Programing Note, Media Recs

Hi everybody,

I first wanted to say thank you for all you've contributed to A (Christian) Formation Playbook since I started publishing in early April.

This site now has 64 subscribers, 17 of them paid. About 92% of you have engaged with the newsletter in the last month, and the average open rate percentage hovers in the high 60s. Most excitingly to me, 25 folks (about half of them subscribers) completed my reader survey back in June and offered invaluable input about format and content—input that has made this project more sustainable and, I hope, targeted to your interests.

For a from-scratch project that I work on a few early mornings per week, I feel fantastic about where we've been and where we're going. Thank you so, so much for being a part of that.

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Today begins my first major break from posting. I'll be taking a couple weeks off and returning to this newsletter sometime round about August 22. Tonight we are hopping a Swiss Air flight from O'Hare and heading out for two weeks in Germany.

Our daughter is at least 1/4 German, is eligible for dual citizenship, and has a German great aunt, great uncle, and cousin once removed absolutely clamoring to meet their newest relative. They were supposed to come meet her in San Francisco shortly after she was born but couldn't, because: Covid. By the time the reverse trip made sense for our family from a public health perspective, it no longer did from a parenting perspective.

But our little four year old is getting more independent, more curious about the world, and at least a bit more tolerant of longer trips. So we're going to take the plunge.

Please say a Prayer for Preschooler Stamina and Flexibility as we fly to Zurich and then take what I can only assume will be a gorgeous train ride through Switzerland and Baden-Württemberg to Freiburg im Breisgau, our German home-away-from-home. (If you want a U.S. comparison, you perhaps won't be surprised to hear that it's our favorite place in the world, Madison, WI. In fact, the two are sister cities: gorgeous, walkable/bikeable, university-centric, a little crunchy, etc.)

I can't wait to share a bit about what we learn and experience. I imagine there will be some photos up on Facebook and/or Instagram if you'd like a peek at some German #VitaminF.

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In the meantime, I thought a good "I'll be away for a bit" post would be to share a few of the media pieces I'm thinking a bit about as we head toward the start of the academic semester. Here are some of my (and my students') favorite resources from my course Adapting Christian Formation, which I'll be teaching in a split early fall / early spring configuration this year:

Claiming Resurrection in the Dying Church: Freedom Beyond Survival – This one is cited time and time again as my student's favorite, and rightfully so. Written by Anna Olson, and recommended to me by Kristin, this book helps learners in the class get oriented to the kinds of real-world challenges and opportunities facing many a congregation today.

The Skillful Teacher: On Technique, Trust, and Responsiveness in the Classroom – This one is my favorite. I believe we under-emphasize skill and over-emphasize knowledge (a false binary, sure, but you know what I mean) in most academic-based preparation for ministry. But Brookfield deeply understands that teaching is a craft and can be taught as such. I'm grateful to Susanna Singer for this recommendation, which she used in a previous iteration of the course.

Kristin Saylor on What Counts as Prayer – We do a week on spirituality in the course, and this optional conversation on embodiment and "non-traditional" practices is one of those sleeper resources that doesn't necessarily get talked about a lot in students' forum posts but that they frequently tell me (sometimes years later) was foundational for them.

"Dual Coding Theory & Multimedia Learning" – Another video, this one is a great example of how the best teaching resources "practice what they preach." In this case, Mac Mahon is preaching about how to apply some important cognitive theory to the construction of media artifacts like lecture slides and teaching videos.

Chris Emdin on Reality Pedagogy – Yet another video (are you sensing a theme in how I like to resource students?), this one an introduction to the "5 C's" of Emdin's culturally relevant take on teaching. If you want more, check out For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood… and the Rest of Y’all Too.

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I hope you get a chance to dive into these. Happy reading and viewing!

Tschüß, bis später. 🇩🇪