Continuing Education for Ministry

All ministry agents in the Queensland Synod are invited to take part in CEM Week (for the whole week or even for just a day or two). All members of the Trinity College faculty will be available during the week for consultation about particular continuing education for ministry needs.

Tuesday September 4

Strategies for Teaching Adults (David Rankin)
Helpful tips on teaching of mature learners
9.30 - 12.30, Albert Room, Raymont Lodge

How to be post-modern without being Postmodern (Geoff Thompson)
A brief exploration of the intellectual roots of modernity, its impact on Christianity and an exploration of how Christianity can be post-modern without needing the help of postmodern theory.
1.30 - 4.30 pm, Albert Room, Raymont Lodge

Wednesday September 5
Preaching from Paul (Malcolm Coombes)
9.30 - 12.30, Thelma Murray/Joycelyn Baillie Room, UC Centre

Maximising the benefits of professional or pastoral supervision (Neil Sims)
How best to approach with supervisors to enhance the quality of ministry
1.30 - 4.30 pm, Thelma Murray/Joycelyn Baillie Room, UC Centre

Thursday September 6
Interpreting the Old Testament for Preaching (Doug Jones)
How does one preach from the Old Testament in the light of the gospel? Does the genre of the text make any difference?
9.30 - 12.30, Thelma Murray/Joycelyn Baillie Room, UC Centre

Each session starts with devotions and includes a break for morning tea.

Contact Trinity College to express your interest.
07 3377 9950

The C.G. Jung Societies of Queensland and Byron present a day with David Tacey exploring spirituality in conversation with Carl Jung, Saturday August 11, 2006.

David Tacey is speaking on “Jung and the Meaning of the Dark God”, “Jung and the Spiritual and Political Future”, at Greenmount Beach Resort, 3 Hill St, Coolangatta. Cost is $80.

Jung and the Meaning of the Dark God

In his childhood Jung was beset by disturbing dreams and visions about a dark image of God. In his early experiences, God was imagined as a giant phallus in an underground chamber near his father’s church, and in a daytime vision, which Jung found unbearable and struggled to suppress, he saw God defecating upon the Basel Cathedral and bringing about its destruction. These early experiences set the scene for his life-long engagement with the ‘dark side’, not as an antagonist or enemy of God, but as an aspect of the divine character itself.

Jung had a view of the cosmos similar to that of Chinese Taoist sage: the cosmos was a balance of positive and negative forces, of darkness and light, and the Western image of God had excluded the dark aspect in its intense focus on the light, the positive, the perfect.

Freud unveiled the darker side of life and thus brought to humanity a darker image of its character and meaning, and Jung continued his project, but insisted that the darkness was not only a part of our human nature, but belonged to the ultimate character of the divine. Hence for Jung, working on the shadow is not merely a human or personal work of psychological development, butr a spiritual work that serves the evolution and development of the body.

Jung and the Spiritual and Political Future
Jung was the original anti-psychiatrist, who believed that the true patient was not the suffering individual in the clinic, but a sick and ailing Western civilisation. He was not interested in developing a narrow therapy based on the cure of neurosis. Not was he concerned to fit the individual back into an untransformed society. Jung’s real aim, in all of his writings and lectures, was a therapy of the West. He felt that the secular condition of Western society could not sustain life for long, and that is because we are essentially ’spiritual’ in nature, and have spiritual as well as material needs.

What are we to do with these spiritual desires in a post-religious and post-traditional world? Jung was uncertain how to answer this question. For some people returning to churches and traditional religion was the answer, but most modern people were condemned to personal and often painfully isolating and lonely searches for meaning and value. In Jung’s view, it was only a matter of time before the whole of society had to include the spiritual dimension again, and so the concept of secular society was limited and doomed. Instead, new forms of the spirit would arise, and we can only imagine or get glimpses of what these would be.

Phone 3371 1285 for more details.

Remember the centenary of the birth of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, scholar and martyr, at a conference in his honour with international scholars Professor John De Gruchy, University of Cape Town, and Revd Keith Clements, British Baptist historian and past general secretary of the Conference of European Churches.

September 21 - 24 (Thursday - Sunday), 2006
Whitley College, University of Melbourne
271 Royal Parade, Parkville, Victoria

Costs for full time participation including all meals is $180.
One single day participation with meals is $110.
Public lectures (pay at door) $5

Topics to be covered:

Who is Bonhoeffer for us today? (John de Gruchy)
Confession and Resistance: Then and Now (John de Gruchy)
Nihilism and Nature: Bonhoeffer’s Response to Neo-Paganism (Max Champion)
Bonhoeffer the Pacifist (Wes Campbell)
Bonhoeffer the Ecumenical Troublemaker (Keith Clements)
Embodying the New Humanity Today (John de Gruchy)
Autonomous Spirituality: What Future for Religionless Christianity (Bruce Barber)
Right to Bodily Life: Abortion in the Life of Bonhoeffer (Ross Carter)
Address by Kevin Rudd
Life Together: The Community at Worship (Keith Clements)
Who is Bonhoeffer for the Australian Church? (Plenary Forum)

For registration or further enquiries see the conference web site: bonhoefferconference.com or contact Rod Horsfield (03) 9376 8433 or 0419 548 179.

Tom Wright, Anglican Bishop of Durham, and a noted and prolific scriptural scholar, will be in Brisbane presenting two seminars on

Friday 31 March Jesus’ Mission
Saturday 1 April Christian Mission in a Postmodern World

Both days are from 9 am to 4 pm at the Marymac Centre, 616 Ipswich Rd, Annerley.
Cost is $30 each (which includes morning tea and lunch)

You can register online at www.bne.catholic.net.au/mission

The seminars are sponsored by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane in association with the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane.

Books written by N.T. Wright include the following

The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology, T & T Clark, Edinburgh, 1991
The Crown and the Fire: Meditations on the Cross and the Life of the Spirit, with Stephen Neill, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988
The Interpretation of the New Testament, SPCK, London, 1996
Jesus and the Victory of God, with Marcus Borg, Harper, New York, 1998
The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions, Fortress, Minneapolis, 1992
The New Testament and the People of God, Fortress, Minneapolis, 2003
Who was Jesus? Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1992

DATE CLAIMERS 2006
LEAD AUSTRALIA- John Savage
Venue: Crosbys, (Brothers), 103 Crosby Road, Albion

May 22 One Day Workshop (9-5)
“The Leadership Styles of Jesus”

In this workshop we will be immersing ourselves in the many and varied approaches Jesus demonstrated in leadership and apply the findings to our own leadership challenges, whether in the Church, business or non-profit sector. Some elements of this training will include:
1. the Leadership Principles of Jesus.
2 Jesus’ modelling of mentoring.
3. The mental traits of spiritual leaders.
4. the executive and delegated skills of Jesus
5. Inside-out leadership.
6. How to motivate followers.
7. Chronic group problems Jesus avoided.
8. Jesus’ recruitment strategies.
9. Jesus’ model for producing results.
10. Jesus’ principles for leading in a hostile environment.

This workshop will be very useful for all persons who want to develop leadership skills for any part of their work or volunteer life.

Cost including lunch, morning and afternoon teas: $133

May 23/24 Two Day Workshop (9-5)
“Transitions for Living”

Learn five basic stages the person and groups transverse to move to a new relationship. Structures for personal exploration in life will also be presented. Skills learned in this workshop will enhance each of us in our day by day living. We shall cover a wide range of age groups e.g. Young People in Transition; Midlife Transitions and Seniors (and those nearing Retirement) in Transition.
Cost including lunches, morning and afternoon teas: $267

May 25/26/27 Three Day Workshop (9-5)
“The Gift of Differences”

This workshop gives participants a way of focussing on our diversity and how it can be used creatively to enhance the life of the church rather than destructively bring about more conflict. Participants will be given an opportunity to deal with differences through exploring belief issues. We will investigate understandings of how each individual learns to perceive their world from their own unique perspective, a process we call “perceptual deviation” (the process of determining the meaning of your own personal experiences); and learn how to determine the meaning from life and how that is different from other people’s processing. We will also explore the differences in values, roles, goals, methods, and how to negotiate around those differences
Cost including lunches, morning and afternoon teas : $400

Bill Adams is a retired congregational
minister living in Jindalee,
Brisbane, Queensland.
He has recently published his book,
“Finding the Glory in Your Story”.

Here’s Bill’s background to the book
and its connection with
continuing education for ministry.

People of the Story is an attempt to put down in print some of the major convictions that I hold now in the retirement years after 44 years of active ministry. It is very much coloured by the work I did for the degree of D. Min with San Francisco Theological Seminary 1986-90 on Narrative Preaching for the Australian Context. It was a very valuable exercise for me to to that whilst in full stream. It gave me a new impetus and a new source of substance and a new confidence in ministry. I’ve included chapters two and nine here. Hopefully I’ll be able to publish the whole book soon.

Precis

Our lives are given meaning by story. We strive to make sense of what is happening to us in terms of story and when there is a calamity, or a period of personal darkness, or when there is a fracturing of relationships, or failure in our work, then the effect is to break the narrative sense of our lives. The most tragic people we meet are those who say there is no point any more, who have no impulse to go on, who feel lost or confused or betrayed. More than anything else these people need to be restored to the story.

The Bible is a collection of writings around a story. There may be other aspects to these writings but they would not be there if it were not for the story of the people of faith. When the first Christians began to proclaim their message they did so in the form of story. They did not deliver a creedal statement asking for people to sign it. They shared the stories of old and in particular the Jesus story.
Now that Christianity is in crisis, at least in the western world, it is time to remind ourselves that our faith stands or falls by the Jesus story. That is the bottom line. There is a great deal of accumulated baggage that we have acquired over thousands of years, much of which we can do without, but we cannot by pass the Jesus story.

When our lives are in disarray it is the Jesus story that can intersect with our own bringing back direction and purpose. It can draw us again into the community of the story and it can give our personal stories some new life.

When we are trying to determine matters of right and wrong, to make serious ethical choices, then it is the Jesus story that is our reference point. Lists of rules may be helpful as guidelines but it is the gospel, the good news, that is the ultimate basis for all we believe and all we chose to do. We ought not to seek automatic answers from the Bible because it is not that kind of book. It is not a dictionary or an encyclopaedia. It is a collection of stories. The only way that we can keep our faith alive is to enter fully into the story.

We need to update the CEM Calendar for 2006. Easiest way is for you to leave a comment on this post. Register as a user of this web site and you’ll receive a password by email.

A free copy of Neil Darragh’s book, Doing Theology Ourselves: A Guide to Research and Action, will be sent to the first person who contributes to the site. For a review of the book, see my article at GodPost.

Trinity College has designated the week
from Monday 19 June to Friday 23 June 2006
as CEM Week, a week dedicated to
Continuing Education for Ministries
planning and preparation.

All ministry agents in the Queensland Synod
are invited to participate in this week -
for the whole week or even for just a day or two.

All members of the Faculty will be available
that week for consultation by ministers
about their particular CEM ideas.

Activities planned for the week include:

*One Trinity ministry candidate recently took up the option offered in one of her subjects of teaching a short course in her congregation and then producing the outline of the teaching sessions, her notes for the course, evaluations from participants and a brief personal reflection on the experience of her major assignment.

Download the Trinity College CEM brochure for 2006 (220 k pdf file)

I’ve moved this site into a Wordpress powered format to allow more people to have input into its upkeep. Gradually I’ll be adding pages from the old Frontpage-powered site from www.cem.ucaqld.com.au

Duncan