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A Little More Christmas Left |
Do you have a waterless hand cleaner with you right now? Our church has dispensers in our lobby and in the halls of our school.
Because of the concern over the H1N1 flu virus, we are washing our hands and using various brands of germ-killing gels. We’re told this is supposed to help. It certainly has helped sales for the companies that produce hand cleaner. I suppose that our hands are cleaner now than they were before a microscopic threat got so much attention in the press.
Dirty hands are bad; lately, they are almost un-American. It is your patriotic duty to sneeze into your elbow and wash your hands frequently – and USE SOAP! I think the image of dirty hands helps me understand what God did when Christ was born.
Jesus is God with dirty hands. When Christ was born, God got His hands dirty in the mess of this world. God’s hands stayed dirty for about 33 years.
I was in the delivery room when both of my sons were born. I discovered that babies don’t start out all clean and tidy. Imagine a baby in a manger with hands covered in the amniotic gook of child birth – God with dirty hands. Then, as that baby grew into a boy, He did what little boys do; He played in the dirt of Nazareth before supper – God with dirty hands. See Jesus working in the carpentry trade: like all working men He hands had dirt caked under His nails and in His cuticles – God with dirty hands. In His ministry Jesus put His hands on lepers, those with other incurable diseases, and He picked up grubby little kids to place His hands of blessing on them – God with dirty hands. In the end, those hands were stretched out on a cross and caked with His dried blood – God with dirty hands.
God got His hands dirty in the mess and brokenness of this world. If you feel that things are a bit messy in your life or if you recognize your own brokenness, you can be confident that God isn’t afraid to get His hands dirty in your life.
The best part about God with dirty hands is that, because Jesus was willing to get His hands dirty, you stand before God clean, holy, and righteous in His sight. The mess of your life was taken to the cross in the body of Jesus Christ.
{For a more detailed discussion of this image of “God with dirty hands,” you can listen to my Christmas Eve sermon by following this link:
| | 1/3/2010 6:23:00 AM |
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The Church Door
Late Advent Thoughts |
In these last days before Christmas, I want to offer a few thoughts about the Advent season and our preparations for Christmas. I usually try to write these devotions so that they hold together as a unified whole. The devotions you will (hopefully) receive in the next few days will be more of a “grab bag” of thoughts and reflections.
In the Middle Ages people went to church every day – sometimes more than once a day. In the final seven days of Advent (December 17 to 23) the “O Antiphons” were chanted in the Vespers (evening) service. No one knows who thought up the “O Antiphons”, but they may go as far back as the year 500 (give or take).
The seven antiphons highlight a different name for the Messiah and call to mind a characteristic of Christ. The “O Antiphon” for December 20 is:
“O Key of David and scepter of the house of Israel, You open and no one can close, You close and no one can open: Come and rescue the prisoners who are in darkness and the shadow of death.” (From Lutheran Service Book, #357)
The Scripture reference for the Messiah as the Key of David is Isaiah 22:22: “I will place the key of the house of David around his neck. What he opens no one will shut. What he shuts no one will open.” Jesus opens the doors of possibility in your life now and forever.
One other, unrelated thought about our upcoming celebration of Christmas: I have heard it often said (and I have probably repeated it myself) that Christmas is celebrated in late December because of the pagan holidays that are associated with the first day of winter (the shortest day of the year). So Christians just put the celebration of Christ’s birth over the top of a popular pagan ritual.
It turns out that Christian scholars aren’t quite so sure about that. It seems that the date of December 25 as Christmas has really nothing to do with what Roman or Celtic peoples were doing at that time of year. I don’t claim to be an authority on these matters, so I will refer you to a more scholarly work for your consideration:
God bless you with the time and inclination to prepare your heart for our celebration of Christ’s birth. | | 12/20/2009 1:56:00 PM |
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The Church Door
Alan November Says..... | I was working on a number of project during the day today. While I was working I was monitoring the Twitter posts of those I follow from the world of educational technology. One of my favorite leaders in this field is educational technology futurist Alan November. Apparently he was giving a keynote speech this afternoon somewhere in California. As posts appeared I began gathering them in a single document to share with my colleagues at Shepherd of the Hills. Here are the quotes I collected from Alan November: | | 12/5/2009 5:48:57 PM |
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Tough Times | These are hard economic times. Read on for some encouragement. | | 11/5/2009 12:20:00 PM |
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New Learning, Cont'd | In my last post I shared how I intended to keep the importance of new learning in front of our faculty in staff by sharing new things which I recently learned with the group and encouraging to share their new learning as well. It is hoped through this process that we build a culture of inquiry and personal professional development, modeling for our students what it means to be a life-long learner. My wife Gail, who is the music director at our church, took this challenge seriously, and shared the following item that was a part of her new learning: On Sunday morning, I learned that one of the musical traditions of All Saints' Day is to sing a Te Deum. If you read thru the Te Deum in the Matins service in Lutheran Service Book (that burgundy-brown hymnal thingy :-), you get yet another perspective on those verses. Very cool! It's on pp. 223-5. Canticles # 939, 940, and 941 are also based on the Te Deum.
The second thing I learned is that the First Article to the Creed, the First Commandment, and the First Petition to the Lord's Prayer are all connected. I love how clever God is!
Can you imagine how rich our experience as educators would be if we all took the time to intentionally learn and grow and then share what we've learned with our colleagues? What a blessing that would be! What new things have you recently learned? Share your new learning as a comment to this post! | | 11/4/2009 8:22:53 AM |
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Building a Culture of New Learning | I appreciate what David Warlick does when he begins a presentation by sharing something new he learned in the last 24 hours. What this does is create an atmosphere of constant learning and professional development among his audience. That same atmosphere is one which I want expanded within my school. To that end, I sent out an email today to the faculty and staff sharing two new things I learned in the last 24 hours and challenging others to engage in the same sort of sharing. I intend to being faculty meetings with some new learning as well. After all, if we expect our students to crave becoming life-long learners, we have the responsibility to model this ourselves. Here is the email I shared with the faculty and staff: Dear Colleagues:
There is an educational technology futurist named David Warlick who begins every presentation he makes by sharing one or two new things he has learned in the past 24 hours. That is his way of building a culture of professional learning and growth within people. I thought that this might be a simple way to learn from each other and grow as professionals and as a staff without taking extra time during the day. Therefore, I'd like to challenge you to periodically share one or two new things you have learned. Not only will it help you build the discipline of professional learning and growth but it will also provide us with more resources as a staff. After all, if we want our students to be life-long learners, we should be modeling this aptitude as well.
To that end, here is an interesting video about the history of Daylight Saving Time. I learned some new things about why we have it from this video:
http://www.cbs.com/thunder/player/thunder.php?pid=hYbTBhKVW_ChXTYI0n_gHDt_aFMff_Gn
I also learned that Inspiration is not the only mind mapping program available. There are many other pay and free options, both in software and with web services:
http://mindmappingsoftwareblog.com/mmsb/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/index2.html
I will try to keep the momentum going when I send out email. Please feel free to share your new learning as well.
What about your school? How is new learning shared within your building? What steps have been taken to build a culture of continuous professional development in your school? Feel free to share your ideas and experiences as a comment to this post. | | 11/2/2009 10:34:54 PM |
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The Church Door
Prayer Works | Does prayer work? Read on... | | 10/7/2009 9:26:00 AM |
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Google Survey and the Value of a PLN | Today I worked with my 7th grade World Civilizations class on an activity designed to connect their thoughts about the decline of the Roman Empire with what they see happening within our country today. As a result, the class designed a short survey to gauge the thoughts of others on this topic. While I am proud of the thought they put into this survey as the collaborated together, what amazed me is the value of a Personal Learning Network (PLN) in engaging others to complete this survey. I intentionally invited a few professional educators in my PLN whom I follow on Twitter, including a few people I have never met. Before long we were receiving responses from all over the nation and from three other countries, and that in just the first 12 hours since the survey was open. My daughter, who is in this 7th grade class, is amazed that so many people from different places would care enough to take a survey created by 7th graders. It is clear that this experience has already empowered her to understand that her ideas matter. The next challenge will be to lead the class in a process for interpreting and reporting the data they are collecting. Stay tuned for the next step in this adventure. | | 10/5/2009 10:18:21 PM |
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The Church Door
Back to Blogging | My keyboard has been silent. My attention has been elsewhere. My voice has been quiet. Yet, it is time to get back to blogging. It is time to blog once again not for you, dear reader (although I do hope you benefit from my thoughts), but for me. You see, I need to blog to build a daily discipline for my own learning and professional development. If I blog I feel as if I have a responsibility to share something of value with each of you, even if there is only one reader out there. If I am responsible for helping someone else along in their journey as an educator then I need to invest the time necessary to grow myself so I have something of value to share. So I'm back to blogging. I'm also back to blogging since there is so much that interests me and there is so much to explore. Lately I have been exploring iPod and iPhone apps, pondering how these tools might be used in education. The following video piqued my interest and fits with some of the thoughts I've been having about these devices as tools for education: How could these devices change the classroom? What empowerment for students might occur? The possibilities are both exciting and challenging. Of course, there will be those schools, administrators, and teachers who will be concerned about controlling the devices in the classroom and during the school day. Opening the door for such devices in education is a different model, so I can understand the concern. There would also be a lot of professional development needed to help educators design engaging curricular activities when utilizing these applications. Yet I would love to be in a position to further explore how we can use the tools which God has given us for the education of his children. What are your thoughts about these devices in education? Share a comment to this post and let the conversation begin! | | 9/29/2009 10:03:03 PM |
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The Church Door
Centered - You're in Good Hands | Have you ever thrown a pot? Here are some things you need to know and how that knowledge can inform your prayer life. | | 9/24/2009 10:47:00 AM |
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Father God | Second of the ongoing posts on "Prayer - Connecting with Our Father." | | 9/17/2009 11:07:00 AM |
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The Church Door
Away for too long... |  I tend to leave things alone for just to long. You know how that goes, you make promises to yourself about being more faithful at exercising or eating the right foods. Those things we make resolutions about and then 10 days later we fall back off the wagon and onto something we always do.
So here I sat for a few long months thinking I needed to create a place for me to be creative. Then it hit me! Right smack in the middle of the forehead. Plain as day, right between the eyes. (Just add any other cliché right about here) Bloom where you are planted. (Another cliché yes I know) | | 5/5/2009 9:19:14 PM |
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The Metaverse and the Christian | What is this thing that isn't new anymore. Sometimes it's There other times it's an opportunity for a Second Life. For the last five, almost six years these games have been part of the Internet community. Not really social or business networking like Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn, these places are avatar driven games where you can do just about anything you can possibly imagine. In another time some of us in "geek-dome" would have played "Dungeons and Dragons" or another game that escaped the understanding by many of our friends. But this time and this place creates our wildest imagination on the screen in front of us. It might even be considered magic in the creative process. Almost nothing is impossible...nothing! | | 5/5/2009 8:51:24 PM |
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Leading and Following | Did you ever play follow the leader? How does a leader follow? | | 3/18/2009 10:47:00 AM |
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Happy National Lutheran Schools Week |  Happy National Lutheran Schools Week! Do you want to hear why our students love attending our school? Click here and follow the link to the first grade audiocast at the top of the page. Join our school in celebrating the blessings of Lutheran schools!
| | 3/4/2009 2:15:31 PM |
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21st Century Skills Wiki | I would like to introduce you to our school 21st Century Skills wiki. This wiki has been created to document specific lessons and projects used with students at Shepherd of the Hills that connect to standards within the core curriculum but also build practical skills for a student's future. We have identified and defined eight specific 21st Century Skills, and now anyone may view the activities which serve to build these skills. | | 2/24/2009 2:29:43 PM |
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Learning 2.0 Reflections |  Saturday I had the privilege of attending Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation -- a single day conference which drew over 200 participants, primarily public school teachers, to discuss technology and education. It was a fascinating and beneficial day. You may view some of the conversations here.
| | 2/23/2009 4:19:26 PM |
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The Church Door
No One Wants a Friendly Church | Do you have a friendly church? So what! You may have exactly what people aren't looking for. | | 2/10/2009 1:37:00 PM |
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Monday Links List | Here is a list of links which may be of interest to teachers in Lutheran schools: | | 2/2/2009 12:19:38 PM |
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Using Worldle in the Classroom | I've been intrigued by the educational possibilities of Wordle, an online site which converts text into beautiful word clouds. The service works by pasting text or a link into the creation tools, and a word cloud will result. Here is a cloud from President Obama's inaugural address. | | 1/23/2009 1:59:35 PM |
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Hey Google -- The Honeymoon is Over! | Many of you who have followed this blog know that I very much appreciate the innovative tools which Google has produced the past several years, especially those connected to education. I've shared these tools with many other educators through this blog, through work with my own faculty, and when I work with other schools. However, my honeymoon with Google is over after they announced plans yesterday to end development of Google Notebook, a great application which allows users to copy web clippings to a virtual notebook for saving and organizing. | | 1/15/2009 1:05:56 PM |
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Conference Reminder | Don't forget to check out and participate in the Online Conference for 21st Century Lutheran Education, being held for the first time this week, Thursday through Saturday. You may participate live in the scheduled sessions, or view archived content at a later time. There are many sessions of interest to teachers in Lutheran schools. Here are some of the highlighted sections: | | 1/7/2009 9:34:43 AM |
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The Church Door
Monday Links List | Here is a list of educational links for this first Monday of January: | | 1/5/2009 3:21:55 PM |
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