Friday, August 31, 2007

Educational stuff

This weekend, starting tonight, the Uniting Church Assembly's Ministerial Education Committee is meeting at the CTM here in Melbourne. So, members of this committee, (including principals of all Uniting Church Theological Colleges) from around the country, started arriving in Melbourne this afternoon.

It was great to see some familiar faces like Bronwyn from my home congregation in Hobart, Peter Gunn (also from Hobart in the past, but now working at Parkin Wesley College in Adelaide). It was also great to meet some people for the first time who I had heard of (and read their books).

So some of these folks were around today for our usual College Worship and then during drinks after worship, more of them arrived. Over drinks, I had a couple of really delightful conversations with principals of two different colleges- Andrew Dutney from Parkin Wesley College, and Lee Levett-Olsen from Coolamon College (UCA's distance education college) also based in Adelaide.

As I was talking to Andrew about how excited I get over my studies (something that regular readers will be quite familiar with!) the conversation also wandered onto how my interpretation of Scripture has changed since I commenced study, and especially the buzz I got from my very first unit of study, back in Hobart that I did through Coolamon College as part of my Period of Discernment.

This unit was an introduction to the Old Testament, and was designed and written by Lee Levett-Olsen, and at the point when I started waxing lyrical about how significant it was for me to do that unit of study, and how it opened my eyes to a whole lot of aspects of Scripture interpretation that I had never heard about before, Andrew dragged Lee into the conversation so he could hear what I was saying. It was rather special to be able to share with Lee how significant his course had been for me, and how much I appreciated the insights I gained from it, and the discoveries I made.

I think this experience brings me back again to dwell on the sense of privilege I have mentioned before, and feel so strongly, to be in the position to be studying theology full time- engaging my faith with my intellect- and having conversations like this with teachers and scholars who are highly regarded in their fields of study.

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