Agree/Disagree: The Next Generation
A couple of great books that I have been absolutely devouring recently are Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology and Justo Gonzalez's History of Christian Thought Volume 3.
Grudem does a noteworthy job of presenting his Reformed position, and also provides a solid apologetic for the charismatic gifts. I had earlier read and appreciated his The Gift of Prophecy in the NT and Today, but this book puts his thesis into the broader context of theology.
Gonzalez's three volume set (I have all three and thoroughly recommend getting them all, but they're not cheap) traces the development of theology throughout the centuries, covering the differing philosophical influences that were affecting the Church at various stages, and how they responded to this, and what doctrines were hammered out in the Councils, Reformation etc. Gonzalez works very hard to present accurately the various viewpoints in all of the discussions, pointing out strengths and weaknesses with fairness. It's a fascinating read.
Does this make me a theology geek?
Someone in the comments from the last post asked for a few examples of Agree/Disagree statements that I thought "really worked". I tend to not keep notes around for very long, and as these statements are usually scrawled on a piece of paper that gets stuffed into my back pocket even during the midst of the Agree/Disagree, I haven't been able to find any (and my memory appears to be doing the over-40 thing...).
I looked for a youth leaders' training manual that I wrote a few years ago, which detailed the concept of Agree/Disagree and had some examples included, but it also seems to have vanished during one of our many moves across the continent (and we DID lose a number of boxes, or more accurately, the moving company lost some of our boxes when we moved to the Toronto area).
However, I do have a recent example of what I call "The Next Generation" of Agree/Disagree (which, to be historically accurate and give credit where credit is due, I learned from my youth pastor, George Mercado, back in the mid-80's; I don't know where George may have learned it previous to that).
The purpose of the Agree/Disagree (I'll call it "A/D" from now on as shorthand) is twofold: (1) To make the learning/discipleship process as interactive and community-oriented as possible, and (2) to create a learning environment where people take ownership for their own spiritual growth, in the context of community.
The "Next Generation" aspect was alluded to in the previous post: I mentioned that you could score points if participants could back up their ideas with Scripture (in context). I should, for the sake of clarity, point out that we DIDN'T actually, literally keep score -- that would be totally against the ethos we were attempting to create.
Because it's my personal belief that one of the greatest problems facing the emerging generations who were raised in churches is an appalling level of Biblical illiteracy, A/D:TNG is a deliberate attempt to get the emerging generations interacting with Scripture as much as possible. Here's how it went:
I had been invited to speak at a young adults group in Mississauga recently, and the topic they wanted me to address was how to approach life in college/university as a Christian -- basically, how to survive a secular environment. Because there were three different churches joining their young adults groups together for the evening, and because it was built around a "dessert/coffee table discussion" format, I had to get creative.
I arbitrarily divided the group into four (after the worship time), and gave each group one passage of Scripture to interact with at their tables, and then present their findings to the whole group later. The topic, as they had requested, had to do with how to live as a Christian in a secular environment. Each group had to read the Scripture passage I gave them, and answer these questions when they presented:
...and they would have to debate among themselves later how to reconcile -- arrive at a fuller understanding of -- the appearance of contradiction.
The groups had their desserts and coffee while they went over their individual passages, and I found an empty room to pray in, and then we called everyone back together. Each group presented their findings, I reminded them of "Robby's Rules" (see previous post), and we had such a great discussion/debate that the host pastor finally had to shut it down because it was going too long. But the discussion continued informally between individuals after the meeting as well. As I drove out of the parking lot, there were still small pockets of people standing around their cars, animatedly talking together.
The emerging generations really want to grow as Christians. Our goal has to be to involve them in this process in an interactive, community-based way, and to also find creative ways of allowing them opportunities to dig through the Scriptures on their own, learning how to wrestle through what Scripture means, and allowing the Holy Spirit to guide them into all truth (John 16:13-14).
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Gonzalez's three volume set (I have all three and thoroughly recommend getting them all, but they're not cheap) traces the development of theology throughout the centuries, covering the differing philosophical influences that were affecting the Church at various stages, and how they responded to this, and what doctrines were hammered out in the Councils, Reformation etc. Gonzalez works very hard to present accurately the various viewpoints in all of the discussions, pointing out strengths and weaknesses with fairness. It's a fascinating read.
Does this make me a theology geek?
Someone in the comments from the last post asked for a few examples of Agree/Disagree statements that I thought "really worked". I tend to not keep notes around for very long, and as these statements are usually scrawled on a piece of paper that gets stuffed into my back pocket even during the midst of the Agree/Disagree, I haven't been able to find any (and my memory appears to be doing the over-40 thing...).
I looked for a youth leaders' training manual that I wrote a few years ago, which detailed the concept of Agree/Disagree and had some examples included, but it also seems to have vanished during one of our many moves across the continent (and we DID lose a number of boxes, or more accurately, the moving company lost some of our boxes when we moved to the Toronto area).
However, I do have a recent example of what I call "The Next Generation" of Agree/Disagree (which, to be historically accurate and give credit where credit is due, I learned from my youth pastor, George Mercado, back in the mid-80's; I don't know where George may have learned it previous to that).
The purpose of the Agree/Disagree (I'll call it "A/D" from now on as shorthand) is twofold: (1) To make the learning/discipleship process as interactive and community-oriented as possible, and (2) to create a learning environment where people take ownership for their own spiritual growth, in the context of community.
The "Next Generation" aspect was alluded to in the previous post: I mentioned that you could score points if participants could back up their ideas with Scripture (in context). I should, for the sake of clarity, point out that we DIDN'T actually, literally keep score -- that would be totally against the ethos we were attempting to create.
Because it's my personal belief that one of the greatest problems facing the emerging generations who were raised in churches is an appalling level of Biblical illiteracy, A/D:TNG is a deliberate attempt to get the emerging generations interacting with Scripture as much as possible. Here's how it went:
I had been invited to speak at a young adults group in Mississauga recently, and the topic they wanted me to address was how to approach life in college/university as a Christian -- basically, how to survive a secular environment. Because there were three different churches joining their young adults groups together for the evening, and because it was built around a "dessert/coffee table discussion" format, I had to get creative.
I arbitrarily divided the group into four (after the worship time), and gave each group one passage of Scripture to interact with at their tables, and then present their findings to the whole group later. The topic, as they had requested, had to do with how to live as a Christian in a secular environment. Each group had to read the Scripture passage I gave them, and answer these questions when they presented:
- What is the main point of the passage?
- How could we apply that to our current discussion?
- What comforts, excites, or disturbs you about this passage?
...and they would have to debate among themselves later how to reconcile -- arrive at a fuller understanding of -- the appearance of contradiction.
The groups had their desserts and coffee while they went over their individual passages, and I found an empty room to pray in, and then we called everyone back together. Each group presented their findings, I reminded them of "Robby's Rules" (see previous post), and we had such a great discussion/debate that the host pastor finally had to shut it down because it was going too long. But the discussion continued informally between individuals after the meeting as well. As I drove out of the parking lot, there were still small pockets of people standing around their cars, animatedly talking together.
The emerging generations really want to grow as Christians. Our goal has to be to involve them in this process in an interactive, community-based way, and to also find creative ways of allowing them opportunities to dig through the Scriptures on their own, learning how to wrestle through what Scripture means, and allowing the Holy Spirit to guide them into all truth (John 16:13-14).
posted by Robbymac at
5:28 AM
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