Tag: teaching

Shameless

The unhealthy and damaging sexual education that is offered to children, youth, and young people in many churches and some religious communities in the US, is being address in Nadia Bolz-Weber’s upcoming book Shameless.

This damaging and narrow education is not bound to the US, and I am guilty of both participating in enforcing an unhealthy sexual understanding and of being on the receiving end of a judgmental narrow minded behavior by a patriarchal leadership.

Anyway, Shameless has been published and a good reason to check it out.

Anecdotes as a Sunday School Project

For some time I have been interested in using story-telling and anecdotes from congregants as an assignment or project for Sunday school. There are various ways of doing this, having congregants visit our children during Sunday school hour to share with them there personal stories, having the children ask and collect stories in coffee hour, or doing a more ambitious project like having the kids create a podcast about the congregation. The possibilities are endless.

At one time I collected few links that could be helpful for this project:

And the Home of the Scared

Hans Rottberger was born and raised as a Jew in Berlin, Germany. In 1935 he traveled with his wife Olga and the two year old Eva on the passenger ship Godafoss to Reykjavik. They were fleeing what they considered a volatile situation in their home town. Mr. Rottberger and his family got a temporary visa in Iceland, he learned the language, and built a company with a local resident. The family grew, a son was born in 1937. Continue reading And the Home of the Scared

How Are You Today?

Á lestarpallinum á leiðinni í vinnuna í gærmorgun var ég spurður, “How are you, today?” Spurningin “How are you?” er einhver sú marklausasta í enskri tungu og eftir 10 ár í Bandaríkjunum hef ég lært að svara “Fine and you?” og ganga síðan framhjá viðkomandi. Continue reading How Are You Today?

Change Aversion

Few months ago a person said to me: “I saw this idea in your notes. Sorry, but something similar was tried by our intern 9 years ago and it didn’t work. So, I think you can just forget it.”

Stupid me decided to spend time explaining how my idea was in every way different when it came to shared responsibility, participation and ownership.

The reply should not have come as a surprise: “If we do this, and we probably should, it has to be done as we did it 9 years ago, otherwise we can’t control the outcome.”

Understanding Youth Ministry

Few months ago I was asked to articulate my personal understanding of youth and young adult ministry. In an attempt to answer I wrote a comprehensive reply with a specific congregation in mind. This is in no way a final word on the issue, but an attempt to give insight into my current thoughts concerning congregational youth ministry. Parts of this posts are directly from my thesis, Ecclesiology and Evaluation, which I wrote at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in 2010. Continue reading Understanding Youth Ministry

4. Mósebók 19. kafli

Þessi kafli hefst á uppskrift að syndahreinsunarvatni og að því loknu eru ítarlegar reglur um meðferð líka og vernd gegn smitsjúkdómum. Það er áhugavert hvernig þessar reglur ríma við viðbrögð vesturlandabúa við ebólufaraldrinum, þó vissulega sé einungis um sjö daga einungrun að ræða en ekki tuttugu og einn dag.  Continue reading 4. Mósebók 19. kafli

Stærðfræði(sumar)búðir

Nú í vikunni hef ég hjálpað til sem sjálfboðaliði í stærðfræði(sumar)búðum. Stærðfræðibúðirnar eru í boði nú þegar þátttakendur eru í vorfríi í skólanum sínum og eru skipulagðar af tveimur söfnuðum og í samvinnu við grunnskóla barnanna sem taka þátt. Markhópurinn fyrir búðirnar eru krakkar í 3. og 5. bekk sem gætu hagnast á viðbótarþjálfun í stærðfræði fyrir samræmd próf í Ohio sem verða haldin núna í kringum mánaðarmótin. Continue reading Stærðfræði(sumar)búðir

From an Interview with Marcus Borg

He was executed because he had become a radical critic of the way that world was put together and he was beginning to attract a following. To be very blunt, it’s difficult for me to imagine how anybody who has seen what the Bible and Jesus are about could vote for policies that actually maintain or increase the wealth of those at the top in our day.

I came across an interesting interview with Marcus Borg. Even though I might agree to all his theological conclusions. He is without a doubt worth reading.