I have been given the opportunity at my church to teach an Adult Education class for four weeks in January/February. The title for the class is "Exploring Relevant Faith", and I am really excited about it. Promotional postcards are being mailed to all members of the congregation between the ages of 20 and 45 to encourage them to attend.
I have a very general idea of topics I want to cover during the four weeks (hours), but I don't have anything really cohesive yet. I imagine the class as more of a guided conversation about several topics; for example, I believe I want to cover the cultural transition from modernity to postmodernity in the first class and discuss the impact this has on the church.
I want your input.
What topics would you want to talk about in this class? In other words, what are some topics you've been grappling with but haven't really hashed out?
Again, I'm really excited about this opportunity, but I don't want to try to cover too much ground too quickly. I want stuff to seep in slowly; I would prefer that people leave with more questions than they entered, you dig?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Jake, sounds like a great opportunity. I was impacted by C Wess Daniel’s post series on the question of relevance and you may be interested in it. Here is a link.http://gatheringinlight.com/2007/11/01/church-in-mission-the-problem-with-being-relevant-pt1/
It was quite influential to me and you may want to consider it. It basically asks if the language and question of relevance is appropriate for the church in mission.
Anyways, looks like you’ll have some fun with the course.
@John: Thanks… I sure hope we’ll have fun. Regarding the idea of “relevance” – it’s not so much about “being” relevant in the context of church that we’ll be talking about. It’s more about understanding terminology, trends, and theology that is relevant to aspects of people’s everyday lives, in and out of the church. Does that make sense? I’m not so much hung up on the title (I didn’t have much say… they wanted to call it “Faith Journey”. Blech).