Premium
Let Us Pray: Classroom Worship in Theological Education
Author(s) -
Laytham Brent
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
teaching theology and religion
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.165
H-Index - 11
eISSN - 1467-9647
pISSN - 1368-4868
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9647.2010.00593.x
Subject(s) - worship , curriculum , meaning (existential) , dialogical self , pedagogy , religious education , chapel , faith , sociology , relation (database) , theology , class (philosophy) , psychology , mathematics education , aesthetics , epistemology , philosophy , social psychology , computer science , database
Theological education typically includes classroom worship, a practice of great pedagogical power and curricular import. As pedagogy, classroom worship does four things. It focuses teaching and learning on God, and fosters theological dispositions necessary for sustaining that attention. Second, it rightly positions the entire class in dialogical relation to the divine Thou, in communal relation to each other, the larger church and the wider world, and in personal relations that risk transformation. Third, it frames theological education as an integrative practice of faith and learning. Finally, it invites teachers to know their students as whole persons and students to trust their teachers as spiritual guides. As curriculum, classroom worship may have greater significance than chapel worship for many students and at particular schools. It should be moved from implicit curriculum to explicit, with careful attention to the null curriculum and to the matrices of relationship within which worship has meaning.