Non-Traditional Text Presentation:
I elected to present on Bricktestament.com, (http://www.bricktestament.com/home.html), it is a website on which the editor has posted multiple Bible stories. However these are not Bible stories as many people would think of them, for they are the Bible stories with Lego creations that follow the story in order to provide a fun and engaging image for children. Almost any other Biblical representation that you will find will highlight only certain aspects as well as taking artistic licence beyond what they should. Furthermore the other pictures are typically paintings that really don't do much to attract a child's attention, unlike Legos do, as Legos are something they play with. Also the creator of these Lego scenes keeps every part of the story in them, doing his best to neither add or take away, thus providing a more accurate representation then many of these other paintings.
Log for class on January twenty-second, two thousand eighteen.
I start of by apologizing for my poor use of grammar.
We started of class today by collecting our attendance cards from previous classes, and on today’s attendance card we wrote down about a problem we are having with one of our projects. Then we proceeded to going over the log from the previous class, and by listening to “Origin Story” read by Pele Voncujovi, the poem of the day. Then Matt talked about the due date for the first draft actually being friday the 26th and what all should be done regarding emails to keep them civil and polite.
Going forth Matt wished to show off his knowledge or lack of knowledge of the students names while returning the attendance cards that were not picked up by the students. Matt also instructed us on how to sign up for conferences, on his blog travel to the section on conferences, follow the link there and select a time for the conference. Missing the conference counts for two absences, and don’t be the kid who starts the domino effect. Also we will meet Matt at the sweet shop cafe and lounge, pointing its location out to us was a fun event to behold.
We did a lab today, Peeling the Onion, required us to have topic for project one written down and project 2’s community and key text written down. There is a very rigid protocol, found via a link on the Matt’s wixsite, the place that everything is…. Started the lab by picking on people in the middle since they were in the fishbowl, and from the fish bowl proceeded to the toilet flush area. The objective is for the person to quickly cover what they are doing/plan to do for project one and two, then that person raise any questions they have on either project. The following person has to paraphrase the previous persons, the second person in line has to voice an assumption that was said but not directly said. The next two people ask questions to the original person, which can be answered or not by the original person. And the following person, fifth person in line gives suggestions in a non-definitive tone; then a free for all for everyone to discuss it.
Here I’ll just highlight certain parts that come up from individual issues and topics that seem to be useful, at least to me, so probably of no actual importance to the class as a whole.
Project one is a thousand word essay, try not to be to broad with the topic, focus on what matters; in project two there will be some more room to explore your topic if you keep with the same thread.
Try to get an idea for your second project ASAP, it will involve some work so the the sooner the better.
For project two we want to focus more on a primary research strategy, interviewing people and focusing specifically on your specific organization, so we aren’t regurgitating other studies, but instead adding to the studies by being organization specific.
We switched up are strict setup at this point to speed along the process, now just assumption, question, question/consideration.
You don’t need a connection form project one to two just helps to start the second project, and no one really likes starting from scratch seen from the whole first draft issue.
Will continue this wednesday for everyone who did not get to go yet; but will start with less fluff at the start of the class and just roll with the short/quick improvised version of Peeling the Onion.
Final Reflection:
It has been an interesting year, for many transitioning to college is, however for me it was more then just that, for I also had to transition churches. They may not seem bad to non-church goers, but t means leaving the place I had gone for the past 13 years, leaving the place in which I knew most people and most people knew me, leaving the place were I learned what it meant to be a Christian, were I learned the doctrine. At first when up here I just joined one of the on campus groups that had the same theology from what I could tell, and that also hosted some fun events that made being a part of their group enjoyable. Yet, while the group made being a part of them easy, and was convenient as they were an on campus group, it wasn’t doing anything for me spiritual. Having that experience go bad I resorted to the easiest thing, finding another First Baptist Church up here in Tallahassee. Thankfully I found one, and it was near enough for me to walk to. Even at a “real church” (since a church is actually the body of believers not the place) I was still not where I should have been spiritually, for I was only going to the Sunday morning sermon, I wasn’t actually involved in a group their or doing anything but filling a spot on a pew. It took me another month to start getting integrated into the college ministry at FBCTLH, and it was without fail the best thing I could’ve done and did do this year. It opened up opportunities for me to step up and be a leader to a group of sixth and seventh graders at their annual Disciple Now event, and also spurred me onto to start volunteering as a leader for the Royal Ambassador’s as they meant together on Wednesday nights. Realizing that I was now in a position which kids might look up at I knew I really had to dig deeper into my faith and not just scrape by like I have been. The chance for me to really dig in deep presented itself not with either of those endeavors but through the college ministries Wednesday night Bible studies. For the teacher of Bible study gave us several challenges that was just what I was looking for. The first being scripture memorization, to memorize the whole book of Romans. And no I haven’t memorized all sixteen chapters yet, more like chapters 1, 2, and 8. We started with chapter eight since the leader calls it one of the most theologically dense chapters in the Bible. The other task he assigned us was to each week prepare a short five minute sermon to cover the passage we covered the previous week, or a topic we covered that previous week. This really helped me dive into the Word more and help me consolidate my beliefs, and teach me how to better support them. Even with all of this great stuff happening, not all was great this year spiritually speaking. For several of my long time beliefs were challenged by the Wednesday night leader, mainly focusing on the idea of Calvinism/predestination vs Arminianism/free-will. Now when this topic first broke out I was like, oh well, I’m right he’s wrong let’s move on. Yet, in this class we had to come up with a project two community, and I really couldn’t think of a better community then this Bible study. The one problem was what text would I analysis and focus on for the paper. Yet, while talking with Mat about it he came up with the idea to use the dialogue of the group, which we then narrowed done to just the doctrinal issues because if the doctrine being taught it false the group has bigger problems then just not “acting” Christian enough. This though meant I would have to try to take an unbiased look at the disagreement and couldn't just say the leader was wrong. After much painstaking researching, reading, thinking, and analyzing, I had to actually come up with something to say on which is right and which is wrong, or else I would’ve done nothing to solve the problem. But I honestly couldn’t bring myself to say one is wrong the other is right. So taking a step back and looking at it again I saw only one way to address the issue, and that surprisingly involved taking neither side in the argument. For I decided that if we instead look towards the greatest commandments as Jesus calls them, to love God with all of you, and to love your neighbour as yourself; and the great commision, to go out sharing the Gospel and making disciples. That by putting these three things as a priority and following them, then the Calvinism and Arminianism arguement doesnt matter, because what matters will flow from following those three things. For Jesus said that upon those two greatest commandments hangs all of the law, and who are we to argue with Him. Another reason for this is that the church is already divided enough over other things, and that division keeps us from being the church we were called to be, thus why should I add more disunity over something when I don’t need to. Lastly, our God is an unsearchable God, we will never know all of His mysterious while we reside on this Earth, for anything is possible for Him, even the combination of free will and election, even though we, mere humans, can’t comprehend it.
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