Sunday 7 13 2003<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Session 4, 10:00-10:45; Small Groups, 10:45-11:30<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Walk Humbly with God\u2019s World<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. Intro.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n To walk humbly with God is to become more aware of the world that God has created. Walking is a good image for all of us to understand. We take one step at a time almost effortless. And in our walking, we move, cause things to happen, and change directions. To walk faithfully with God means that we take responsibility for the world in which we are members. But we often find ourselves disconnected with the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not that we are uninterested but we feel powerless, weakened, dis-easing about the world news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we repress or ignore the truth about the global community since it consumes a great deal of creative energy. We become resistant to new information, deepens apathy, and reduce our ability to delight and grieve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tales of the Heart<\/em>: Affective Approaches to Global Education book<\/p>\n\n\n\n *Am I going to feel worse about the world, more helpless than I already feel now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fear is not about the information itself, but rather about the feeling the information elicits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n *A member of the Denver Symphony engages in a daily ritual with his Rocky Mountain News<\/em>. First, he takes the national and international news and throws it in the trash, unread. The sports and business sections quickly follow. The entertainment section remains that he carefully reads. When asked about this routine, he said, \u201cI can\u2019t do anything about the state of the world. It just overwhelms me. I don\u2019t understand it and I don\u2019t have time to figure it out. The world of entertainment is my world, here I know what\u2019s going on. I can make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We want to feel better by knowing less. This is denial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Worldview in Cartoons<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Today we will explore a series of cartoons that illustrates the need for and characteristics of a global perspective\u2014to walk humbly with God\u2019s world. Humor helps us to shift our point of view for a moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From birth, we build a set of assumptions about how the world works. Over time this worldview becomes our guide as we increasingly rely on it to interpret our daily life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA worldview is always and only an interpretation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we confuse our interpretation of the world with reality itself, our responses to the world can become brittle and defensive. We experienced life as fixed, empty, and boring. Challenges to our perspective become threats instead of opportunities for new learning. If we take our own interpretation too seriously we may miss important new information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My worldview\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chinese home, Boston Public Schools, FBC, Boston\u2014Maine BYF Youth Group<\/p>\n\n\n\n White, different personalities, inviting spirit, no traffic lights, didn\u2019t lock their doors at night<\/p>\n\n\n\n Share with another person your worldview and a time when you realized that it was different from someone else\u2019s (culturally, ethically, politically).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Everyone\u2019s worldview is false in some way, because it\u2019s composed of concepts. The world is not a concept. If you were planning a vacation trip and confuse the map for the place itself, you may miss some of the most interesting sights. When we confuse the map for the place we also diminish our ability to adapt to new information or environments. That can be dangerous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The field of global education emerged out of the realization that we have come to a point in human history where our lives are truly linked to the life of every other person on the planet. In such a world we must cultivate a global perspective to understand accurately what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OH 2 Hardhats<\/p>\n\n\n\n Awakening to a global perspective may mean giving up on some cherished assumptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OH Bush and Elephant<\/p>\n\n\n\n Awakening to a global perspective means at the very least, beginning to pay attention to what the rest of the world is saying to us instead of how we see the world only from our perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Five Characteristics of a Global Perspective<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n *To See Modestly<\/p>\n\n\n\n *To Listen Carefully<\/p>\n\n\n\n *To Think Globally<\/p>\n\n\n\n *To Feel Fully<\/p>\n\n\n\n *To Act Responsibly<\/p>\n\n\n\n These characteristics are not facts to master, but a way of life to embody the world. They are approaches we take to understand the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. To See Modestly<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n means to recognize that we never see the whole picture and that what we do see is conditioned and limited by our culture, our beliefs, where we stand or sit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OH 3 People in the park<\/p>\n\n\n\n OH 4 Woman\u2019s profile<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTwo eyes are better than one,\u201d says the proverb. This demonstrates our habit of organizing what we see into sensible, familiar patterns. Our world view shapes what we see in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OH 5 Maps<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Mercator Map, 1569 was developed to aid in navigation of ships. It tends to increase the size of areas north of the Equator, and diminish those areas south of the Equator. The Peters Projection Map, developed in 1974 more accurately represents the size of all land masses and is centered on the Equator. Neither map is a perfect model of the world. All two-dimensional maps fail in some way to represent the globe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the classroom, the Mercator Map influence students\u2019 perception of the value and relationships of the Northern and Southern hemispheres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. To Listen Carefully<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n means admitting that people who view from a different perspective or who have been shaped by another culture may have something valuable to teach us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OH 6 Newsprint and Boardroom cartoons<\/p>\n\n\n\n A young Western woman had recently arrived in Senegal, West Africa. One morning she accompanied a group of village women to the well\u2014a walk of some two miles. As they collected the water the village women laughed and shared stories. As they prepared to return to the village, the Western woman described how in her country each home had its own water supply inside the house. She expected them to be impressed with such convenience. To her surprise they said, \u201cHow lonely for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What do you think the African women meant?<\/p>\n\n\n\n 9\/11, Al Queda, terrorism, war in Iraq all have given us many examples of portraying who our enemies are. We are creating an \u201cus\u201d whose worldview and values are good and a \u201cthem\u201d whose worldview and values are perverse, if not demonic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OH 7 Images of the Enemy<\/p>\n\n\n\n 6. To Think Globally<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n means to consider the world as a series of interconnected systems. We live and work within systems that have become global in scope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OH 8 Boardroom<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our credit cards and mortgages tie us to an international financial system. The SARS epidemic affected global economics. The euro affects the value of the dollar. When we want to build mini-nuclear bombs, other countries will want to do that too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The environmental system is the cradle of all life on this planet, though we are only now beginning to appreciate its complexity and fragility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OH 9 Ozone & SOS<\/p>\n\n\n\n Greenhouse effect, DDT, eating lower on the food chain<\/p>\n\n\n\n OH 10 Chief Seattle<\/p>\n\n\n\n We in the West operate as we are separate from the Earth system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 7. To Feel Fully<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n means becoming vulnerable to the world, allowing the beauty and pain of our fragile planet into our heart. To have a global perspective demand a change of heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OH 11 Cartoon of the Planet<\/p>\n\n\n\n We live, love, laugh in a world at risk:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hunger-related diseases kill as many people every two days as the Hiroshima atomic bomb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The nuclear bomb inventories of the US are sufficient to destroy all life on earth many times over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OH 11 Peanuts<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charlie Brown speaks for all of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 8. To Act Responsibly<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n the fifth characteristic of a global perspective means acknowledging that our choices matter. How we act individually and corporately in the world has consequences for every other person on the home planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OH 12 We are not only one person<\/p>\n\n\n\n OH 13 Eye chart<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cultivating a different worldview enables to give birth to a new world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OH 14 Rorschach<\/p>\n\n\n\n Practice noticing what your worldview is. Attend to your feelings. Who do you fear? Where do you see danger? Of whom are you suspicious? What gives you joy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n OH 15 Penguins<\/p>\n\n\n\n Explore alternative perspectives. Read alternative news sources. Listen to songs, read literature of other cultures, especially those who people are portrayed as our enemies. Meet with those from other economic and political worlds, people who are of different age or race or sex than yours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OH 16 Reclaim your power<\/p>\n\n\n\n You are intrinsically valuable. As a \u201croyal person\u201d created in the image of God, you are a gift to the world. No one else has your particular experiences, gifts, insight to offer. You matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OH 17 MLK, Jr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Find the global in the local. Global issues don\u2019t happen somewhere else. We are all wearing something that was made in another country. How can you in your local situation, alone or with others, be an effective global citizen? Swim against the stream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OH 18 Undecideds<\/p>\n\n\n\n The choices we make now affect not only those alive at this time but future generations as well. \u201cWe have not inherited the earth from our parents. We are borrowing it from our children.\u201d (Environmentalist Lester Brown)<\/p>\n\n\n\n OH 19 So much is in the bud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Appreciate and celebrate the world. Savoring the world\u2019s beauty restores us and reminds us of our own beauty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 9. Small Groups<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Coming to our senses in a global age, as we have seen, is a process of individual and corporate action. As a church we have committed ourselves in looking at the meaning of social action. We have a Sustainable Church TF that helps us to learn about our environmental responsibilities. We are recovering our sense of connectedness to the rest of life on this planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. What are your reactions to what you have heard?<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Where do you see the lack of such a global perspective at FCBC and Chinatown, at your workplace, in your neighborhood?<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Where do you see efforts to promote such a perspective?<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. What can you do to fill the lack and encourage the efforts?<\/p>\n\n\n\n After 15 minutes, return to the larger group to share ideas and strategies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 10. Closing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We walk humbly with the world because God first walked humbly with us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Deuteronomy 8:1-4<\/p>\n\n\n\n Koyama\u2019s Three Mile a hour God<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sunday 7 13 2003 Session 4, 10:00-10:45; Small Groups, 10:45-11:30 Walk Humbly with God\u2019s World 1. Intro. To walk humbly with God is to become more aware of the world