Christian Education on Zoom

Zoom Christian Education

I am currently doing a Zoom Christian Education course on “Interpreting Scriptures” for the church. It will run for 11 sessions and this Wednesday night I would be doing the third session of one-and-a-half hour workshop.

Tom Cannon, one of our pastoral staff, gave the rest of the staff a basic training on how to use Zoom. It was a good orientation. However, I lacked confidence, so I had to practice on my own, some of the functions needed in my workshops: like how to share screen, and how to use the whiteboard. Even then I needed another staff member, Ethel Shin-Cannon to help me with the organization of the rooms, when participants are put in virtual rooms for work on the scripture texts. 

The first session I was too ambitious. I wanted to get past the introduction quickly and crammed all the introductory material in one session. It was too long -two hours. After feedback, and also because there was less content material to cover, the next session was a sweet one-and-a-half hour. I will definitely get more and more comfortable as I get skilled in presenting material online through Zoom. 

I can see a potential in this format that Covid-19 has forced upon the church. Before this, it was almost impossible to imagine members fighting heavy traffic, or after work gulping a quick meal to go to the church premises for Bible studies, and then after that take a one-hour commute home. Now with Zoom, they can comfortably go home, have a meal, and even a shower, and tune into a Zoom meeting. He or she still has to be hungry enough to fight the natural preference to chill after a day’s work (perhaps of staring into a computer), rather than to sign up and show up for a course (again on the computer).  We are just lessening the number of hurdles that he or she has to jump over.

To keep the level of engagement high, the content has to be formatted in such a way that there is interaction, actual practice segment, and more conversational and less lecture like. 

Perhaps it is too early to get over-excited but I suppose with the Covid 19 situation unlikely to improve anytime too soon there will be a need to use technology to build the faith of God’s people. The church staff thinks that even if things return to “normal” we can still reach out to more people for spiritual formation/Christian education courses. So we signed up for annual zoom subscriptions to get a discount on what we are paying currently on a monthly basis.

Welcome to the “new normal” church of tomorrow.

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The Examen in original words of St Ignatius

The examen is one of the prayer methods used by retreatants to help them be aware of sins in their daily life. It was one of the prayer methods mentioned in the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius, a manual for spiritual directors guiding people through about 30 days of solitude and prayer and meditations on the life of Christ. The original method has since been modified for contemporary use in many creative ways. The contemporary ones have a greater “God consciousness” in the reflection without the heavier emphasis on “sin consciousness” of the original method.

Here is the English translation (Puhl) of note number 43 of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius (original in Spanish):

Method of Making the General Examination of Conscience notation 43 (SE)

There are five points in this method

  1. The first point is to give thanks to God our Lord for the favors received.
  2. The second point is to ask for grace to know my sins and to rid myself of them.
  3. The third point is to demand an account of my soul from the time of rising up to the present examination. I should go over one hour after another, one period after another. The thoughts should be examined first, then the words, and finally, the deeds in the same order as was explained under the Particular Examination of Conscience.
  4. The fourth point will be to ask pardon of God our Lord for my faults.
  5. The fifth point will be to resolve to amend with the grace of God. Close with an Our Father.
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Prayer for Singapore Election 2020

Our Father in heaven, 

We are at peace because you are still on the throne. Our world has been turned upside down by this pandemic and now we find our nation about to elect new political leaders. 

Lord, we humble ourselves and seek your face. Help this nation to elect good and upright men into authority. For if we elect self-serving people into power, we will all groan and suffer. Grant us discernment to sift the voices and opinions of people and parties. We want to hold to what is true and good and wise. 

Move our heads and hearts by your Spirit to elect men and women who walk in humility, integrity, compassion and justice. 

Shine your face upon us and be gracious to us. We want this nation to be a praise and glory to your name.

In the name of Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.

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