Give me routine!

Posted on May 28, 2007 by Israel Galindo

I had a friend in college who dreaded going home on the weekends. The problem was that he never knew what he’d find in terms of the living decor and arrangements. It seems his mother had a penchant for creative interior decorating. That’s putting it mildly. It was more like a mania with her. On any given weekend the furniture would be rearranged, walls re-painted, whole rooms redecorated, and on occasion, rooms switched around (a dining room became a den and the den became a guest room). On one exasperating visit my friend arrived home to find that his room had been moved from the upstairs to the basement! As a result of that chaos my friend developed a penchant for routine, almost to the point of excess. Continue reading →

Posted in Sunday school, teaching | Comments Off on Give me routine!

Pentecost prayer 2007

Posted on May 27, 2007 by Israel Galindo

When I was in parish ministry I enjoyed writing corporate prayers for worship. Many of those found their way in a collection in the book Let Us Pray. It’s been a while since I’ve written a corporate prayer for worship, but recently my pastor asked me to lead “the prayers of the people” at our church’s Pentecost Sunday service. Here it is below. Perhaps too late for this year, but maybe you can file it away for next year’s Pentecost Sunday. Continue reading →

Posted in worship | Comments Off on Pentecost prayer 2007

Getting the right answer wrong

Posted on May 25, 2007 by Israel Galindo

One of the most unfortunate practices I see often in instruction is when a teacher’s goal is to get “right answers” from students. This is not to say that getting your students to get it right is wrong–in fact, it’s very desirable. Usually what happens, however, is the teacher is engaged in teaching a concept and then pauses to “test” to see if students are getting it. The teacher asks a question intended to solicit a right answer, then is satisfied when one or two students answer correctly. It seems that in the mind of the teacher a right answer indicates that learning has taken place and the student understands the concept. Continue reading →

Posted in children, Christian Education, teaching | Comments Off on Getting the right answer wrong

New blogroll listing

Posted on May 24, 2007 by Israel Galindo

Please note the new listing on the blogroll for Chuck Warnock’s blog, Confessions of a Small-Church Pastor. Chuck is pastor of the Chatham Baptist Church, Chatham, VA. Spend some time on Chuck’s blog and visit the church’s website. You’ll be glad you did.

Posted in Uncategorized, world view | Comments Off on New blogroll listing

Less is more

Posted on May 24, 2007 by Israel Galindo

When it comes to effective teaching, “less is more.” While the brain is an amazing information and multi-sensory processor, it can only effectively learn one new thing (concept) at a time. The maximum number of “bits of information” the mind can process at any given time is eight (like in the “eight bits” of a computer chip), or, as sometimes notated “7 +/- 2” (seven plus or minus two).* When it comes to teaching, we do well to focus on teaching one (1) new concept at each learning session (that’s one new concept per class session!). Continue reading →

Posted in children, teaching | Comments Off on Less is more

Veggie Tales, I never knew you

Posted on May 23, 2007 by Israel Galindo

I’ve only watched one Veggie Tales story. It was a televised Christmas special some years ago. I thought it was cute, and well done. It didn’t convince me to change our practice in our church to NOT use videos in Sunday school or any children’s programming, though. It’s not that we believed that there’s something inherently evil in media. We just held the conviction that: (1) kids were exposed to enough passivity-inducing media during the week—they didn’t need more of that in church; (2) Christian education is about relationships, so we wanted lots of quality relationship time between teacher and child and among the children; (3) given that for most educational programming we had the kids for less than an hour we felt is was poor stewardship to give up that precious time to someone else or to entertainment. Continue reading →

Posted in Christian Education, Design, Sunday school | Comments Off on Veggie Tales, I never knew you

Christian Reflection Series

Posted on May 22, 2007 by mcanaday

The current issue of Christian Reflection: A Series in Faith and Ethics, published by The Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University, addresses the issue of Catechism. It contains some very good articles as well as downloadable teaching plans for all of the articles. I really enjoy this series. It’s good for congregational study groups and personal study. Downloadables and personal copy is free. Copies for study groups are $2.50 per copy.

Check it out at:

Web site: www.ChristianEthics.ws
Email: Christian_Reflection@Baylor.edu

martybannernew.jpg

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Educators in the second chair

Posted on May 22, 2007 by Pat Clement

The following article, “Leading From the Second Chair: Christian Education Ministers as Servant Leaders,” was published by Patricia E. Clement in the March 07 issue of Catechetical Leader Magazine, the professional journal for the National Conference for Catechetical Leadership – the North American association for Catholic Education Ministers. Catholic Education Ministers refer to themselves as “Catechists” from the Greek word for “echo.” In the early Church, the ministry of faith formation was called catechetics, because the goal was to proclaim God’s Word until that Word “echoed” throughout the daily lives of the listeners. Any printed material used in the faith formation process became known as a catechism. Continue reading →

Posted in Christian Education, second chair | 2 Comments

Competence vs. function

Posted on May 22, 2007 by Israel Galindo

One of the concepts I often stress when giving presentations about leadership is that of function. The idea is that leadership is more about providing the function of the position of leader that a system needs at the moment than it is about those things people assume leadership is all about, like, personality, intelligence, experience, style, power, authority, or even competence. Continue reading →

Posted in bowen family systems theory | 1 Comment

Biblical literacy

Posted on May 21, 2007 by Israel Galindo

I just bought a new bible. Not that I need it. Like most clergy cum seminarians I have about a dozen of them, including my “first bible” given to me upon entering fourth grade. I have my ordination bible, a couple of study bibles (including one dog-eared, marked up, annotated, and ratty-edged study bible my wife had re-bound in thick leather after it started falling apart). I have some de rigueur foreign language bibles, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, including two of my dad’s Spanish bibles and one Portuguese. And the collection is rounded out by a nice balance of older (KJV) and modern translations (GNB, NEB, NREV, NCEV, NASV, NIV, etc.). Any paraphrased bibles I had I’ve given away or gotten rid of long ago, finding those less than satisfying and some actually irksome in their attempts are relevance and winsomeness. Continue reading →

Posted in bible, Christian Education, Sunday school | Comments Off on Biblical literacy