Congregations & Public Life:
Discipleship and responsible citizenship

[VBO 25  ]

Contact Chrisna van der Merwe at: 021-808 3624; Hierdie e-pos adres is teen spambotte beskerm, jy moet JavaSkrip op jou webblaaier ontsper om dit te kan sien

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Presenters: Nico Koopman and  Chris Jones
Date: 12 – 14 October 2010
Venue:  Stellenbosch

Course description:
This course focuses on our dual calling to be disciples of Christ and responsible citizens in democratic societies. Themes to be dealt with are, amongst others, the nurturing of people with Christian habitus (ie civic virtue and public integrity), sound discernment and courageous action, who contribute to the building of dignifying public habitats (ie societies in which all of life blossom and flourish).

Outcome:
Participants deepen their knowledge, values and skills regarding:

• the relationship between loyalty to Christ and his reign (Christocracy) and participation in a democracy, ie  between loyalty to Christ and his reign (Christocracy) and participation in a democracy, ie between discipleship and responsible citizenship;
• the vision, values and obligations of the so-called good society - habitat;
• the nurturing of discipleship and citizenship in various moral spaces that embodies character, virtue and integrity (wholeness, holiness) - habitus;
• the deepening and strengthening of processes of moral judgement, moral discernment and practical moral wisdom, in both personal life and public life – moral decisions and actions.
  

What can we learn from the early church about congregations? [VBO 24] 

Contact Chrisna van der Merwe at: 021-808 3624; Hierdie e-pos adres is teen spambotte beskerm, jy moet JavaSkrip op jou webblaaier ontsper om dit te kan sien

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Presenters: Robert Vosloo, Ian Nell and Guillaume Smit
Date: 12 – 14 October 2010
Place: Stellenbosch

Theme: 
Congregations can learn much from the Early Church. Today congregations are facing different challenges than those which confronted the young Christian movement in die early Christian centuries. Nevertheless, those centuries were very formative for the church. Therefore this course attends more closely to how the early Christian communities embodied their faith (often in difficult circumstances). It is our conviction that such an engagement can be very fruitful, helping us to look with new eyes at our understanding of congregations and ministry today. Looking back at the past can provide resources that might enable us to reflect and act more faithfully and imaginatively.
There is currently a renewed interest in the historical and theologically study of the Early Church. This course wants to draw on some of this reflection and rethink the implications thereof for our own contexts.

Content: 
Much is being said about what we can learn about congregations and ministry in the New Testament. The New Testament is indeed an important source in this regard. In addition, it is however also very valuable to look at the practices of the early Christian communities during the first centuries. In this course the focus is mainly, although not exclusively, on the period before Constantine. This course will address matters such as:

•  Worship and liturgy in the Early Church. What can we learn from the Early Church about worship, baptism and the Eucharist?  What are the theological logic that comes to the fore in this regard? And what can we learn about the ministry of the Word (including from some of the famous preachers such as Ambrose and Chrysostom)? 
• Membership. What did it mean in the first Christian centuries to be part of a Christian community? On which grounds were certain people included and other excluded? In this regard some controversies (such as the question of the “lapsed” or the Donatist controversy) makes for interesting test cases. 
• The role of Christians in society. How did the early Christians (who were often persecuted) understood their identity as Christians?  What did their Christian identity mean for their everyday life, for their spirituality and morality?  
• Organization and “leadership” in the Early Church. How did the Early Church think about bishops?  How did the different ministries of the church develope? 

Outcomes:

• To learn more about new historical and theological work pertaining to the Early Church, as well as to revisit some classical texts. 
• To encourage a stronger theological engagement with the practice and theology of the Early Church.
• To understand better the contexts in which the Christians of the first centuries lived out their faith. 
• To learn more about views in the Early Church on worship, liturgical practices and spirituality and to integrate these perspectives wisely into our own theological frameworks and praxis.
•  To develop the skills to bring our own contexts in a responsible way into conversation with the beliefs and practices of the Early Church.
  

 Churchplanting [VBO 23]

Contact Chrisna van der Merwe at: 021-808 3624; Hierdie e-pos adres is teen spambotte beskerm, jy moet JavaSkrip op jou webblaaier ontsper om dit te kan sien

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Presenters:  Jurgens Hendriks and Theo Geyser
Date:  14-16 September 2010
Venue:  Stellenbosch

Theme and goal:
It’s about listening to:

•  The Word
• Lessons taught by 4000 years of history on church planting 
• Young people who started a new church
• One another, what we saw, believe and experienced

 
Points of departure are:

• Quick fixes don’t provide solutions, neither copying from someone else’s success stories…
• Our view on church planting is blinded by the Christendom paradigm and the context in which we are caught… 
• We are struggling to discern our calling, kenosis, being on a journey in the wilderness, crossing cultural boundaries and understanding the meaning of the cross…..

We do believe that rethinking theology in a Trinitarian way, focused on the missio Dei, opens doors to a new future.

VBO 22:  Deeply Rooted: Congregations in search of an inspiring vision for God’s earth

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Presenters: Prof Ernst Conradie (UWC), Ms Kate Davies (SAFCEI) and Bishop Geoff Davies (Anglican Church, SAFCEI)
Date: 4–6 May 2010
Place:  Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch
 
Themes and goals
The purpose of this workshop is to explore the ways in which local Christian congregations/parishes/faith communities are addressing ecological concerns. In what ways have Christians been responding to environmental threats? How should they respond? What could they realistically do in this regard?

The workshop will investigate how these questions suggest a double-sided agenda. Firstly, there are questions about what local Christian communities could contribute to address and overcome environmental threats. Secondly, ecological concerns raise challenges to churches that may require from Christians nothing less than an ecological reformation, transformation and conversion. This reformation touches upon every aspect of our lives – our habits, attitudes, values, virtues, thought patterns, the way in which we read the Bible, our ministries, our understanding of the Christian faith, our worldviews and cosmologies.

The theme of this workshop “deeply rooted” is also double-sided. On the one hand, it suggests that churches should respond to ecological concerns on their own terms, drawing on the deepest roots of the Christian tradition, the Bible, the Christian faith, theological resources, liturgies, prayers, saints and martyrs. An ecological reformation would therefore require from Christians to delve deeper into their own faith, not necessarily to adopt agendas from the outside. On the other hand, it emphasises that local congregations are indeed local, located, rooted in a particular context and soil. How could the church become indigenous? How could the gospel take root in this earth? This requires from Christians to keep together faith in God as Creator of heaven and earth and as Saviour, the product of God’s work and the message of the redemption of the earth (not from the earth). This is only possible if the tension between roots and vision (roots and wings) is maintained. What is required from local Christian communities is to learn to look at God’s earth through God’s eyes – with compassion and justice. The role of the liturgy and Christian worship is therefore crucial.
 
Content
During the course we will investigate the following themes:
• Where do churches stand on ecological concerns?
• What are the main ecological problems that we are faced with?
• Why is addressing ecological concerns regarded as a moral and spiritual problem?
• What impact does consumerism have on the church itself?
• Why should Christians address ecological concerns on their own terms? Why should Christians be engaged in earthkeeping?
• What, then, can pastors do to engage in an ecological reformation of Christianity and to respond to environmental threats?

Outcomes
After this course participants should be able to …
• Articulate how local churches are responding to environmental threats and how they could be responding;
• Explain what is meant by an “integrated notion of the environment”;
• List the most important global and local environmental threats;
• Explain why environmental problems such as climate change is regarded by many as a moral and indeed spiritual problem
• Articulate their own dominant theological rationale for earthkeeping;
• Discuss its strengths and weakness in comparison with other theological rationales;
• List the full range of levels at which a local Christian congregation can respond to ecological concerns;
• Explain what is meant by the notion of an “eco-congregation”; and
• Identify the three most important earthkeeping initiatives that would be feasible within the congregations where they are ministering.