AGST Alliance module on “Educational Leadership for Christian Faith Communities”

Bangkok Christian Guest HouseMTh(Ed) module 4-5

The pre-campus reading comprised two books, “The Leadership Challenge” (Kouzes, James and Posner)  and “Leading Congregational Change: A practical guide for the transformation journey” (Herrington, Bonem, and Furr). We wrote 5 reflection papers on the former, and posted them online on lore.com for peer comments.

Long morning walk

Then we came together for the on campus sessions. We arrived at Bangkok Bible Seminary at 8.30am. It was a 30 minute walk with backpacks weighed down with heavy laptops.  From Bangkok Christian Guest House DSC_0823where most of us stayed, we trudged through narrow and interesting side streets and back lanes to the meeting place. By the time we arrived my dark blue short-sleeved cotton shirt was wet with perspiration from the exertion in humid weather. The lecturer, Dr. Pieter F. Theron, a South African, later told the class of 13 adult learners that there was no use for laptops!

Play to Learn

After a whole morning to introduce the subject, we played a simulation game that teaches change leadership in education through a board game. We were to imagine we were members of a team appointed by the superintendent of an imaginary school district and tasked to transform play to learna few schools into continuously learning communities. How would we go about bringing about transformation? We were given in random order a string of leadership steps. Each step we decided on would draw from a limited resource of bits, and would receive feedback that determined how quickly the many game board pieces moved towards the final stage of renewal. After each school year, played over two hours, we had a debriefing, and we reflected on what we learned about leading change.

change leadership through board game

3 teams at play

Dr Pieter Theron

MED 4-5 classmates

Searching for street food

Lunch was at the bible institute but looking for relatively cheap food for dinner was difficult. At Silom Complex, we could not find an air-conditioned food mall like the one available at the top floor of MBK.  Then some of us searched for cheap street food on the opposite side of Silom Road but found nothing.  So we settled for a Thai restaurant along the main road. Later a few of us went farther and walked two kilometres in search of local street food along the main road but skirting the R.A. streets of Patpong 1 and 2. Later we finally found one street hawker who occupied a whole narrow lane with a row of about 15 tables with chairs. We saw mainly local customers. The prices were half those of the restaurant. We will patronize that stall one of these nights.

There was no assignment tonight so we were relaxed. From Tuesday onwards we will have an assignment for each night. The wireless in the guest house was pathetic and I write this blog post which I can upload tomorrow using the wireless at the bible institute.  

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Diary of a pastor in part time studies 3

Orientations to curriculum development

We were looking at different orientations towards curriculum development. In an article, Orientations to Curriculum Development for Church Education,  Burt Branius listed 3 orientations: the preservative, productive and the participative approach. The preservative is focused of transmission of a highly valued content. The productive is oriented towards developing a curriculum that produces a certain kind of disciple or worker or community. The participative is centered on the learner and his needs and what he is most in need of at that life stage or situation. It is participative in the sense that the learner is more involved in the development of the curriculum. The conclusion of the discussion was that the  ideal would be for most Christian faith communities to have some combination of all three. As a church we do have a faith to transmit(preservative); we do have growth outcomes we want to see in our members and in the community; and we do want to minister to the learners’ needs, both felt, hidden or developmental.

Meeting interesting people

Two persons that I was surprised to meet were Cheng Eng Hwa, pastor of Praise Evangelical Church, and Lau King Lang. In the course of conversation I found out that Pastor Cheng Eng Hwa was a brother of two committed lay leaders I knew from Church of True Light, Dr Samuel Cheng and Catherine Cheng. Small world. It was even more surprising when during lesson I heard a familiar name of a fellow Lau King Lang and me and Cheng Eng Hwablogger, Dr. Anthony Loke, affectionately called the “reb” as in rabbi, by his seminary students. He was mentioned by his wife King Lang during discussions in class! He blogs at Old Testament passion but I must add that Facebook has left quite a number of blogs like the walls of Jerusalem during the exile. Anthony also inherited my Arsenal jersey, when I almost gave up on Arsenal last year. 🙂

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Diary of a pastor in part- time studies 1

nice room with seaview

calming view of the sea

Malaysia Baptist Theological Seminary in Penang. Air Asia and a shared cab brought me here at 1pm. The room is large and for two persons but I asked for a single room and there were none left, so they gave me this double room with a million dollar view from Batu Ferringhi. The AGST MTh(Ed) module I am attending is titled “Curriculum Design and Development in a Christian Faith Community”. In the three quarters- filled plane, I was speed-reading a borrowed book, “Mapping Out Curriculum In Your Church”, and once I settled in, I continued till I finished it at about 6pm. Having a phone camera is useful as I could take pics of some of the useful and more important charts and tables in the book.

Now it is close to 12midnight. I have had my dinner at the street hawker’s and it was cheap and delicious. I had met up with a new student, a mature Singapore pastor who had just joined the program(Welcome to the club of seniors in life long learning!). I had bathed and made sure all my pre-course work had been done. I feel tired and done for the day. Lord, may I awake completely refreshed and energized for the packed days ahead.

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