"This." Video Series
Wondering how to do field education online and during a pandemic? Watch these short videos with people involved in ministry and field education.
Tracey Stringer, director of apprenticeships at Fuller Theological Seminary, gives examples of how she helped apprentices see the time of Covid as an intentional opportunity to pull back from their well-laid plans, ask why they were doing what they were planning to do, and thereby regain “a space and ability to imagine.” (12:46)
Sara Nave Fisher, a pastor in Texas, shares her philosophy of asking not How can we just keep doing what we’re doing? but rather What do we value about being in relationship? when it comes to making decisions about church that isn’t in person—a philosophy she developed both as a student in an online seminary and a military spouse. (14:13)
Daniel Corpening, field educator at Duke Divinity School, talks about first frankly acknowledging disappointment over how a crisis like Covid constrains, but then also about “making constraint beautiful,” after a business book he has been reading. His students have been learning everything from the art of the cold call to taking time for the cultivation of joy. (16:20)
Elizabeth Michael Ross and Shannon Garrett-Headen, a supervisor-intern pair in Pittsburgh, describe how they used the spring of 2020 to “ratchet up the learning curve” and ask themselves what their congregation needed in order to be the body of Christ in that time. (10:01)
Dean Bucalos, who directs Mission Behind Bars and Beyond in Kentucky, talks about how he has transitioned prison ministry internships to an online environment (one idea: donate laptops to the prison!). (19:50)