Hipps blog

Hipps blog

One perk of being a Mennonite educator is the Mennonite Educators Conference. The winter 08 conference was in Pittsburg and the key note presenter was Shane Hipps. I must admit up front in this blog that Hipps took me by storm and by surprise. I had already decided to limit my children’s exposure to some types of media but I did not understand or begin to understand logical reasons why outside of the basic time management issues. I was not consciously aware of the power of media. Hipps began in me a struggle to see this power in my own life and also to use the topic of media as a very helpful tool/perspective for the study of history. How can we survive the cultural and religious shifts around us without being aware of the hidden power of media?

The first caution is for the church. What message is our media sending during Sunday morning worship? I have been in some conversations at SMC related to this and I even presented a sermon on this topic. My current thoughts are that SMC sends the message that only the Power Point notes are important and when a video is played it represents a perfect image of the topic of the morning. None of these messages are the intent. In my opinion, Power Point replaces listening skills, is an extension of the preacher’s voice, can revert into a lack of attention to the spoken word, and retrieves individualism and monologue presentation (based on Hipps page 42). More and more technology does not increase the ability of the application or impact in our lives from the message. In our present culture that values relationship, Power Point is the wrong media choice. The better choice would be “break out” groups or small discussion circles after a given focus question or topic of reflection.

My second caution is for my classroom. Dock has provided teachers with very nice mounted projectors including DVD, Video, and computer projection options. I could just use some of the many presentations on U.S. History or Church History found on web sites or movies/documentaries and bypass making lesson plans. What is the message to my students if we watch “The Witness” to teach about the Amish or “Saving Private Ryan” to teach about WWII? The message seems to be that I do not want to work with the harder questions and the potential for difficult conversations. It also send the message that I think those portrays are accurate. Is the movie business better than I am at teaching? Even worse, do I not care about the students? In the past I used more movies than I do now and I have noticed that student behavior and achievement change. Negative behaviors related to attention getting has noted reductions and achievement has noted increases. Therefore, the hidden power of this type of media in the classroom is not positive.

A related note needs to be made about the study of history. Using media as another tool to help define a given period in history is new to historiography but could be very helpful. The above mentioned movies come from the 80s and the late 90s. What did the popularity of these films and their method of presenting history and culture say about the last two decades of the 20th century? Possibly the hidden message is that relationships can cross barriers previously not possible. In Saving Private Ryan, geeks become friends with heroes (even becoming heroes themselves) and in The Witness, violent cops fall in love with nonviolent Amish (who speak German not PA Dutch).

Another caution is related to student use of cell phones on school sponsored trips. I have led a service learning trip to Washington DC two times a year over the past 14 years. When we started, students did not have cell phones. Eventually all students had cell phones and could call one another. Recently, the change is to texting. Observing these changes in the use of media is beginning to disturb me. One of our goals/objectives is to have the students create new friendships. It seems that most of the time is spent texting with friends not on the trip versus building relationships with people right next to them. On a more safety related concern, some students text while walking the sidewalks and do not pay attention to the traffic patterns or other people around them. The hidden power of texting seems to be a shallow level of relationships for these teens. In April I begin another Social Issues class and I am leaning toward a cell phone ban with open discussion about why. I would want the students to take ownership of this ban but I don’t know if they will.

Hipps text “The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture” continues to be a significant text for my work. Once these ideas are in the thinking of people, the electronic culture losses some of its luster. Newer, faster, smaller, and multi-featured devises are just re-creations of old ideas and also have a negative side. One just needs to spend time working on the four observations posed by Hipps and mentioned above.

P. Tickle blog

P. Tickle blog
“…it will rewrite Christian theology … into something far more Jewish, more paradoxical, more narrative, and more mystical than anything the Church has had for the last seventeen or eighteen hundred years.” (162) I must admit that some parts of the text The Great Emergence has been hard to swallow. As I work with leadership at Souderton Mennonite Church and include references to Tickle’s work, I am beginning to take little bites and many small swallows.

The first small swallow I took down was the analogy of the cord. I can easily see SMC in this analogy. Our traditional shared history is now open (the outer waterproof covering). Even our leadership board is five to two; five raised Mennonite and two not. Our congregation is even more varied. Traditional teachings are not known in a growing percentage of the congregation (example: peace theology). The desire of leadership is to find ways to center on a core or root of our congregational faith (topic at the board and pastor retreat 2-29-09). This is evidence that the cover is open and we are struggling to find ways to fix it.

The cord analogy goes next to the mesh sleeve or common imagination of our time. SMC is again divided and unsure how this one will be decided. Some are still bent on conservative versus liberal and some are thinking spiritual versus rational (realist versus idealist). In other words, our congregation and our leadership teams have not agreed on how the world works and then how we respond.

The inner part of the cord is the threefold cord: spirituality, corporeality, and morality. In this I can see some decisions and direction to aid the work on the above mentioned two parts (Tickle makes a similar argument for the US Church). Spirituality is defined as experiential and to some degree emotional. Church programs/ministries are focused on this and the main gathering time or worship Sunday mornings is also weighted toward experiential sharing with emotional proof. A typical Sunday service include someone’s personal sharing related to a ministry or life event which adds application to the sermon topic. I see this as SMC’s answer to the spirituality quest – it is seen as experiential. Second is corporeality as in the embodied evidence that religion exists. SMC is ready to tear apart the Bible so that the “inconsistencies” can be made right. They seem to have gathered behind the Christocentric methodology of applying scripture. With this lens, they accept that potential human exaggeration and outright sexism/racism/nationalism of the biblical writers can be found by “weighing” these accounts to the standard/truth of Christ. This allows SMC to keep scripture as embodied evidence even some passages are evidence of human fallacy and others are God’s divine leadership. The final part of the cord is morality. I am certain that leadership and the congregation have not come up with a unified or even majority answer to this one. A working description would be, “don’t do stupid” (Martin Weins – VP at Dock). I am not sure if there is a “sin” that is too bad for acceptance but I do have conversations with some members about some other members sin in terms of discomfort (not good gossip but maybe not stupid).

The work at the above mentioned retreat was centered on what is SMC’s foundation or truth that all else grows out of. I mentioned a willow tree image. Our roots are in our Anabaptist story and the revelation of God seen in Christ Jesus. Our branches grow up and out and then bend down and touch areas all around our church; the streets and homes in Souderton. As we grow and nourish the tree, we can reach even further out with potential to transplant and start new trees. After reading Tickle I also see a comparison in the definition she is working with for current “emergent” churches. SMC lines up with her working definition. We mentioned at the meeting that we want to lead in a way that allows for belonging before believing. Tickle sees this as part of the working definition of emergent churches. To further the case for SMC’s emergent status, we also are more centrist in our links to the four quadrants in Tickle’s work. We also love to talk over the pulpit about the tensions or paradox in our lives: individualism with community, present kingdom with the future fullness of the kingdom, corporate with private faith, inward journey with the outer journey.

The parts of Tickle’s work that I am not able to swallow yet relates to her work with truth. I cannot comprehend that truth is a construct of society and religious perception. Truth is made by human design and the pattern of this design re-enforces the human creation of it. That is one big bit for a former farm boy from Amish country. I am not sure where Tickle comes out in her own faith journey but what is God’s role in this transition? Is there an ultimate answer to truth or is Tickle another post-modernite who finds no ultimate truth outside of human psychological construct? What is the role of the church to refocus this pluralistic culture on God? How much can we change/emerge without losing God as our foundation? As I keep working on this big bit maybe, with the help of my community, I can start taking smaller bits of this one also