New seeds in the garden

PTC held an induction service for our three new Faculty last evening: Dr Faafetai Aiava, Lecturer in Theology & Ethics; Dr Fetaomi Tapu - Qiliho, Lecturer in Academic Skills & English and Mr Sanjeet Pratap Singh, Director of Finance & Administration. They're not 'new' in the sense of not known to the community. They've been colleagues for quite a while now in various capacities. But new in the sense of being formally welcomed into their designated areas of service. A Chapel service was held and then followed by the traditional sevusevu ceremony of welcome. A few snapshots below for you and, if you're a praying type, please keep Faafetai, Taomi and Sanjeet firmly in your prayers. It's not 'a walk in the park', as they say, at PTC, and certainly not if you're at the finance desk...

Faafetai, Luse and the children - proud of Dad!

Sanjeet and Fetaomi

Induction promises, presided over by Bishop Api, Vice-Chair of PTC Council

Post-induction smiles!

Welcome ceremony from the Fijian ethnic group

It's so, so encouraging that, little by little, new BD courses are being polished off for delivery by Extension - now online as well as in print. I've often posted with gratitude about these as they become available. The latest course, written by our much valued Faculty colleague Revd Dr Donald Samuel, has gone the extra mile in that he produced not only the course book but a brand new, original, 323 page textbook. Wonderful! The BD Course is 'Foundations of Christian Education' and the book ...

The cover picture was hand drawn by Donald and Jaya Christi's son Dr Kgolagano Mahizh Samuel. 

Although it acts as a textbook for our BD course, it's available in its own right from the PTC Bookshop bkshop@ptc.ac.fj or via Dr Donald Donald.Samuel@ptc.ac.fj if you're interested in following through. 

Dr Donald's work manages to be both an in-depth textbook, with challenging concepts and terminology to work at, and yet pictorial and narrative simultaneously. There are many snippets and paragraphs that catch the eye and connect the soul. I liked this one, for example, from page 65.

Christian Education in the Pacific and beyond today may be compared to God's garden where we find the learning process similar to the organic growth of plants. Christian education leaders are like gardeners and the learners are like plants that have innate potential to grow. Yet God has implanted in each of us the seeds of learning; we are all in the process of development. Hence we, both as 'leaders' or 'educators' and the 'participants' or 'learners' are all learners as well as gardeners to one another. 

I read that and a little voice in my head started to sing, from the old Methodist Sunday School hymn book I grew up with a few centuries ago..

My childhood, mental image of being a tiny be-petalled floweret, face uplifted and beaming in the sunshine, as Jesus the gardener walked along the rows like Percy Thrower (remember him?) with his metal watering can, to give me a drink, is very vivid. And now Dr Donald revives that image for adult Christian educators. How can we best be one another's gardeners: digging our neighbour's soil so that their faith can flourish?

I wrote the foreword to Building Up the Body of Christ at Dr Donald's kind request and was humbled to be asked. Here it is.

Only a seasoned practitioner should aim to write a specialist textbook in Christian Education. Fortunately for the reader, Revd Dr Donald Samuel is such a person. With vast experience of exercising mission and ministry in diverse contexts: India, Norway, Botswana and American Samoa to name but four, the author has woven a fine mat of multiple, vital strands in compiling this work. Samuel, as might be expected, references the work of scholars from the global North who would be traditionally revered in this field such as Groome and Westerhoff. Friere’s massive contribution to pedagogy is also respectfully and predictably acknowledged. But the author is primarily interested in celebrating the kind of Christian Education which owes its source not to conventional schooling and scholarship but to the God of Life. His premise is that faith formation and nurture spring naturally from the One who imbues all creation and humanity with everything that is necessary for wisdom and growth into fullness of life, if only we would open ears, eyes and hearts to receive it. Samuel is critical of Christian Education relegated to classroom practice and predictable teaching methods adopted from colonial models. These stifle and suppress, he argues. Creation, community, family and relationships are the authentic ‘classrooms’ of Christian Education if it is to speak powerfully to daily life in tangible contexts. Whether the aim is Biblical teaching, liturgical training, pastoral caregiving, whatever; methodologies must emerge naturally from the land, sea, sky and soil of the particular context if they are to work. An authentic, Christ-like life, if appropriately ‘educated’ through such methods, will pulsate with Holy Spirit-filled Indian-ness, European-ness, African-ness, Pacific-ness. And God, through Christ, will be glorified. Samuel does not write of these things, however, as though in a detached fantasy land. The subjects and effects of rapid development, technology and globalisation on Church, family and society are often tackled. But he is never despairing; ever keen on ‘pursuing goals that are vital and related to larger purposes of God’s Reign and justice’. (p??) This is a detailed, scholarly work, comprehensive and attentive to the history of Christian Education as an academic discipline in practical theology, with knowledge of the literature and concepts that have been born out of that. It amply does the work of a textbook in the field. But more than that, the author’s heart for conventional Christian Education’s urgent, contextual revival, in hugely changing times, leaps from every page. It is the offering of a practitioner and visionary.

The Revd Dr Val Ogden

Director: Pacific Theological College, Education by Extension.

1 August 2017

And talking of flowers. Here are the Chapel arrangements prepared by Ete and the Women's Fellowship this week.

Not fresh - but a fresh idea.
The reverential recycling of those painful polystyrene cups! 

Some people are just too talented...