Curriculum Consultation Day

Yesterday Laura and I had a wonderful day with about 30 Christian school teachers from across North America. The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship brought them to Grand Rapids to learn about the curriculum about worship for 5th grade that the two of us wrote this past summer and fall. These teachers have all agreed to pilot the curriculum and give us feedback by the end of the school year so that we can revise and continue work on this project.

The consultation actually started on Thursday evening with a reception and a brief worship time. We got rolling right away on Friday morning when John Witvliet led us in an hour intro to thinking about worship – what he calls "Worship 101", plus a bit of his "Worship 301". Then, after going to Calvin’s chapel service all of us returned to the Prince Center and Laura and I introduced the curriculum, Together We Worship, by talking about what we were thinking as we wrote this, why we made the choices we made and by quickly walking through one of the lessons.

After lunch, we talked a bit about resources and Ed Seely made a pitch for the Minstry Resource Center in the Hekman library. Then Laura did a short presentation on one way of doing drama and I did an hour on Spiritual Development. After which we wrapped up the day with a few questions, some nuts and bolts about how this pilot project would work and ended with a song.

The teachers were great. They came with a wonderful spirit of cooperation and a willingness to look at what we had prepared, work with the materials that we gave them and to give us the feedback that we need. The support from the Institute staff was wonderful also. Kristen VerHulst and Betty Grit were with us all day and made sure things ran smoothly and that we all had what we needed to have a good day. We were even allowed to invite some Calvin Education students to sit in and learn from this fine collection of teachers. We had a great time.