Bible

Reflection Journal

Completion requirements

 Instructions

Exegete (i.e., critically interpret) conversation and discourse in casual or social spaces you frequent (either in person or digital).

• What narratives are assumed, foundational, explored, repeated, questioned, challenged, or avoided?
• How are divergent ideas (or those who hold them) discussed or treated?
• What unwritten rules influence what conversation, stories, or ideas are acceptable or unacceptable?

Overall Instructions

Each week, submit a 1–2-page written journal that invites you to reflect on contexts and cultures within which you live and may one day do ministry, along with guided topical reflections. Make connections between each topic and the readings, videos, and discussions in the course.

Your journal each week invites you into observational reflection. Using specific examples to support your reflection as much as possible, explore, examine, and ultimately exegete your perspectives, assumptions, influences, experiences, questions, reactions, and growth as you engage the perspectives and stories of others who are both similar and different from you. Each week’s journal asks you to exegete (that is, expound and interpret) aspects of your context, similar to how you would exegete Scripture.

The following questions can further guide your observations and interpretation each week:

1. What have I learned during readings, learning exercises, and efforts to hold tension between ideas in this course?
2. What stands out to me as I exegete my world, my influences, my church, my library, and my own formation?
3. What do I find challenging, uncomfortable, or unresolved?
4. How am I choosing to adapt to new experiences or information?
5. What am I feeling about opportunities for growth, change, and my own calling to ministry in a globalized world?