way. As reported earlier in this thesis, the action sessions allowed the group to explore four arenas of Christian spirituality as proposed by the
Holmes-Sager model and presented by Boa.1 The data resulting from these reflection sessions provided new information and insights that I could incorporate into the final course
proposal. Each week, and for several weeks following the last session, I analyzed, reflected upon, and evaluated the data from the group sessions. Having weighed the usefulness or applicability of the insights, I began to create and gather materials that would satisfy the needs of this new course proposal.
First, I adapted the course application policy used by Abilene Christian University
(see appendix A) to provide some framework in which to place the new course proposal.2
This application procedure remains a theoretical construct, given the changes in
programming anticipated at WCC. Second, I began to create the syllabus based on the
template required by Western Christian College. I have not included that template in the
appendices as I followed the structure of the template in the syllabus (in appendix J).
Since I chose Boa’s textbook as the main text for the course, I followed his outline in
framing each of the proposed class meetings. Additional textbooks for the course
included the Bible, Foster’s Celebration of Discipline, and Young’s The Shack. In
creating course objectives, I sought to guide the students toward loving God with heart,
1
Holmes, A History of Christian Spirituality; Sager, Gospel-Centered Spirituality; and Boa, Conformed to His Image.
2
ACU’s new course application packets may be downloaded via the Internet from
http://www.acu.edu/academics/adamscenter/instruct_dev..html.
94
soul, mind, and body. However, as the independent experts pointed out, these objectives
need more measurability. I also included Boa’s objectives from his textbook in the
syllabus since the course schedule follows his twelve facets. The course objectives also
call for students to explore the pattern of praxis, theological reflection, and articulation in
much the same way that the activity and reflection sessions functioned in this project.
Requirements for this course include active participation, required reading, journaling, and reflection essays on Celebration of Discipline and two spiritual classics, one
each semester. Also included are four experiential components that grow directly out of
this project. In the class I have proposed the students should participate in some ministry
involving societal regeneration. This can be working with urban youths, feeding the
homeless, serving in a soup kitchen, campaigning for the rights of some disenfranchised
group, or the like. In the area of theological renewal, I have asked the students to read
The Shack, as the group in this project did. For inner life transformation, I have chosen to
conduct a weekend retreat where I can introduce students to the contemplative life and
practices. Finally, for personal renewal, the students will attend an energized worship setting. After each of these activities, the students are to discuss their experience within their
groups (to be formed at the beginning of the class). The course schedule lists these activities.
This project has informed the selection and design of these activities in two ways.
First, these activities are experiences, anot classroom instruction, as were the sessions
involving the Orthodox priest and the Pentecostal preacher. To engage heart, soul, mind,
and body, activities will be more useful than instruction alone. Second, I have decided to
accept the group’s recommendation about introducing undergraduate students to the
95
Orthodox tradition. As the project group noted, it requires several steps: instruction,
exposure, and then experience. This will be built into future editions of the syllabus.
The syllabus’s bibliography is based on works that were available to the students
that were at a level they could comprehend, and that connected with the purpose of the
course. Originally, my preliminary bibliography had nine pages, but this I trimmed to
three and a half pages based on the criteria previously mentioned.
Two of the initial assignments (in appendix K) are exercises called “Forty Days
around the Word” and “Forty Days of Prayer.” These assignments give an outline for
journaling. The first assignment takes the students through reading the entire NT in forty
days while the second guides the student through forty days of biblical prayers. The student will write a half-page journal response to each of these. Also included in this appendix is a reading exam over Boa’s textbook to assist students in capturing the big picture.
Appendix L contains some preliminary assessment tools and sample rubrics.
Among these are two spirituality type indicators based on the Holmes-Sager model used
in this project. Paul D. G. Bramer, associate professor of Christian formation at North
Park Theological Seminary, North Park University, in Chicago, designed the first one for
his teaching of Christian spiritual formation. The second is similar but has been modified
to appeal to a younger audience. These instruments can be used to help students begin to
understand who they are in light of the four types of spirituality illustrated in Holmes’s
model. This appendix also includes two rubrics for journal writing and reading response.
Both need further adjustment to be fully applicable to this course on Christian spiritual
formation. Finally, appendix M includes course evaluations for both the students and the
professor. These are the evaluation forms currently used at WCC.
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Toward the Elusive Assessment of Christian Spiritual Formation
The topic of how to assess student learning in the area of Christian spiritual formation continues to challenge teachers and practitioners of Christian spiritual formation. I
recently asked Calum McFarlane, who has been involved in spiritual formation of students for the past eighteen years at Briercrest Seminary, Caronport, Saskatchewan, to discuss available methods for assessing students’ spiritual growth.3 He acknowledged the
difficultly of measuring spiritual growth because of the interiority of that growth. Although he did recommend journaling as well as a few specific instruments that might help
students discern where they are (in appendix L), these instruments do not measure
growth. In some sense, the class assignments themselves may facilitate evaluation. (WCC
has typically used the “Spiritual Well-Being Scale” as students come in and out of their
first year of college.4 Such an instrument does have the capability of providing some data
on spiritual growth). Yet as McFarlane suggested, the only real way to monitor spiritual
growth is through observation and reflection by an experienced spiritual guide.
Reconsiderations
If I could do this project over, I would plan for more group sessions and would
seek the group’s validation of the final course syllabus in order to produce more certainty
in the outcome of the project. Because one session did not meet the participants’ expectations, I have to ask myself, what would have been the outcomes had this session been a
3
Personal conversation with Calum McFarlane. Briercrest Seminary in
Caronport, SK, 20 February 2009.
4
For the research on this instrument, see R. K. Bufford, R. F. Paloutzian, and C.
W. Ellison, “Norms for the Spiritual Well-Being Scale,” Journal of Psychology and Theology 19.1 (1991): 56-70; and C. W. Ellison, “Spiritual Well-Being: Conceptualization
and Measurement,” Journal of Psychology and Theology 11.4 (1983): 330-40.
97
“good” one? I imagine that the discussion would have sounded much more like that in the
other sessions—lively and tending to yield more insights into what makes a quality
course in Christian spiritual formation.
In addition, if I were to do this project again, I would frame the action sessions
more like actual classes, with more small-group interaction and opportunities to experience some of the spiritual disciplines. In this way, the group would serve as a trial of the
actual class. I believe the participants would have found the experience more agreeable
and that they would have reported a stronger sense that the experience contributed to
spiritual growth. That, however, must remain a conjecture for now. Additionally, the activity sessions needed more activity. For example, in the case of the inner life reflection
session, the group would have had a more significant experience if they had visited an
Orthodox Church building. Participating in high energy worship settings would have
been better than listening to a Pentecostal apology on speaking in tongues. The current
syllabus reflects both of these insights.
Some Final Theological Reflections
The use of the Holmes’s model introduced in chapter 1 provided a heuristic starting point for this project. In that model are four types of Christian spirituality: societal
regeneration, theological renewal, inner life, and person renewal. These categories
framed the activity sessions of the projects. In so doing, however, I risked compartmentalizing these categories. Nonetheless, the model still provides teachers and ministers a
useful way to convey a vision of Christian spiritual formation in a more holistic fashion
than often happens in a classroom setting.
98
I sought to overlay the NT version of the shema over Holmes’s model so that
heart corresponded with personal renewal, soul with inner life, mind with theological renewal, and body with societal regeneration. I acknowledged that this last correspondence
did not occur easily since people can use their bodies in spiritual formation apart from
societal regeneration. At one level, I find fault in Holmes’s model since the other three
quadrants deal with personal spiritual development. I can find no reason that the quadrant
between mind and apophatic revelation necessarily leads to the betterment of society as
opposed to the individual. Beyond this issue, though, my one-for-one correspondence is
too simplistic. A more helpful way of viewing this overlay would be for each of the items
in the shema to overlay each of the items in the model since heart, soul, mind, and body
would be involved in each quadrant.
The dynamic relationship I sought to develop between the shema and the theology
of the cross was hard to sustain throughout the project. While the center of my theology
was rooted in the cross of Jesus as a demonstration both of God’s love for people and of
how at least one human, Jesus, showed complete love for God, the practical expression of
this love was to be conveyed through enacting the shema in the life of the believers. Thus
I did not adequately communicate to my group the centrality of the cross in understanding the shema. None of the questions used in the group or in the final questionnaire
touched on the cross or the cruciformity of believers as a precondition for practicing the
shema as a means of Christian spiritual formation. I believe it, assumed it, but did not articulate it adequately. Instead, I focused more on discovering the role of heart, soul, mind,
and body in the process of formation (as emphasized in the axioms in chapter 3).
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Implications
For the Encounter Program
Despite the changes, both in the academic programming at WCC and in my life, I
still believe that adding this course in Christian spiritual formation to the Encounter Program would help the college realize the original intent of the program. Encounter began
with the objectives for students to examine themselves, experience God, explore the
world, and experience community.5 As the college faculty restructured Encounter for its
second year, they wanted to “give [the] students more time to create habits and disciplines that will serve them for life.”6 The plan to make this course a two-semester experience creates the possibility that students would value spiritual disciplines as important in
their spiritual growth as studying is to their academic achievement. This course proposal
significantly increases the likelihood that students will develop habits that will nurture the
eternal life in them for the remainder of their earthly lives.
The course proposed in this thesis represents a move in that direction. However,
those who follow me here will need to decide what they will do next to meet the deficiency in adequate attention to Christian spiritual formation. However, as a teacher, I anticipate that I will have the occasion to teach Christian spiritual formation either in the
classroom or in the church in the future.
This project has informed my understanding of how one can teach Christian
spiritual formation more holistically. While this course alone cannot provide all the
students need in their spiritual development, the course does possess the potential of
5
“It’s All About Life: A Proposal for the Encounter Program.”
6
“Encounter Enters Second Year,” internal document.
100
assisting students in loving God with their heart, soul, body, and mind. The course can
offer students an opportunity to explore what it means to love God with their full
humanity. Furthermore, well-chosen spiritual reading assignments would give students
occasion to explore the roles of imagination, metaphor, and story as mediums to
encounter God.
For Ministry in the Church
Since I am returning to pastoral ministry, the transfer of learning from this thesis
into my ministry in the church is imperative. While there are processes in this project that
belong in the academic arena, there are several critical insights the church also needs. For
example, the participants in the group reported that their church experience to date has
been passive and non-participatory. As one possible remedy, Holmes’ model provides a
way to frame the work of God in the life of the believer in terms of different arenas. For
churches, it can provide a model for developing a holistic spiritual formation program in
the church’s Christian education program that would move people into areas of societal
regeneration, inner life, and personal renewal beyond just theological renewal.
In addition, the pulpit provides a locus of Christian spiritual formation. Preaching
can guide the church to reflect on the meaning of the cross and to see how the shema provides a way of thinking about spiritual formation. For example, a series of lessons on
how God loved his chosen people, Israel, provides a narrative for the church to comprehend that God’s love for church is covenantal in nature and, as such, requires a response.
Each week as the church remembers Jesus, the preacher can emphasize that Jesus is not
only the demonstration of how God loves his people, but also how people should love
God, wholly, fully, with heart, soul, mind, and body. Furthermore, the shema provides
101
language for modeling ways to love God fully. By reflecting on the love of God, believers can see how compartalmentalize their love for God can become in the acidic secular
culture they engage every day. In a church’s education program, theology and praxis can
come together in a way that involves the transformation for the whole church.
Even the format of the project has applicability in the life of the church. The alternation between praxis, or activity, and reflection could open the way to reconceptualize what passes for Christian education in the church today. While the older members of
the church might be resistant to this, the younger people in the church, who are seeking
authenticity and a way to connect their spirituality to the real world, will welcome the
opportunity to do anything in the name of Jesus. They will also welcome the opportunity
to reflect on what it means to be shaped by the activity into the image of Jesus.
My transition, with this experience behind me, will allow me to explore the move
from classroom to the church, which is one of my concerns: the transferability of theological education into actual ministry settings. I look forward to exploring how an intentional approach to Christian spiritual formation might bear fruit in the life of the church.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I shared my personal reflections on the project, some implications
for future ministry, and the possibility of replicating what I have learned in this project in
the life of the church. The overall project addressed the lack of adequate attention to
Christian spiritual formation in WCC’s Encounter (one-year Bible) program. This thesis,
and the project on which it reports, sought to meet this deficiency by introducing a model
for defining loci wherein spiritual formation can take place, by offering a biblical theology growing out of the meaning of the cross but expressed through Jesus’ teaching of the
102
shema, and by forming a learning community (or team) to explore how the shema can
inform Christian spiritual formation. The data resulting from the team’s interaction provided more insights than I could implement as I created the course syllabus, course
schedule, planned activities, bibliography, and initial classroom assignments, and gathered initial assessment tools.
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Broadman, 1991.
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———. Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1992.
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McKnight, Scot. The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others. Brewster, MA: Paraclete
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APPENDICES
111
Appendix A: New Course Application
Western Christian College
Application for a New Course
Instructions:
The pages of this document provide instructions, example competencies, and a
syllabus checklist. These four pages are for the course-developer’s use, and do
not need to be submitted along with the application.
Sequence:
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Consult with the Registrar to obtain course number.
Consult with the Academic Dean to discuss the degree plan and course number.
Complete the New Course Application
Create the course Syllabus – See the associated Syllabus Checklist
Submit paper and electronic versions of Application and Syllabus to the Academic Dean
Meet with Faculty review team
Make any necessary changes to application / syllabus
Obtain the Library Review
Obtain Preliminary Approval Signatures (Department Chair, Deans)
Gather all attachments to application
Submit to College Faculty
The course developer completes this application with supporting documentation (Section IV) and
approval signatures of the academic dean (Section V) before any college faculty reviews the new
course.
Specific Instructions:
Before assigning a number (ID) for the course, consult the Registrar.
Section I Systems and Catalog Information
Section II. Curriculum
Consult the Academic Dean, who will examine impact of new courses on college-wide programs.
Curriculum director’s signature on your degree plan attachment is required for confirmation.
112
113
1.
Degree Plan
Explain how this course affects degree requirements. Attach a copy of the degree plan/s in Section IV-C
2.
Justification
State the justification for adding this course to the current curriculum. Represent the need.
Attach any relevant documentation in Section IV-H (needs assessment, survey results, visiting
committee report, market analysis, new government or accrediting body policy, exam scores,
programs at other universities, etc.).
Section III Course Design
III-2 - Competencies and Measurements
List the competencies that must be satisfied in order to pass the course, and indicate how each
competency will be measured. List in corresponding columns as indicated below. Add as many
rows to the table as necessary. It is recommended that the identical table be presented in the
syllabus, but the competencies and measures may be formatted differently in the syllabus as long
as all elements are included in both documents. The wording for the competencies and measurements in the application should be identical to the syllabus.
For combined undergraduate/graduate courses, make two tables and label them appropriately
Section IV Supporting Documentation
Section V Preliminary Approvals
Section VI Approvals
VI-5 - College Budget Committee Action: (when applicable)
Any new or extensively revised program proposal (including new or extensively revised
courses for the program) must be reviewed by the business office prior to the Application for a
New Course being submitted to any academic council. Questions should be addressed to the
college dean/director.
INSTRUCTIONS - WCC New Course Application
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114
WCC - Syllabus Checklist
Course ID___________________
Developer_______________________________________________________
NOTE: It is not necessary to submit this checklist with New Course Applications. It is provided to
assist the course developer in ensuring that all essential syllabus elements are addressed.
About the College
¨ WCC Mission Statement
¨ College Mission Statement
Audience and Course Goal
¨ State the overarching course goal(s) in
performance terms.
About the Course
¨ Title
¨ Course number and Section credit hours
¨ Semester and Year
¨ Meeting time and Place
Competencies
¨ Specific competencies stated in
measurable terms
o Appropriate learning level based
upon Bloom’s or Krathwohl’s
taxonomy
¨ Measurement Instrument - State which
assignments or instruments will be used
to assess the competencies.
¨ Performance Indicator or Criteria – Give
examples of how the competencies will
be measured. It is preferred that these three
items be developed in the three column
model, but developers may wish to integrate
all three items into individual statements.
About the Teacher
¨ Name and title or rank
¨ Office location
¨ Phone number(s)
¨ Email addresses
¨ Office hours / Contact expectations
About the Students
¨ Characteristics of the students for whom
the course is intended
¨ Prerequisites / Corequisites – include
skill sets if necessary.
Course Content
¨ Catalog description (exact)
¨ Course Synopsis
¨ Outline
¨ Main topics
Teaching/Learning Methods and Format of
Class Sessions
¨ Description of the types of activities
students should expect in the course
Texts, Readings, and Supplements
¨ Required and Optional materials
Statement Concerning Christian Perspective
¨ Teaching philosophy
¨ Policy regarding questionable materials
¨ Scripture related to course content
¨ Faith / Learning resource
INSTRUCTIONS - WCC New Course Application
.
Grading Criteria
¨ Weight or point value of all graded elements
¨ Grading scale with expectations for letter
grades
¨ Specific standards, rubrics, and examples
Course Policies
¨ Clear statement of expectations concerning penalties for non-compliance regarding:
o Attendance and Tardiness
o Participation
o Late assignment policy
o Late exam policy
¨ Special needs
¨ Academic integrity
¨ Extra credit opportunities (optional)
Course Calendar
¨ Exam dates
¨ Assignments
¨ Due dates and other deadlines
¨ Schedule of readings and topics
¨ Statement to reserve right to modify the
calendar as necessary
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Writing Course Competencies
Competency
Ex.
1
Ex.
2
Ex.
3
Instructions: Competencies should be observable and measurable, and stated in
terms of student performance. In some
cases it might be valuable to complete the
sentence “Students
will be able to. . .” If
the competencies are
primarily cognitive,
consider using Bloom’s
Taxonomy to evaluate
whether the competencies are at an appropriate level for the
course. In the more
rare instances where
affective or psychomotor competencies are
used, give careful attention to measurement techniques.
Defend dietary goals in
light of current research.
Examine personal values, attitudes and expectations to enhance
self-awareness for
greater effectiveness
as a social work professional. . .
Integrate terminology
from literary history into
writing
Measurement
Instrument
Instructions: Detail the
instrument that will be
used to gather the
measurement. Examples might include: written papers, quizzes,
tests, verbal presentations, video, audio,
portfolio artifacts, demonstrations, performances, etc.
This column should
indicate where you will
look for evidence of the
type of student work
that you expect. Note
that this is distinct from
the Measurement
Standard which provides some detail about
what constitutes valid
and acceptable student
performance.
Measurement Standard
Weekly Reading Journal, Research Paper
A: Students will distinguish between
primary scientific research and items in
the popular media.
B: Students will be able to argue for
what research is decisive evidence or
key issues related to the student’s personal dietary goals
C: Students will be able to articulate
subtle distinctions or qualify evidence
as they quote research.
A: Remains empathetic when he/she
does not approve of client behavior or
agrees with client choices.
B: Exercises sound professional judgment in the use of self-disclosure.
Field Instructor Evaluation
Research Paper
INSTRUCTIONS - WCC New Course Application
Instructions: This section should detail
what criteria will be used to discriminate between poor work and
excellent work. Note that it is possible for a single competency to include
multiple measurement standards. If
the competency is highly qualitative,
attempt to give high-level examples of
dimensions that will be considered in
grading. Many competencies combine
both qualitative and quantitative measurement standards, and some combine
technical requirements (APA Style requirements for example). If a grading
rubric is used refer to the rubric specifically, and where feasible, include it in
the syllabus. This is NOT INTENDED
to be an exhaustive list.
A: All literary history terms are used in
an appropriate context.
B: Terms are used in diverse contexts.
C: Terms are not used in overly simplistic ways, or in ways that are superficial or represent common misunderstandings.
.
116
Western Christian College
Application for a New Course
Course ID
Subject and Number
Date APPROVED
Date DENIED
I.
Systems and Catalog Information Complete each item.
1
2
3
Course Developer
Course Teacher
Course Title
4
Course Abbreviation (if title is over 30
characters)
5
6
7
8
College
Department
Number of Credit Hours
Is the course Fixed Credit or Variable
Credit?
Is the course repeatable?
Maximum number of times course
may be repeated
Maximum number of hours credit
Explanation for variable credit
9
10
11
12
13a
13b
13c
13d
13e
13f
13g
13h
13j
13k
13m
13n
14
15
16
17
18
19
Course contact hours - LEC
Course contact hours - Lab
Course contact hours - Practicum
Course contact hours - Seminar
Course contact hours - Studio
Course contact hours - Online
Course contact hours - Colloquium
Course contact hours – Field Experience
Course contact hours - Internship
Course contact hours - Research
Course contact hours - Workshop
Course contact hours – Other (specify)
Instructor Workload
Grade Mode (check all appropriate):
___Standard
___Credit/No Credit (undergrad only)
Maximum Enrollment
Catalog Description
(50 words or less)
List any prerequisites (course/s, test
scores, class standing, major, etc.)
List any co-requisites
INSTRUCTIONS - WCC New Course Application
.
117
20
21
22
23a
23b
23c
24
25
26
27
28
29
If the course is cross listed, specify
the Course ID(s) MUST have signature in Section V off all Department
Chairs
Does this course have any special
student costs? Yes/No
Attach a completed “Request to Add
or Change Course Fees” form. Describe in section IV-F.
How often will it be offered? Fall
How often will it be offered? Spring
How often will it be offered? Summer
How often will it be offered? Fall
Frequency?
First semester this course will be offered. New courses may not be taught
under their approved course ID until
they appear in the catalog, therefore,
no earlier than the coming fall.
List course/s that should be deleted,
include the last semester for course/s
being deleted. A course cannot be
deleted when it is a requirement in a
degree plan in any department.
Is this course required for a degree/s?
Yes/No
If “Yes,” attach a revised degree
plan(s) reflecting the placement of the
new course.
Has this course been offered as a
Special Topics course? Yes/No
If “Yes,” specify the Course ID and
enrollment for each term it was
taught.
List any courses in which content
overlaps the proposed course.
(Course ID and Name)
Attach statement from instructor/dept
chair of existing course justifying the
new offering in Section IV-D.
II. Curriculum
1
2
Degree Plan Explanation of how this
course affects degree requirements.
Justification State the justification for
adding this course to the current curriculum. Represent the need
INSTRUCTIONS - WCC New Course Application
.
118
III. Course Design
1.
1
2
Audience and Course Goal
Describe the intended audience, including prerequisite skills.
State the overarching course goal(s) in performance terms.
2.
Competencies and Measurements
Competency
Measurement Instrument
Measurement Standard
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
3.
Text and Resources
1.Give the full publication information of the textbook/s and other required resources and outside
readings.
2.For combined undergraduate/graduate courses, make two lists:
a. full publication information; label Undergraduate.
b. full publication information; label Graduate. Indicate number of pages required.
INSTRUCTIONS - WCC New Course Application
.
119
IV.
Supporting Documentation
Supporting documents must accompany proposal prior to preliminary approval by chair
and dean.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Library — Submit new course application and syllabus to the Director of the Library.
Consult with the director and establish a deadline for completion of the library report.
Attach the signed copy of the library director’s report.
Instructional Design — The application and syllabus must be reviewed by Academic
Dean. Attach a copy of the Dean’s Letter.
Degree Plan — The impact of the course must be reviewed by the Director of Curriculum. Attach degree plan signed by the Director of Curriculum.
Content Overlap — Include one document for each course you listed in Section I-I.
Attach statement from instructor/dept chair of existing course justifying the new offering.
Departmental Resources — List the resources that support the course and are
available only through the department, if applicable. Attach the list of the holdings
and the location/s.
Resources — List resources (other than library or departmental resources) that are
needed to support this course (computers, lab equipment, other technology, etc.).
Attach a complete list of all items and indicate possible sources or estimated cost of
each. List the sources of any needed funds.
Expenses — List additional expenses needed to implement this course (full-time or
part-time faculty, graduate or lab assistants, student employees, travel, special student costs, room renovation, storage facility, etc.). Attach a complete list of all items,
the estimated cost of each and the source of the funds.
Justification — Attach all documents referred to in Section II-2
Syllabus — Attach the syllabus for the course based upon the anticipated firstsemester offering.
Provide documentation for all additional attachments here
INSTRUCTIONS - WCC New Course Application
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120
V. Preliminary Approvals
All supporting documentation has been assembled and attached to this application. I believe this course
is ready to be presented to appropriate councils. We have a plan to fund this new course.
Primary Department
_____________________________
Department Chair
_____________________________
Dean of the College
___________________
Date
___________________
Date
Cross-listing Department
Add more lines if multiple departments are cross-listing
_____________________________
Department Chair
_____________________________
Registrar of the College
___________________
Date
___________________
Date
Cross-listing Department
Add more lines if multiple departments are cross-listing
_____________________________
Department Chair
_____________________________
Registrar of the College
___________________
Date
___________________
Date
INSTRUCTIONS - WCC New Course Application
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121
VI.Approvals
Place all approvals on one page.
A.Course ID: ________________
Course Title: ________________________________________________________
1. College Academic Dean Action: (for all courses)
Note: Insert additional lines for College Academic Council action for each college involved in cross-listed courses.
Approved ___
Denied___
______________________________
College Dean or Director
____________
Date
Approved ___
Denied___
______________________________
College Dean or Director
____________
Date
2. College Faculty Action:
For undergraduate level courses only
Approved ___
Denied ___
_________________________
Associate Provost
__________
Date
3. College Budget Action: (when applicable)
When applicable – see New Course Application Instructions
Approved ___
Denied ___
______________________________ ____________
Chair, College Budget Committee
Date
4. President of the College Action: (for all courses)
Approved ___Denied ___
___________________________
President
Date
Attach notes, comments, or conditions from appropriate councils:
INSTRUCTIONS - WCC New Course Application
_________
.
Stanley N. Helton
Serving God and His People
Appendix B: Invitation Letter
August 19, 2008
Dear Colleague or Student,
I would like to invite you to join me on my educational journey toward my Doctor of Ministry
degree. I am in the midst of writing a project thesis. The tentative title of the thesis is
TOTALLY DEVOTED: DEVELOPING A HOLISTIC SPIRITUAL
FORMATION COURSE FOR WESTERN CHRISTIAN COLLEGE
Here is how you can help me. Part of my project is to lead a team composed of faculty, staff, local ministers and students in a small group. This small group will participate in four spiritual formation activities and then meet in a small group following each activity to discuss the experience
of the activity. A court stenographer will record these discussion sessions. However, your identity
will not linked to your comments in the final thesis.
If you are willing to join me on this journey, you will be asked to sign a consent form. This is a
standard procedure in all projects that involve human subjects. However, there is minimal risk
involved in this project.
Please return your response to me by email no later than September 19, 2008. My email address
is shelton@westernchristian.ca should you need more information.
Thank you in advance for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Stanley N. Helton, MS, MDiv., DMin. (cand., 2009)
122
Appendix C: Informed Consent Form
INFORMED CONSENT FORM
Title of Project:
Principle Investigator:
Totally Devoted: Developing a Holistic Spiritual Formation Course for Western
Christian College
Stanley N. Helton
Abilene Christian University, Abilene, TX
Advisors: Drs. David Wray (primary) and Rodney Ashlock (secondary)
Introduction: I understand that I have been asked to participate on a team to develop a course in Christian spiritual
formation at the Western Christian College.
Purpose: The purpose of this project is to work with a team, consisting of faculty, staff, local ministers and students to
develop a proposal for a course in Christian spiritual formation. The project will encompass four experiential units
followed by group discussion. The resulting conversation will be transcribed (and audio recorded). These transcriptions
will then be analyzed for themes relevant to the formation of this class.
Procedures: This project will invite approximately six members, consisting of faculty, local ministers and students
chosen by the academic dean. The project will entail eight, one-hour sessions on days to be chosen, beginning on September, 25, 2008, and ending November 20, 2008. The purpose of this project is to work with a team, consisting of
faculty, staff, local ministers and students to develop a proposal for a course in Christian spiritual formation. Upon
signing this document, you understand that your opinions may be incorporated into this thesis including the resulting
syllabus and class resources.
Potential Risks: There are no identifiable risks to participants in this research study. All published participant quotations will remain anonymous.
Potential Benefits: Your participation may benefit you by: 1) providing space for you to think out your calling before
God; 2) enhancing relationships with other members of the team; and 3) assisting Dean Helton in creating a new class
for Western Christian College.
Compensation: There is no compensation for your participation in this research.
Rights of Research Participants: I have read the details above. Dean Helton has explained the nature of the group and
has answered my questions. He has informed me of the potential risks and benefits of participating in this research.
I understand that I do not have to participate in this research and can withdraw from this research project at any time.
I understand that all of the information I provide will remain confidential.
If I have any questions or concerns, I can contact Dean Helton by telephone at (306) 545-1515 or by email at shelton@westernchristian.ca.
Signature of Participant_________________________________.
Date ____________
Signature of Principle Investigator ________________________________.
123
Appendix D: Stenographer’s Certificate and Examples of Transcriptions
OFFICIAL QUEEN'S BENCH COURT REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE:
I, TWYLA GRIEVE, CSR, Official Queen's Bench Court
Reporter for the Province of Saskatchewan, hereby
certify that the foregoing pages contain a true and
correct transcription of my shorthand notes taken
herein to the best of my knowledge, skill and ability.
TWYLA GRIEVE, CSR
OFFICIAL QUEEN'S BENCH COURT REPORTER
124
125
Page 8
1
… fact that I always felt like I walked away
2
almost touching Jesus, those kind of -- and so
3
I, you know -- yeah, I think the case is that
4
for a class on spiritual formation, you want
5
to make that Christian service is a form of
6
spiritual formation but I would also think you
7
couldn't get far from saying that one who is
8
spiritually formed does Christian service.
9
And so do you have a theory
10
on which side you want to push?
11
D:
12
H:
13
D:
No.
Okay.
Very good.
Well, I mean the reason I
14
was asking, I guess one of the things I would
15
wonder is if we -- like, are we doing service
16
for service sake, to serve?
17
it because it's for spiritual formation?
18
Or are we doing
And so if you have a service
19
experience where you don't see Jesus, what do
20
you do?
21
H:
22
D:
23
H:
24
D:
25
26
Is there service -That's right.
Okay.
Was it still worth doing?
Yeah, I guess that's where I
was.
H:
What do you guys think?
126
Page 9
1
P:
I think that maybe it gets a
2
little bit twisted if you're serving because I
3
am supposed to get something out of it.
4
want to be spiritually formed so I'm going to
5
go do this.
6
I'm going to give.
7
H:
8
P:
9
11
I think your mindset needs to be
That's what serve is --
That's right.
-- is to do something for
someone else and not for me.
10
hand motions in there?
D:
12
I
Did you get my
I'm sorry.
Because I think there are
many nights when Blair doesn't see --
13
H:
14
P:
15
S:
16
H:
17
D:
No, no, that's right.
I agree.
-- doesn't see anything.
Exactly.
And a night when he is
18
struggling just to communicate a very basic
19
fundamental Christian attitude, message and so
20
I think that is probably spiritually forming
21
for him, but I don't think he's saying --
22
D:
23
D:
That's right.
-- oh, you know, this is
24
good spiritual formation stuff.
So we need to
25
be aware of that, that there will be many
26
experiences that are just there to give the …
Appendix E: Session Discussion Questions
TOTALLY DEVOTED: DEVELOPING A HOLISTIC SPIRITUAL
FORMATION COURSE FOR WESTERN CHRISTIAN COLLEGE
Praxis-Reflection Cycle 1: The Inner Life1
October 9, 2008
1. What was familiar (or something you assume should be a part of the Christian life) in
this experience?
2. What was unfamiliar or made you uncomfortable about this experience?
3. Where did you sense the presence of God in this experience?
4. What Scripture came to mind as you engaged in this activity?
5. What other spiritual practices should accompany activities such as this one?
6. Would you recommend this experience for students in a class on spiritual formation?
7. Does this activity connect with heart, soul, mind or body (strength)?
1
I used the same questionnaire for each session with only the session name and
date changed each time.
127
Appendix F: Final Group Questionnaire
TOTALLY DEVOTED: DEVELOPING A HOLISTIC SPIRITUAL
FORMATION COURSE FOR WESTERN CHRISTIAN COLLEGE
Final Questionnaire
December 6, 2008
1. Thinking back on all of our activities and discussion, what was the most important
aspect to you?
2. What did you find the least helpful?
3. Where did you sense the presence of God?
4. In what ways has this experience help you to become more like Christ?
5. When you think of loving God, do you love God most with your:
a. Heart
b. Soul
c. Mind
d. Strength
6. When you think of loving God, do you love God least with your:
a. Heart
b. Soul
c. Mind
d. Strength
7. Why do you think you answered question #5 and #6 the way you did?
8. If you were designing a course in Christian Spiritual formation, which features of
what we have done together would you consider to be a non-negotiable element to
such a class?
9. Do you have other observations or comments you would like to make?
128
Appendix G: Curricular Framework
Certificate in Biblical Studies – 09-10
(30 credits)
Program Outline
ID#:
Name:
Semester 1
TEO 233
Semester 2
Christian Spiritual Formation
BIB 113 OT Introduction I
BIB 133 OT Introduction II
BIB 143 NT Introduction I
BIB 153 NT Introduction II
REL 133 Christian Ministry
TEO 143 Christian Theology I
Biblical elective (OT or NT textual study)
Biblical elective (OT or NT textual study – option not taken in 1st
semester)
BIB/TEO/MIS/REL/YFM/LAN
elective
Christian Service unit
Christian Service unit
Please select elective courses for which you have the prerequisite or for which there are
no prerequisites.
129
130
The Bridge – 09-10
(30 credits)
Program Outline
ID#:
Name:
Semester 1
TEO 233
Semester 2
Christian Spiritual Formation
BIB 113 OT Introduction I
BIB 133 OT Introduction II
BIB 143 NT Introduction I
BIB 153 NT Introduction II
HIS 103 History of Western Civilization
TEO 143 Christian Theology I
REL 133 Christian Ministry
HIS 223 Church History II
ENG 103 Lit & Comp I
Christian Service unit
Christian Service unit
131
Two Year Degree Program
Associate of Arts in Religion
The 60-credit AAR harmonizes general studies classes with a biblical education and practical ministry experiences. After completion of the two-year program, the student will:
1. Demonstrate a foundational knowledge of the Scriptures and the major Christian doctrines.
2. Display foundational skills in Christian service and church leadership.
3. Display an introductory knowledge in several areas of general studies with emphasis on integrating biblical perspectives within those areas.
Requirements:
General Studies
COM113 – Intro to Communication
OR COM213 – Public Speaking
ENG103 – Literature & Composition I
ENG113 – Literature & Composition II
HIS103 – History of Western Civilization
HIS233 – Church History II
PSY113 – Intro to Psychology
OR SOC113 – Intro to Sociology
Math OR Science Elective
General Studies Electives
Professional
REL133 – Christian Ministry I
Open Electives
Elective
Elective
27
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
6
3
3
6
3
3
Biblical/Theological
BIB113 – OT Introduction I
BIB133 – OT Introduction II
BIB143 – NT Introduction I
BIB153 – NT Introduction II
TEO143 – Christian Theology I
TEO213 – Hermeneutics
OR REL223 – World and Folk Religions
TEO233 Christian Spiritual Formation
BIB/TEO Electives
Fieldwork (4 Units)
Christian Service units
24
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
[4]
Appendix H: Description of Encounter for WCC’s Calendar
Programs of Study
Two basic paths lead to all of Western Christian College’s advanced programs. Students
may take either a one-year Bible Certificate or the one-year Bridge Certificate. Supporting both is a spiritual formation module called Encounter. Encounter is a regimen
stretching across both semesters, and it is designed to help students develop habits, dispositions, and behaviours that will be the core of their entire spiritual lives. Encounter is
more than just a course; it is a core value, which will give direction and support to all the
other courses offered at Western Christian College. We believe spiritual formation needs
to be central in the lives of believers today.
Encounter rests on four core needs: examining self, experiencing God, exploring the
world, and engaging community. In so doing, this intense personal growth program prepares young people to face life’s challenges with the knowledge that their faith is strong
and well-grounded. Encounter is a community-building plan designed to keep Christian
young people Christian as well as helping them be useful in
reaching out to the
world around them.
It is also an essential
preparatory step for all graduating high school students who care about faith, helping
them transition into the future. Young adults in this program will find what they need to
move to additional education, or a career, or marriage, or family, or service in the church,
or whatever God has in store!1
1
2008-2009 Calendar of Western Christian College (Regina, SK: Future Print,
2008), 17.
132
Appendix I: Expert Evaluations
Assessment of Stan Helton’s TEO 233: Spiritual Formation Syllabus
The course description summarizes well what follows. The texts chosen for the course are
suitable for undergraduate students. Course objectives are clear but would benefit from
some further expression of how they might be fulfilled. (I am thinking about measurability here; not in a quantitative sense but certainly some examples might help. I.e.: So, how
will the course help a student to love the Lord his God with all his heart? What might that
look like?)
The assignments required provide a balanced approach to learning and cover a range of
intellectual, affective, and experiential tasks. I might suggest that a further assignment or
an element of an already existing assignment be added that engaged the student’s creative
and aesthetic sensibilities as a way of fostering an even more holistic approach to the
spiritual journey.
The course outline looks manageable and very well organized. The inclusion of the assignment column makes it clear to the student where the tasks fit in with the course content.
The bibliography is well developed. Perhaps it may be necessary to take some time to
review it with students as a means of pointing out some of the indispensible resources
that are there. (You might even want to put an asterisk beside those books that you just
can’t live without).
This is a well put together syllabus that, when fleshed out in the classroom, will provide
students with a great opportunity to learn much about the traditions of spiritual formation
within the Church while offering them experiences which will enrich their own journey
of faith. I can heartily recommend it.
Revd Dr Calum Macfarlane
Associate Professor of Spiritual Theology
Chaplain of the College
Briercrest College
510 College Drive
Caronport, SK S0H 0S0
(306) 756-3233
Email: cmacfarlane@briercrest.ca
133
134
TEO 233: Christian Spiritual Formation
Stan Helton, Project/Thesis for ACU
General Comments
Any time one evaluates a college syllabus, one must recognize that there are some inherent issues in the way such documents are written. They are often extremely general in
nature and really do not give a true reflection of what the course actually contains. The
vagueness is frustrating, because it is clear that there has been much thought put into the
course planning, but it is difficult to read that planning based simply on reading the syllabus. Because of that, it is this author’s strong opinion that students need much more than
are found in most syllabi, and this particular course outline is no exception.
Secondly, any course on Spiritual Development will always be somewhat vague. After
all, how does one reflect that the desire is to have students grow in their spiritual life?
Every student is at a different place spiritually, some really needing exposure, while others are looking for a very in-depth, challenging experience. The difference between a
sophomore and senior level class can be so different, but it will always start from where a
student is spiritually. Every professor will face the issue that student maturity is key
here. So when planning a course, one always has to plan for a much broader experience
level, vastly different than planning for a historical class or an information based class.
Thus it is important to stress that any comments I make do recognize that the difficulty of
designing or writing of a syllabus for this type of class is much more difficult than a normal class. It is clear that there has been much thought and planning put into this syllabus
and that many of the issues that I raise likely will be dealt with in the course document
and evaluation tools that might go with this syllabus. Having said all that, let me focus
on three specific areas: curriculum, assessment, and learning or experience outcomes for
the student.
Curriculum
The objectives are extremely vague. To say you want students to love God with all your
heart, mind, soul and strength is meaningless. How will you know if you have been successful? How do you know the starting point, let alone whether you have succeeded in
intensifying the relationship. What will you do that will move you to achieve this goal?
Compare this to your goal of having the student adopt in their own life the values of
Praxis, Theological Reflection and Articulation. This objective sets out a direction but
gives the student some intriguing hints of where the course will be taking him/her. Unfortunately, of the four stated objectives, really only one set some definite markers for
measuring success.
The goal of this course was to introduce students to the holistic understanding of and
models for practicing the spiritual disciplines. This would be accomplished by looking at
the traditions of Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants and Pentecostal believers. Or at least
that is what the reader is left to believe. The only problem was that there were no other
places this reader could find that showed how this was to be accomplished. There are
135
some hints in the bibliography, but the syllabus never actually seems to touch on this
goal.
There is an issue of scope that arises as well. Recognizing that the topic itself allows for
some degree of latitude, the syllabus does not focus the reader as to what those parameters are. Is this to be a class where one focuses strictly on prayer, study and character development through service? Or will there be a broader coverage that touches areas of
worship, philosophies , etc. By not having this clearly spelled out, the professor leaves
him or herself open to a very shallow course with no “meat” to it. Students, although
they might not admit it at the time, are looking for a course that gives them something to
focus on and that gives them some practical, life changing and mentally/spiritually challenging.
Much of the discussion on curriculum could be accomplished by simply giving a little
more detail to the section on the reading schedule. While that section certainly is useful
on its own, it could have been substantially more informative if the author had simply
included each week’s topic and a one or two line description of what the lecture/discussion/experience will focus on. Remember that one of the major functions of a
syllabus is to provide students with the “Key Messages” that they need to focus on during
the course. Clearly the readings are already setting a tone for the class, so give the student a hint of what might get covered. Tie the readings to the class.
Assessment.
As mentioned before, the methods of assessing levels of achievement for a class on spiritual development by the very nature of the course would be suspect. Does a student
“fail” if they don’t pray at least 20% more than they did before? How do you measure
love? What does “participating in the life of God” look like? It is not to say that the objectives in themselves are wrong, but how do you get an “A” vs. a “C” in this class? The
syllabus does give a grading component, but the difficulty will be in how the projects or
journaling are evaluated. Students need some clear direction. There are a number of assessment tools in the research community that can help in this area. For example, you
could include a rubric for journaling in the syllabus that gives examples of what different
levels of work look like or include. The same could be done for projects. It is well recognized that this type of course has a level of vagueness in the mark achieved, but there
needs to be some clear processes spelled out so a student understands how each grade
level is determined. Each objective should have some measurable achievements.
Finally, remembering that students often learn in different ways, and recognizing that this
is very much an experiential class, consider using some different tools for achieving your
goals. For example, students today often have some skills that we never dreamed of, often in the area of fine arts. You use projects and journaling, but what about allowing the
students to express themselves in an “alternate format” such as making a movie or creating a blogging site where they can share thoughts with each other. Remember that you
want them to use all their skills because it is when they apply their normal skills to a
spiritual projects, it applies theory to practice.
136
Learning Environment
This is hard to comment on due to the vagueness of the syllabus. It is more than likely
that a majority of the audience taking a sophomore level class is in their late teens or
early twenties. They are still very much in the transition between directed learning that
they received in high school (where the teacher will have given them most of the material
and told them how to process it) and the adult learning style which is best described as
experiential learning (the student compares what is being taught with what he/she has experienced in life). Thus it is important that the course clearly have some directed learning
elements built into the activities. The grading seems to indicate that this is happening,
but also raises a concern. If we examine the idea of 40 days of prayer for example, an
unstructured assignment here will often leave the student not knowing what to look for,
or what the experience should be. They have no way to tell if they are making progress.
But if, as I suspect the plan is, the 40 days include some very specific thoughts or things
to focus on, you meet this group of students very well and they get a significant growth
opportunity out of the class. The same could be said for the reading. If the idea is just to
give them a specific passage to read each day, they will do that. But if you have them
then reflect back what they have heard from God and what they said to God in response,
you bring a whole new perspective. If you further have those 40 days being guide to
readings of how a particular bible servant grew….well it would add another level of
complexity and experience….in other words, putting some meat on the experience.
Overall, it is tough to evaluate this syllabus, because it just doesn’t give enough information for the reader to judge it effectively. Indications are that much of what has been discussed is actually in the class material, and many of the thought expressed are hinted at in
the syllabus. It is the nature of a syllabus to be general, making the evaluation of the
course harder. As long as there is lots of “meat” for the student to chew on and leading
experiences to have them confront some of the material, then this class could be extremely successful. I wish the instructor well.
Murray Sanders
Superintendent of Schools (Retired)
Prairie Valley Schools
Regina, Saskatchewan Canada
Appendix J: Christian Spiritual Formation Course Syllabus
Western Christian College
TEO 233: Christian Spiritual Formation
Fall and Winter Semester 2009-2010
College Mission Statement
In partnership with the Churches of Christ, WCC exists to equip disciples through Christian higher education, spiritual formation, and ministry experiences to be active Christian
servant leaders.
Course Description
This course exposes students to the full range of teaching and practices as contained in
the Christian traditions (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and Pentecostal). The goal of this
course is to introduce students to the holistic understanding of and models for practicing
the spiritual disciplines.
Professor’s Personal Information
Stanley N. Helton, MS, MDiv, DMin (Cand.)
Office: Dean’s Office
Phone: (306) 545-1515, ext. 501 (w); (306) 565-2896 (h)
Email: shelton@westernchristian.ca; snhelton@gmail.com
Textbooks
The Holy Bible (New International Version). The student may use other translations for
their reading.
Kenneth Boa, Conformed to His Image: Biblical and Practical Approaches to Spiritual
Formation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001).
Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1998).
William Young, The Shack (Newbury Park, CA: Windblown Media, 2007).
Other readings as the professor determines.
137
138
Course Objectives
At the end of the course, it is my prayer that you will
Ø Love the Lord your God
o With all your heart
o With all your soul
o With all your mind
o With all your strength (body)
Ø Love your neighbors (and enemies) as you love yourself.
Ø Experience Christian spiritual formation as something that moves from
o The individual to
o The Body of Christ to
o The World.
Ø That you will adopt in your own life the values of
o Praxis
o Theological Reflection
o Articulation
Ø Develop lifelong habits and dispositions that will allow you more readily to participate in the life of God.
Textbook Objectives
In Confirmed to His Image (16), Boa sets out these outcomes for his text:
Ø
Ø
Ø
Ø
Ø
develop a greater appreciation for the unique way God has made you
become aware of a wider array of options for your spiritual journey
get out of a possible spiritual rut
desire to experiment with other facets of the faith
appreciate the manifold legacy that has been bequeathed to us by those who have
gone before
Ø expand your horizons and be encouraged to move out of your comfort zone
Ø have instilled in you a greater passion for Christ and a greater desire to participate
in his loving purposes for your life
Class Meeting Times
This class will meet once a week for theological reflection and learning. We will meet on
Monday evenings from 6:00 to 7:30. Other times may be required for special opportunities.
Course Work Requirements
1. Participation1
1.1 Since this is an experiential course, it is very important for you to be engaged
in the material. Stay connected to God and the other students throughout.
1
Some of the language here belongs to Kevin Vance, the president of Western
Christian College. Kevin and I team taught an earlier class in Christian spiritual formation.
139
1.2 You may go through spiritual highs and sinful lows, as well as emotionally
dry times (deserts), but try to keep an even keel. The spiritual masters advise
that fluctuations in emotion and experience are normal. Spirituality is about
faithfulness and obedience in all kinds of circumstances. As one person has
said, the acid test of the Holy Spirit is not how high he makes you jump, but
how straight he makes you walk.
1.3 I would like you to feel comfortable to participate fully in class by describing
your experiences and what you have learned. I also want to create an atmosphere where we can share in deeper ways what God is doing in our lives.
1.4 Please note that participation in class does not necessarily equal talking. People can participate without talking (listening attentively, taking notes), and
talk without participating (talk without thinking or engaging with God and
each other). Speaking is certainly one indication of participation, but not the
only.
2. Reading:
2.1 Read the textbook as scheduled below
2.2 Read the book Celebration of Discipline. See the course schedule for dates.
2.3 Read two noteworthy Christian Classics related to Christian spiritual formation. (One each semester)
2.3.1 Find possible books at http://www.ccel.org/index/practical.html
2.3.2 Another source is Richard Fosters, Devotional Classics: Selected
Readings for Individuals and Groups (San Francisco: Harper, 1993).
3. Journaling (See Rubric).
3.1 Forty Days of Prayer (1/2 page each)
3.2 Forty Days in the Word (1/2 page each)
3.3 Responses to “Questions for Personal Application” in Boa
4. Reflection:
4.1 Each student will write a three-page reflection on each of the following:
4.1.1 Celebration of Discipline.
4.1.2 Any two Spiritual Classics approved by the professor (One each semester)
4.1.3 Write a reading note on each. The student will write a reading note on
several primary sources. Reading notes are a method of helping you
assess what you have read. The format of a reading response is as follows:
4.1.3.1 It is typed and double-spaced on a single page;
4.1.3.2 Provide a title and place your name at the top of the page;
4.1.3.3 Aim for about 250-300 words of text (no more than a typed page);
4.1.3.4 The reading responses identify a specific theme emerging from the
documents and critically discusses the theme you have identified.
Your emphasis should be upon analysis and not narration or summary;
4.1.3.5 Reading responses are due as scheduled in the syllabus.
140
4.2 Experiential components (see schedule below)
4.2.1 Societal Regeneration
4.2.1.1 Participate for a day in any social justice ministry of your choosing
4.2.1.2 Share in your discussion group how this affected you
4.2.2 Theological Renewal
4.2.2.1 Read the novel, The Shack
4.2.2.2 In your group explore the theology of the novel
4.2.3 Inner Life Transformation
4.2.3.1 Weekend Retreat at St. Michael’s in Lumden, SK
4.2.3.2 Journal about what you experience over the weekend
4.2.4 Personal Renewal
4.2.4.1 Attend Worship Event at YC (Edmonton)
4.2.4.2 In your group explore the impact of the worship experience on you
5. Final Project: Pending
Marking
1. Class participation
2. Readings
3. Journaling
4. Reflection Papers
5. Final Project
15%
25%
20%
10%
30%
141
Schedule
Semester One
Facet
1
2
Topic
(Boa Reading)
Relational Spirituality
Loving God Completely
Loving Ourselves Correctly
Loving Other Compassionately
Paradigm Spirituality
Celebration
Reading
Intro
Assignment Due
Part One
Societal Regeneration Experience
Life is a Journey
Can We Trust God?
3
4
5
Reflection Group on Societal Regeneration
Disciplined Spirituality
Dependence and Discipline
What are the Spiritual Disciplines?
Exchanged Life Spirituality
Grasping Our True Identity
God’s Plan to Meet our Needs
Theological Renewal Experience
Motivated Spirituality
Why Do We Do What We Do?
Love, Gratitude, and Rewards
Identity, Purpose and Hope…
6
Devotional Spirituality
Our Image of God
The Contemplative Way
The Practice of Sacred Reading
Falling in Love with God
Part Two
Reflection Group on Theological Renewal
First Spiritual Classic Due
142
Semester Two
Facet
7
8
Topic
(Boa Reading)
Holistic Spirituality
The Centrality of Christ
An Integrated Life
Relationships, Work, and Society
Stewardship and Purpose
Celebration
Reading
Assignment Due
Inner Life Transformation
Experience
Process Spirituality
Process versus Product
Being versus Doing
Trust, Gratitude, and Contentment
9
10
11
Reflection Group on Inner
Life Transformation
Spirit-Filled Spirituality
Walking In the Power of the
Spirit
The Gifts of the Spirit
Openness and Discernment: A
Balance
Warfare Spirituality
Warfare with the Flesh and the
World
Warfare with the Devil and His
Angels
The Weapons of Our Warfare
Personal Renewal Experience
Nurturing Spirituality
A Philosophy of Discipleship
The Process, Product, and Context…
A Philosophy of Evangelism
Overcoming Barriers to Evangelism
12
Corporate Spirituality
The Need for Community
The Nature and Purpose of the
Church
Soul Care, Leadership. Accountability, and Renewal
Part Three
Reflection Group on Personal Renewal
143
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adam, Peter. Hearing God’s Words: Exploring Biblical Spirituality. New Studies in Biblical Theology 16. Edited by D. A. Carson. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press,
2004.
Allen, C. Leonard, The Cruciform Church: Becoming a Cross-Shaped People in a Secular World. 2nd ed. Abilene, TX: ACU Press, 1990.
——— and Danny Gray Swick. Participating in God’s Life: Two Crossroads for
Churches of Christ. Orange, CA: New Leaf Books, 2001.
Averbeck, Richard E. “Spirit, Community, and Mission: A Biblical Theology for Spiritual Formation.” Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care 1.1. (2008): 2753.
Bibby, Reginald W. Canadian Teens: Today, Yesterday, and Tomorrow. Toronto: Irwin,
2001.
Boa, Kenneth. Conformed to His Image: Biblical and Practical Approaches to Spiritual
Formation. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001.
Bonhoeffer, Deitrich. The Cost of Discipleship. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing
Company, 1963.
———. Life Together. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 1954.
Bowie, Barbara E. Biblical Foundations of Spirituality: Touching a Finger to the Flame.
Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003.
Brueggemann, Walter. The Spirituality of the Psalms. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002.
Calhoun, Adele Ahlberg. Spiritual Discipline Handbook: Practices That Transform Us.
Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2005.
Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Available at www.ccel.org.
Collins, Kenneth J., ed. Exploring Christian Spirituality: An Ecumenical Reader. Grand
Rapids: Baker, 2000.
Cotter, David W., ed. The Rule of Benedict. Translated by Leonard J. Doyle. Collegeville,
MN: Liturgical Press, 2001.
Cymbala, Jim. Fresh Faith: What Happens when Real Faith Ignites God’s People. Grand
Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999.
———. Fresh Power: Experiencing the Vast Resources of the Spirit of God. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2001.
———. Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God’s Spirit Invades the Hearts
of His People. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1997.
Dawn, Marva. Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting Embracing, Feasting.
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989.
Fee, Gordon. God’s Empowering Presence. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers:
1994.
144
———. Gospel and Spirit, Issues in New Testament Hermeneutics. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers: 1991.
———, Listening to the Spirit in the Text. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000.
———. Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers:
1996.
Foster, Richard J. Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1998.
———. The Challenge of the Disciplined Life: Christian Reflections on Money, Sex &
Power. New York: Harper & Row, 1985.
———. Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1992.
Gannon, Thomas M., and George W. Traub. The Desert & The City: An Interpretation of
the History of Christian Spirituality. Chicago, IL: Loyola University Press, 1969.
Green, Michael and R. Paul Stevens. New Testament Spirituality. Surrey: Eagle, 1994.
Guenther, Margaret. Holy Listening: The Art of Spiritual Direction. Boston, MS: Cowley
Publications, 1992.
Holmes III, Urban T. A History of Christian Spirituality: An Analytical Introduction.
Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 2002.
Howard, Evan B. The Brazos Introduction to Christian Spirituality. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2008.
Job, Reuben P. A Guide to Retreat for All God’s Shepherds. Nashville, TN: Abingdon
Press, 1994.
——— and Norman Shawchuck. A Guide to Prayer for All God’s People. Nashville, TN:
Upper Room Books, 1990.
Keating, Thomas. Foundations for Centering Prayer and the Christian Contemplative
Life. New York and London: Continuum, 2002.
Kierkegaard, Søren. Purity of Heart Is to Will the One Thing. N.P.: Wilder Publications,
2008.
Koenig, John. Rediscovering New Testament Prayer: Boldness and Blessing in the Name
of Jesus. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1992.
McGinn, Bernard. ‘The Letter and the Spirit: Spirituality as an Academic Discipline.’
Christian Spirituality Bulletin 1.2. (Fall 1993): 1-10.
McGrath, Alister E. Christian Spirituality: An Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell,
1999.
———. Christian Theology: An Introduction. 3rd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001.
———. The Journey: A Pilgrim in the Land of the Spirit. New York: Doubleday, 2000.
McKnight, Scot. The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others. Brewster, MA: Paraclete
Press, 2004.
145
McQuiston, John. Always We Begin Again: The Benedictine Way of Living. Harrisburg,
PA: Morehouse, 1996.
Merton, Thomas. The Wisdom of the Desert. New York: New Directions, 1960.
Mulholland, M. Robert, Jr. Invitation to a Journey. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity
Press, 1993.
———. Shaped by the Word: The Power of Scripture in Spiritual Formation. Nashville:
Upper Room, 2000.
Mursell, Gordon, ed. The Story of Christian Spirituality: Two Thousand Years from East
to West. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001.
Noll, Mark A. What Happened to Christian Canada. Vancouver, BC: Regents College
Publishing, 2007. Originally published in Church History 75 (June 2006): 245-73.
Nouwen, Henri. In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership. New York:
Crossroads, 1993.
Palmer, Parker J. To Know as We are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey. New
York: HarperCollins, 1993.
Peterson, Eugene H. Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual
Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005.
———. Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2006.
———. The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007.
———. Take and Read: Spiritual Reading: An Annotated List. Vancouver, BC: Regent
College Publishing, 1996.
———. Tell it Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in his Stories and
Prayers. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008.
———. The Wisdom of Each Other: A Conversation Between Spiritual Friends. Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1998.
Philip Sheldrake, Spirituality and History: Questions of Interpretation and Method. New
York: Crossroad, 1992.
Powell, Samuel M. and Michael E. Lodahl, eds. Embodied Holiness: Toward a Corporate Theology of Spiritual Growth. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999.
Principe, Walter. “Toward Defining Spirituality.” Studies in Religion 12.2 (1983): 12741.
Rolheiser, Ronald. The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality. New
York: Doubleday, 1999.
Sager, Allen H. Gospel-Centered Spirituality. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1990.
Sheldrake, Philip. Spirituality and History: Questions of Interpretation and Method. New
York: Crossroad, 1992.
146
Smith, Gordon T. Essential Spirituality. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1994.
Thomas, Gary. Sacred Pathways: Discover Your Soul’s Path to God. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 2002.
Thompson, Marjorie J. Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life. Louisville and London: Westminster John Knox, 1995.
Tozer, A. W. The Pursuit of God. Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, Inc., 1982.
Webber, Robert E. The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life. Grand
Rapids: Baker, 2006.
Wilhoit, James C. Spiritual Formation as if the Church Mattered: Growing in Christ
through Community. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008.
Willard, Dallas. The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God. San
Francisco: HarperCollins, 1998.
———. Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God. Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999.
———. Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ. Colorado Springs:
NavPress, 2002.
———. The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives. New
York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 1988.
Appendix K: Assignments
40 Days around the Word
q
Matt 1-7
q
Acts 16-20
q
Matt 8-12
q
Acts 21-16
q
Matt 13-18
q
Acts 27-Rom 4
q
Matt 19-24
q
Rom 5-10
q
Matt 25-28
q
Rom 11-1 Cor 1
q
Mark 1-6
q
1 Cor 2-9
q
Mark 7-11
q
1 Cor 10-15
q
Mark 12-16
q
1 Cor 16- 2 Cor 9
q
Luke 1-4
q
2 Cor 10-Gal 4
q
Luke 5-9
q
Gal 5 - Phil 1
q
Luke 10-13
q
Phil 2 - 1 Thes 2
q
Luke 14-19
q
1 Thes 3 - 1 Tim 5
q
Luke 20-24
q
1 Tim 6 - Heb 1
q
John 1-5
q
Heb 2 - 10
q
John 6-9
q
Heb 11- James 5
q
John 10-14
q
1 Pet 1 -1 John 1
q
John 15-19
q
1 John 2 - Jude
q
John 20 - Acts 4
q
Rev 1-7
q
Acts 5-9
q
Rev 8-15
q
Acts 10-15
q
Rev 16-22
147
148
40 Days of Prayer
Day
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
Prayer
Abraham’s prayer for Sodom
Jacob’s prayer for mercy from Esau
Moses’ prayer at the burning bush
Moses’ praise after the Red Sea Crossing
Moses’ first prayer for Israel’s Sin
Moses’ second prayer for Israel’s Sin
Moses’ prayer for God’s presence
Moses’ prayer for discouragement
Moses’ prayer after the people rebelled
Moses’ 40-day prayer
Joshua’s prayer in defeat
Hannah’s prayer for a child
Hannah’s’ prayer of thanks
David’ prayer of praise for God’s kingdom
David praise for deliverance
Solomon’s prayer for wisdom
Solomon’s prayer to dedicate the temple
Elijah’s prayer of self-pity
Hezekiah’s prayer for deliverance
Hezekiah’s prayer for healing
David’s prayer for praise
David’s prayer at the people’s generosity
Jehoshaphat’s prayer in a crisis
Ezra’ prayer for the nation’s sins
Nehemiah’ prayer for Jerusalem’s plight
David’s prayer at his son’s rebellion
David’s prayer of praise
David’ prayer for a pure heart
David’s prayer to His Shepherd
David’s prayer for forgiveness
David’s prayer for guidance
Isaiah’s prayer for mercy
Jeremiah’s praise of God’s wisdom
Daniel’ prayer of confession
Habakkuk’s prayer of praise
The Lord’s Prayer
Jesus’ prayer for his disciples
The church’s prayer for boldness
Paul’s prayer for the church
Prayers of worship in Heaven
Text
Gen 18.20-33
Gen 32.6-12
Ex 3.1-4.18
Ex 15.1-18
Ex 32.7-14
Ex 32.30-34
Ex 33.12-34.9
Num 11.10-30
Num 14.10-20
Deut 9.18-20; 9.25-29
Josh 7.3-13
1Sam 1.1-20
1Sam 2.1-10
2Sam 7.18-29
2Sam 22.1-51
1Kings 3.4-15 || 2Chron 1.5-12
1Kings 8.22-61
1Kings 19.9-18
2Kings 19.14-19
2Kings 20.1-6
1Chron 17.16-27
1Chron 29.10-20
2Chron 20.1-23
Ezra 9.3-10.4
Nehemiah 1.3-11
Psalm 3
Psalm 8
Psalm 19
Psalm 23
Psalm 51
Psalm 139
Isaiah 64.1-12
Jeremiah 32.17-27
Daniel 9.4-19
Hab 3.1-19
Matt 6.9-15
John 17
Acts 4.23-31
Eph 1.15-23; 3.14-21
Rev 11.15-19; 15.1-4; 16.5-7
Western Christian College
TEO 233: Spiritual Formation
First Quiz over Conformed to His Image
Terms. After each word, write a brief definition or descriptions:
1. Apophatic
2. Contemplation
3. Exchanged Life
4. Kataphatic
5. Lectio Divina
6. Meditation
7. Mysticism
8. Paradigm
9. Spirituality
10. Spiritual discipline
149
150
Multiple Choice. In each of the questions below, mark the best answer and then write
out the letter of the best answer in the space to the left of the options.
11. Which of the following is not a goal or outcome of Boa’s Conformed to His Image?
a. get out of a possible spiritual rut
b. desire to experiment with other
facets of the faith
c. appreciate the manifold legacy that
has been bequeathed to us by those
who have gone before
d. develop lifelong habits and dispositions that will allow you more readily to participate in the life of God.
e. All of the above
12. Which of Boa’s twelve facets is most likely
to deal with loving other correctly?
a. Relational spirituality
b. Paradigm spirituality
c. Disciplined spirituality
d. Exchanged life spirituality
13. Which of Boa’s twelve facets is most likely
to deal knowing the difference between the
temporal and the eternal?
a. Relational spirituality
b. Paradigm spirituality
c. Disciplined spirituality
d. Exchanged life spirituality
14. Which of Boa’s twelve facets is most likely
to discuss historic spiritual disciplines?
a. Relational spirituality
b. Paradigm spirituality
c. Disciplined spirituality
d. Exchanged life spirituality
15. Which of Boa’s twelve facets is most likely
related to biblical incentives?
a. Disciplined spirituality
b. Exchanged life spirituality
c. Motivated spirituality
d. Devotional spirituality
16. Which of Boa’s twelve facets is most likely
to explore falling in love with God?
a. Disciplined spirituality
b. Exchanged life spirituality
c. Motivated spirituality
d. Devotional spirituality
17. Which of Boa’s twelve facets is most likely
to contrast being with doing?
a. Motivated spirituality
b. Devotional spirituality
c. Holistic spirituality
d. Process spirituality
18. Which of Boa’s twelve facets is most likely
to deal with the empowerment of the Holy
Spirit?
a. Holistic spirituality
b. Process spirituality
c. Spirit-filled spirituality
d. Warfare spirituality
19. Which of Boa’s twelve facets is most likely
to deal temptation and the Devil?
a. Holistic spirituality
b. Process spirituality
c. Spirit-filled spirituality
d. Warfare spirituality
20. Which of Boa’s twelve facets is most likely
to treat the need for community?
a. Spirit-filled spirituality
b. Warfare spirituality
c. Nurturing spirituality
d. Corporate spirituality
21. Loving God completely involves our whole
personality which includes
a. Our intellect
b. Our emotion
c. Our will
d. All of the above
22. Citing Gordon McDonald, Boa notes there
are five types of people; which of the following can drain the life out of you?
a. VRP
b. VIP
c. VTP
d. VNP
e. VDP
23. Which of the following items belongs the to
the temporal paradigm of life?
a. Knowing God
b. Humility
c. Power
d. Integrity
151
24. Which of the following items belongs the to
the eternal paradigm of life?
a. Pleasure
b. Power
c. Fulfillment
d. Delusion
25. Which of the following disciplines is a discipline of abstinence?
a. Witness
b. Service
c. Worship
d. Solitude
26. Which of the following discipline is not a
discipline of engagement
a. Study
b. Silence
c. Meditation
d. Prayer
27. Which spiritual discipline in the centerpiece
for all the others?
a. Study
b. Silence
c. Meditation
d. Prayer
28. Which of the following is not a component
of lectio divina as discussed by Boa?
a. Meditatio
b. Reflectio
c. Oratio
d. Contemplatio
29. When Boa speaks of “exchanged life” spirituality, he is essentially talking about
a. The substitution of Christ’s life for
self-life
b. The reality of a new identity
through the in-Christ experience
c. Our identification with the death,
burial and resurrection of Jesus
d. How Christ is the basis of our salvation and our sanctification
e. All of the Above
f. Only a and c above
30. Which of the following is/are one of the
seven motivators for following Christ in
Scripture?
a. Love and gratitude
b. Rewards
c. Longing for God
d. Fear
e. All of the above
f. None of the above
31. Which of the following is/are one of the four
area of rewards.
a. Greater responsibility in the kingdom
b. Reflecting the glory and character
of God
c. Our relationship with people in
heaven
d. Our capacity to know and experience God
e. All of the above
f. None of the above
32. Which of the following is not an enemy of
spiritual passion?
a. Focused intention
b. Unresolved areas of disobedience
c. Loving truth more than Christ
d. A merely functional relationship
33. Which of the following is not a source of
spiritual passion?
a. Complacency
b. Sitting at Jesus’ feet
c. Imitating the Master
d. Maturing in trust
152
True or False
34. T or F
35. T or F
36. T or F
37. T or F
38. T or F
39. T or F
40. T or F
41. T or F
Christian spiritual formation is primarily about self-improvement.
Spirituality in New Testament terms is about connecting with the Spirit of
God.
The temporal and the eternal perspectives are competing paradigms of life.
Informational reading sees the text as a subject that shapes us.
Formation reading see the text as an object to use.
The “contemplative way” is about knowing ourselves better.
Meditative prayer might be described as “talking to Jesus.”
Contemplative prayer might be described as “entering into the prayer of
Jesus.”
Fill-in the Blanks
42. In which quadrant would you find feeding the homeless? _______________
43. In which quadrant would you put taking theology class? _______________
44. In which quadrant would you find having a
dream in which you talk with Jesus?
_______________
45. In which quadrant would you find singing
“Light the Fire?” _______________
46. In which quadrant would you find freeing
slaves in a African country?
_______________
47. In which quadrant would you put preparing to
teach a Bible study on OT History?
_______________
48. In which quadrant would you deal with personal morality? _______________
49. In which quadrant would you expect to “experience God.” _______________
50. Bonus Point: In which quandrant(s) would
you locate prayer? _______________
Appendix L: Classroom Assessment Tools and Assignment Rubrics
BRAMER-HOLMES SPIRITUALITY TYPE INDICATOR
This purpose of this exercise is to give you a sense of what spirituality style you personally prefer (according to one model'), and what seems to characterize your church. It is
not a test and there are no right or wrong answers.
Instructions: Read each set of four statements in section A. Circle the statement which
best describes your own strongest preference. In many cases, you will "like" a number or
all of the options, but try to choose your strongest preference. However, you may select
none, more than one, or "double" circle one. Do the same for each of the next sets of
statements. You do not have to do all the questions.1
A. For me, spirituality consists primarily of
1. using my intellect to comprehend what God has revealed.
2. responding to God and God's Word with my heart.
3. practicing the presence of God while recognizing the mystery of God.
4. joining the work of God to restore society.
B. The kind of prayer I most value is
1. thoughtful prayer, often working out in my mind the kind of God I believe
in.
2. passionate prayer, including adoration, confession of sins, and supplication.
3. contemplative prayer, letting go of thoughts and just "be-ing" before God.
4. prayer with social conscience, leading to acts of mercy and justice.
1
These questions have been designed by Paul D. G. Bramer, based on the typology of Urban T. Holmes III in A History of Christian Spirituality: An Analytic Introduction (New York: The Seabury Press, 1980) and influenced by two other indicators based
on this typology: Allan H. Sager, Gospel-Centered Spirituality: An Introduction to Our
Spiritual Journey (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1990) and Corinne Ware, Discover Your
Spiritual Type: A Guide to Individual and Congregational Growth (Bethesda, MD: The
Alban Institute, 1995). Special thanks goes to Dr. Calum McFarlane who made me aware
of these instruments.
153
154
C. I prefer worship services with an emphasis on
1. reasoned sermons and hymns of substance.
2. passionate sermons and heartfelt songs and hymns.
3. silence, and a recognition of the mystery of God.
4. examples and discussions of how we can help in God's work in the world.
D. I find valuable for my life the spiritual disciplines of
1. studying the Bible and theological thought and discussion.
2. abstaining from activities which may compromise my faith, having daily
devotions, sharing my faith, and doing good to others.
3. solitude, fasting, simplicity, and counsel from a spiritual director.
4. political involvement. social action, reflecting on our political structures
and history.
E. I am drawn to support those organizations which tend mostly to:
1. teach people, promote scholarship, publish Christian literature,
2. proclaim the gospel through evangelism, missions, radio, etc.
3. proved places of retreat, spiritual direction,
4. feed the poor, fight for justice, promote reconciliation.
F. I am more likely to be criticized for being
1. too intellectual, dogmatic, "dry" and concerned with logically working out
my faith.
2. too concerned with the feeling side of my relationship with God, trying
hard to be in good fellowship with God.
3. waiting for God to do it, not taking enough initiative myself, or not being
realistic.
4. too moralistic or too hard on myself or others in order to help others.
G. I believe that the way to closeness with God is:
1. through studying and reflecting upon God's message to the world.
2. through trusting God and obeying his Word.
3. through being still and knowing God in the mystery and the silence.
4. through becoming co-creators with God's hidden work to make the world
work right.
H. I am especially motivated by the desire for
1. Truth.
2. Obedience to God.
3. Mystical sense of God's presence in me and all things.
4. Peace and justice for others.
Instructions: Add up all the 1's you have circled (add extra for any times you put a double
circle on "1"), On the 'Phenomenology of Prayer' circle, draw spokes from the center to
the perimeter within quadrant #1. Do the same for #2, 3, and 4.
155
The 2006 Wycliffe Adolescent Spirituality Course
adaptation of the Bramer-Holmes Spirituality type indicator2
A. Connecting with God is
1.
using my brain to understand what God is all about
2.
feeling God and God's Word in my heart
3.
being with God without seeing God
4.
helping God make the world a better place
B. When I pray I really like to:
1.
think about who God is
2.
talk to God about my problems, speak of my love for God, ask for forgiveness, pour out my feelings to God
3.
sit quietly and listen for God
4.
to do something active for my community and my world
C. I like Church best when:
1.
The sermons make me think and the songs teach me
2.
The sermons challenge and inspire me and the songs move me emotionally
3.
We get to be quiet and feel God's presence
4.
We get to help others in practical ways
D. What helps me grow most in my walk with God is:
1.
Studying the Bible and talking about it with others
2.
Avoiding doing what I know is wrong, reading the bible and telling
others about God
3.
Spending time alone with God or with a trusted mentor listening to
God
4.
Participating in events and activities that try to improve the lives of
others and God's creation
E. I would be most likely to volunteer for:
1.
An organization that promotes the truth of Christianity and gets people
thinking
2.
An organization that shares the message of Jesus Christ (through the
media and mission work) and invites people to respond
3.
An organization that provides a quiet place for people to reflect on
God
4.
An organization that feeds the poor and fights against injustice
2
For the syllabus, see http://www.wycliffecollege.ca/documents/Syllabus%20%20Adolescent%20Spirituality%20(WYP2201).pdf (accessed 20 February 2009).
156
F. Friends who know me well would most likely get after me for:
1.
Spending too much time 'thinking' about issues in the bible and in the
Church
2.
Getting over-excited when I talk about God and wearing my feelings
on my shirtsleeve
3.
Waiting to long for God to do stuff and not stepping up myself
4.
Being too critical of those who don't live out their faith in an active
way
G. I am closest to God when:
1.
I am studying God's word and thinking about God's message to the
2.
world
3.
I am trusting God and obeying the bible
4.
I am sitting quietly in God's presence
5.
I am helping God make the world a better place
H. I get really excited about:
1.
Discovering God's truth
2.
Exploring God's will for my life
3.
Resting in the mystery of God's presence in me and everything around
me
4.
Joining with God in bringing his peace and justice to others
157
Journal Writing Rubric3
(Sample)
CATEGORY
1
2
Introduction No attempt was First paragraph
made to catch
the reader’s
attention in the
first paragraph.
Organization Ideas and
scenes seem to
be randomly
arranged.
3
4
A catchy beginning was
attempted but
was confusing
rather than
catchy.
First paragraph
has a “grabber”
or catchy beginning.
The journal
entry is a little
hard to follow.
The transitions
are sometimes
not clear.
The journal
entry is pretty
well organized.
One idea or
scene may seem
out of place.
Clear transitions are used.
The journal
entry is very
well organized.
One idea or
scene follows
another in a
logical sequence with
clear transitions.
has a weak
“grabber”.
Requirements
Many requirements were not
met.
Most (about
75%) of the
written requirements
were met, but
several were
not.
Almost all
(about 90%) of
the written
requirements
were met.
All of the written requirements (date,
length, effort,
salutation, answering questions) were
met.
Comprehension
The reader can
understand
little of what I
am trying to
communicate.
The reader can
understand less
than half of
what I am trying to communicate.
The reader can
understand
most of what I
am trying to
communicate.
The reader can
understand all
of what I am
trying to communicate.
Created by Laurie Gatzke, 2003
3
See sample rubrics at http://web.rbe.sk.ca/assessment/Rubrics (accessed 20 February 2009).
158
Journals are not marked for mechanics, because these are places that the student is practising
their language skills. Without a place to practise, risk-taking is inhibited. If a journal entry is
polished as a written piece in another context, then the following scale for spelling could apply:
Spelling
and Punctuation
• There are
• There are five • There are
• There are one
more than ten
to ten spelling
three to five
or two spellspelling and
and punctuaspelling and
ing errors or
punctuation
tion errors.
punctuation
punctuation
errors
• Common
errors.
errors.
• Common
spelling pat• All but com- • Even complex
spelling patterns are acplex or soor sophistiterns are miscepatable.
phisticated
cated spelling
spelled.
• Mechanics
spelling patpatterns are
• Mechanics
occasionally
terns are well
well handled.
interfere with
interrupt the
handled.
• Mechanics
comprehenreaders’ atten- • Mechanics are
enhance comsion
tion on connot noticed by
prehension.
tent.
reader.
159
Assessment of Reading Responses Rubric (Sample)
Personal
Response
Critical
Response
Writer’s
Craft
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
• Expresses
tangential
comments or
keys from a
minor detail or
less significant
element of text
to offer superficial, trivial
comments
o Minor detail
o Minor connection
o Too thin
o Vague or
barely relevant phrase
o Rambles off
the mark
• Expresses
tangential
comments or
keys from a
minor detail or
less significant
element of text
to offer superficial, trivial
comments
o Misinterpretation
o Minor detail
o Minor connection
o Too thin
o Vague or
barely relevant phrase
o Rambles off
the mark
• Doesn’t distinguish personal
from critical
response or
from author’s
intent
• Reaction to
text is couched
in explicit plot
summary
• Some elaboration of or support for personal response
• Restructuring
the information within the
text into your
own words
• Superficial,
overgeneralized or surface
connection between an element of text
and personal
life
• Logical con• Logical, innections to
sightful, spepersonal life
cific connec• Connections to
tions to own
both personal
life, general life
life and to
of community,
larger issues
peers, and
such as life of
other literature.
community,
• Conclusions
peers or other
leading to reliterature
flection, action
or advocacy
Level 4
Level 5
• Reaction to
text is couched
in explicit plot
summary
• Limited and
perhaps biased
judgement
about text
• Questioning
text to identify
issues within it
• Common
viewpoint affirmed
• Tentative
• Critical disthinking—
tance gives a
consideration
broader, more
of multiple
objective view
possibilities of • Relatively
meaning
sophisticated
• (May have
viewpoint athesitant voice)
tending to sig• Questioning of
nificant eleauthor’s intent,
ments of text
moral stance
such as
themes, motifs
or symbols
• Simple statement of
judgement
• Keys on one
discrete element of text
for opinions
• Shows an understanding
that author
creates text
through elements such as
language, motifs, organization or characterization, etc.
• Works closely
with features
of text, using
examples of
elements such
as language,
motifs, or
characterization, etc.
• Attends to
multiple aspects of craft
• Appreciates
value of language, details,
organization,
characterization, etc.
• Critical judgements of aesthetic merit of
text
Appendix M: Course Evaluations
160
161
Western Christian College
Course Evaluation
Date: __________
Course Title: ________________ Professor: ___________
To the Student: Your honest, candid evaluation of yourself, the professor, and the course are important elements of
Western Christian College's overall academic assessment plan. Your thoughts and comments will help the college
evaluate and improve the quality of our academic program. Please use the numbers provided – no half-number answers. Each evaluation is reviewed carefully, so please consider each question thoughtfully before you respond. Professors will receive a summary of all the responses and your comments will be typed before being passed on to the
professor. Thank you for your time with this important evaluation.
Strongly
Disagree
Disagree
Slightly
Disagree
Slightly
Agree
Agree
Strongly
Agree
1. The professor was knowledgeable in the subject matter.
1
2
3
4
5
6
2. The professor was well organized.
1
2
3
4
5
6
3. The professor stimulated discussion and involvement by the students.
1
2
3
4
5
6
4. The professor inspired me to want to learn more in this subject area.
1
2
3
4
5
6
5. The professor connected the course material to life and ministry.
1
2
3
4
5
6
6. The professor clearly compared and connected the class material to
biblical principles and Christian faith.
7. The professor stimulated me to think on my own.
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
8. I was able to communicate with the professor about the course in the
class and outside of the class.
9. The professor used a variety of methods to present the material.
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
10. The course exposed me to new ideas and strategies that I feel I will be
able to use as lifelong skills.
11. The professor used a multiple instructional strategy in presenting
material.
12. The course objectives (listed in the syllabus) were met.
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
13. The course objectives were clear.
1
2
3
4
5
6
14. The textbook and assigned readings helped me to meet the learning
outcomes.
15. I read the material assigned for this course.
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
16. I diligently invested in my own learning in this course.
1
2
3
4
5
6
17. Overall, this course was very effective and helpful to me.
1
2
3
4
5
6
18. I utilized library resources during this course.
1
2
3
4
5
6
19. I was able to obtain library resources needed for this course
1
2
3
4
5
6
Please circle the appropriate response
20. What did you like best about this course?
21. What was your greatest challenge in this course?
22. Any other comments?
Thank you again for your evaluation. Please use the back of this sheet if additional space is needed for feedback.
162
Western Christian College
Professor's Self-Evaluation Form
Professor: _________________
Semester: ___________ Course: _______________________ Date: ______________
To the Professor: Your honest, candid evaluation of yourself is essential for continuous improvement and growth both professionally and for the program
as a whole, and is an important element of Western Christian College's overall academic assessment plan. Please review the following criteria and circle
the response that best conveys your present assessment of yourself. Please fill out Sections III & N as completely as possible. Thank you for your assistance in improving the instruction for and service to Western Christian College students.
Please circle the appropriate response (Key: 1. I need much more improvement here; 2. I need some improvement; 3. I am performing slightly below
average; 4. I am performing slightly above average; 5. I am performing quite well; and 6. I am excelling in this area.)
I.
INSTRUCTION
Please circle the appropriate response
Much Improv’t
Needed
Excelling
1. I have a solid grasp/understanding of needs, learning styles, and
stages of development of college students.
2. I am comfortable and adept at using a variety of audio-visual
and technical tools in teaching this course.
3. I used a variety of audio-visual and technical tools while teaching this course.
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
4. I made myself available for personal consultation about the
course after class and during the week.
5. I regularly encourage discussion and group interaction among
students.
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
6. The varied learning styles of students is taken into consideration
in the learning activities.
7. I used a variety of teaching methods while teaching this course.
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
8. I consistently give clear feedback on student performance and
problems in a timely manner through notes, papers, and exams.
9. I connect the course material to life and ministry.
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
10.1 compare and connect the class material to biblical principles
and Christian faith.
11. I consistently uphold the best interest of the College and refer
students to the academic offices when I am uncertain of an
answer.
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
14. I wrote clear course objectives into my syllabus.
1
2
3
4
5
6
15. My teaching was focused on the objectives for the class that I
listed in the syllabus.
16. I understand and stress the proper/accepted writing formats
needed for papers
17. I clearly and consistently explain the method of grading to the
students.
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
18. The textbook was appropriate for the course.
1
2
3
4
5
6
II. CURRICULUM/COURSE CONTENT
12. I have a personal grasp/understanding of the specific subject
area of this course.
13. I was thoroughly prepared to teach this course prior to the first
class.
19. Please note any suggestions for improving teaching and learning in this course the next time it is taught.
163
III. PERSONAL/PROFESSIONAL GROWTH
20. My greatest challenge in this course as a professor:
21. What I found most fulfilling in this course as a professor
22. Ways I have stayed current in this field (books read, conferences attended, articles read, etc):
23. Please list at least one area in which you would like to improve your teaching effectiveness
VITA
Stanley (Stan) N. Helton serves as the academic dean and professor of Bible at Western
Christian College in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Before moving to Regina, Stan was
the minister of the West Suburban Church of Christ in Berkeley, Illinois, an inner suburb
of Chicago, prior to which he served as the senior minister for the Carrollton Avenue
Church of Christ in New Orleans (1996-2001). He holds a master of divinity degree
(1999) and a master of science degree in doctrinal and historical studies (1992), both
from Abilene Christian University. Stan earned his bachelor of arts degree (1988) in biblical studies from Oklahoma Christian University. He began his formal theological studies at the Preston Road School of Preaching (later, the Center for Christian Education) in
Dallas, Texas (1983-85). He married Patricia in 1988, and they have one child, Rachel.