America letter # 5. Educational ministry.
November 18, 2007
Dear friends,
One of the courses I take here is called “Educational Ministry.” It is a course with three credit hours every week, which will give me six ECTS credits in Norway. (One full semester in Norway is thirty ECTS credits.) It is probably the course I work the most with, and I have some hours extra compared with the requirement of six hours study outside of class every week. I think it would have been sufficient with two such courses for me; I would have had enough to do this semester. Well, I do learn a lot.
We have written papers on adults and children’s development, and made plans for Bible studies. Tomorrow we will hand in a model of confirmation ministry. We were allowed to dream, so I have done that, after having been inspired by one of the books we could choose to read. The “dream” is that confirmation is not a once-in-a-lifetime-experience, but an affirmation of baptism which can be celebrated several times during a lifetime.
The students taking this course are engaged in field work. I have chosen to observe the Sunday school for adults in the congregation I am in, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church (HTLC). I think we in Norway have lots to learn when it comes to faith education for adults, and I wanted to see how it was done here. Many congregations have two worship services Sunday morning, one traditional and one contemporary. The traditional normally has organ music and hymns and normal liturgy. The contemporary has a more free form, more modern songs, and simpler liturgy. HTLC has Sunday school for all ages between the two services. I normally go to the traditional service at 8:30 a.m., and then I go to the Sunday school for adults before I go home.
Two of the three hours each week are for the whole class, the last hour is for a smaller group, where we discuss problems or reflections from the field work and explore different education methods for different age groups. We have had some sessions with paper, color pencils and quarrelling “eight-year-olds”…
The bibliography is long, with several options to choose from within the different topics. In total I shall have read eleven books in this course at the end of the semester. I have completed seven. I wonder what we do as students in Norway. We do much more both reading and writing here.
I also take another (small) course in ministry which also includes education this semester, “Children’s Ministry.” It has some of the same topics, but focuses more on children’s development, and has a goal that we will express our own theology of children. This is a module; we meet for three hours four Mondays now at the end of the semester. It gives two ECTS credits in Norway. The requirements are easier; two books are to be read, and we will hand in three small papers.
Thursday is Thanksgiving, a day off which also gives us Wednesday and Friday off, as it is a typical family holiday and the students will have a chance to go home. I have got a couple of invitations, but I have chosen to spend this long weekend visiting an Episcopal, contemplative community three hours by car east of Dubuque. I look forward to it! I think it will be a good thanksgiving for me. Some describe Thanksgiving as the big change in the semester. After Thanksgiving we have three weeks left of the semester, and everybody is busy. I wonder how that will be…
Greetings from Hanne.
Dear friends,
One of the courses I take here is called “Educational Ministry.” It is a course with three credit hours every week, which will give me six ECTS credits in Norway. (One full semester in Norway is thirty ECTS credits.) It is probably the course I work the most with, and I have some hours extra compared with the requirement of six hours study outside of class every week. I think it would have been sufficient with two such courses for me; I would have had enough to do this semester. Well, I do learn a lot.
We have written papers on adults and children’s development, and made plans for Bible studies. Tomorrow we will hand in a model of confirmation ministry. We were allowed to dream, so I have done that, after having been inspired by one of the books we could choose to read. The “dream” is that confirmation is not a once-in-a-lifetime-experience, but an affirmation of baptism which can be celebrated several times during a lifetime.
The students taking this course are engaged in field work. I have chosen to observe the Sunday school for adults in the congregation I am in, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church (HTLC). I think we in Norway have lots to learn when it comes to faith education for adults, and I wanted to see how it was done here. Many congregations have two worship services Sunday morning, one traditional and one contemporary. The traditional normally has organ music and hymns and normal liturgy. The contemporary has a more free form, more modern songs, and simpler liturgy. HTLC has Sunday school for all ages between the two services. I normally go to the traditional service at 8:30 a.m., and then I go to the Sunday school for adults before I go home.
Two of the three hours each week are for the whole class, the last hour is for a smaller group, where we discuss problems or reflections from the field work and explore different education methods for different age groups. We have had some sessions with paper, color pencils and quarrelling “eight-year-olds”…
The bibliography is long, with several options to choose from within the different topics. In total I shall have read eleven books in this course at the end of the semester. I have completed seven. I wonder what we do as students in Norway. We do much more both reading and writing here.
I also take another (small) course in ministry which also includes education this semester, “Children’s Ministry.” It has some of the same topics, but focuses more on children’s development, and has a goal that we will express our own theology of children. This is a module; we meet for three hours four Mondays now at the end of the semester. It gives two ECTS credits in Norway. The requirements are easier; two books are to be read, and we will hand in three small papers.
Thursday is Thanksgiving, a day off which also gives us Wednesday and Friday off, as it is a typical family holiday and the students will have a chance to go home. I have got a couple of invitations, but I have chosen to spend this long weekend visiting an Episcopal, contemplative community three hours by car east of Dubuque. I look forward to it! I think it will be a good thanksgiving for me. Some describe Thanksgiving as the big change in the semester. After Thanksgiving we have three weeks left of the semester, and everybody is busy. I wonder how that will be…
Greetings from Hanne.
posted by Hanne at 5:05 PM
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