This is a revised and updated version of a post originally published on March 6, 2020: After a couple weeks focusing on “creation” in my Created Called for Community (CCC) course at Messiah University, we have shifted gears slightly to focus on the...
Created and Called for Community
Teaching Alice Walker’s “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens”
This post is a revised version of a post that originally appeared at The Way of Improvement Leads Home on March 4, 2020: Last week we wrapped-up the “Creation” unit in Created and Called for Community. I began the class with...
Teaching Tolkien’s “Leaf By Niggle”
Yesterday I tweeted: Several of you have asked me about how I teach Leaf by Niggle. Here is a piece I published here last year: Yesterday in Created and Called for Community (CCC) we read and discussed J.R.R. Tolkien’s short story “Leaf...
What is the Great Commission?
In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 28, verses 19-20, Jesus gives a final command to his followers: Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy...
“The Ethic of Being”
Note: This piece is a slightly revised version of a post I wrote on February 20, 2020. –JF This week in Created and Called for Community at Messiah University we are exploring the Judeo-Christian creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2. On Tuesday we read...
Mintz: “It’s time to be blunt: postgraduation success requires a demanding liberal arts curriculum”
Read to the end of this post to learn about supplementary patrons-only content. I am teaching Created and Called for Community again this semester. This is a course required by all Messiah University first-year students in their second semester. Our...
We Need the Liberal Arts Now More Than Ever
Here is a taste of my recent piece at Sojourners: A nurse can learn how to insert an IV tube in a patient’s arm, but how will he develop the fortitude to enter a room filled with people suffering from infectious...
Writing as “Serving the Work”
I am a first-generation writer. My mother and grandmothers kept diaries, but none of them wrote anything with the express purpose of having it read by someone outside the family. I had a few good teachers who encouraged my writing,...
True Friendship and the Search for Meaning: Teaching Augustine’s *Confessions*
Most of my students have never heard of Augustine of Hippo. Very few of them have read a 5th-century text. So I wasn’t sure what to expect when we discussed parts of Augustine’s Confessions in my Created and Called for Community...
Even Amid Our Suffering the Human Impulse to Create Cannot be Squelched
This brings hope. It reminds me that even amidst our suffering the human impulse to create beauty cannot be squelched. This semester I am trying to get my students to recognize this fact. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q734VN0N7hw&w=560&h=315] ...
Teaching Robert Putnam’s “Bowling Alone”
Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam published his article “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital” in 1995. (His book titled Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community appeared in 2000). Last Friday, we read and discussed Putnam’s seminal article in...
Teaching MLK’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
After a couple weeks focusing on “creation” in my Created Called for Community (CCC) course at Messiah College, we have shifted gears slightly to focus on the meaning of “community.” Our first reading on this front was Martin Luther King...
Teaching Alice Walker’s “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens”
On Monday we wrapped-up the “Creation” unit in Created and Called for Community. I began the class with a review. Over the last two weeks we read: Genesis 1 and 2 Bruce Birch’s theological commentary on Genesis 1-3: “The Image...
CREATE!: Teaching Tolkien’s “Leaf By Niggle”
Yesterday in Created and Called for Community (CCC) we read and discussed J.R.R. Tolkien’s short story “Leaf by Niggle.” Here is a summary of the plot from Wikipedia: In this story, an artist, named Niggle, lives in a society that...
Some Simple Ways First-Year College Students Can Improve Their Writing
This week I graded sixty-eight 750-word analytical essays that students wrote in my Created and Called for Community course at Messiah College. Student essays responded to this prompt: Write a paper responding to one of the readings on education (by...
Teaching James Weldon Johnson’s “The Creation”
Yesterday in my Created and Called for Community (CCC) class at Messiah College we discussed James Weldon Johnson‘s poem “The Creation” (1922). It is one of seven poems in his 1927 collection God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. Read...
The “Ethic of Being”
This week in Created and Called for Community at Messiah College we are exploring the Judeo-Christian creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2. On Monday we read the scriptural text and yesterday we discussed Old Testament theologian Bruce Birch‘s essay...
Teaching John Henry Newman’s “What is a University?”
Yesterday in Created and Called for Community we read an excerpt from John Henry Newman‘s “What is a University,” a chapter in his 1852 book The Idea of a University. Newman wrote this book while serving as rector of Catholic...
Teaching Ernest L. Boyer’s Vision for Messiah College
Ernest L. Boyer (1928-1995) is the most distinguished graduate of Messiah College and one of the most influential educators of the last century. He was a Brethren in Christ pastor, the chancellor of the State University of New York (SUNY)...
On Teaching Writing, Christian Thinking, and Meaning-Making
As many of you know, this semester I am teaching three sections of a Messiah College course called Created and Called for Community (CCC). This is a required course for first-year Messiah students. They take it in the second semester...