This lesson plan that I’ve put together is an indicator of outcomes 1cd, 4ad, 6bdf, and 11acd. It is part of a series on Psalms called “Deep Calls to Deep: Pursuing God in the Psalms” that is being taught at my home church back in Arkansas this spring. Various leaders in the church were asked to provide one lesson each, and the lessons were then compiled into a teachers’ handbook. I was assigned Psalm 8. The stated intentions for the lesson on this particular psalm as described to me were: “Goal: To understand all the cosmos as God’s creation with a telos and thus call humans to act responsibly regarding the cosmos. Note: The psalm, like other wisdom texts, sees piety as a feature of all beings, not just humans. A creation or environmental ethic can be grounded in part in the psalm.” Within this kind of limited instruction, the method of approaching and teaching the text was left up to the individual curriculum writers.
While I will be the first to admit the limitations of this artifact, I am proud to include it as part of my portfolio, for this document is a highly symbolic one for me. To begin with, this was the first time in the history of that particular congregation that a woman was included in the adult curriculum-writing process. I was honored and humbled to be that first woman, and even more honored and humbled when the minister who invited me to participate was willing to defend that decision to some who questioned it. Additionally, this is the first and only formal lesson plan I’ve ever written. As such, it represents both a challenge and a success to me. Because adult teaching and curriculum-writing opportunities are highly limited for women in the Churches of Christ, this was a relatively new and intimidating task for me. And although there are surely innumerable ways in which the lesson could be strengthened, for me it was an accomplishment to even complete it and have it used.
This lesson plan seems to demonstrate several outcomes required by the MDiv program. Serving as a guide to Psalm 8, this lesson plan at least demonstrates beginning growth toward competency in exegesis and interpretation of a biblical text using the resources available to me at the time (1cd). It was also an exercise in bridging the gap between theology and context (4ad, 6b), as I was able to guide the teachers and therefore the class participants through some of the implications of the text for our lives as Christians. The lesson and the entire series were prepared collaboratively for teachers of adult classes, so by my participation in this effort I was able to work with and for a variety of people, communicating clearly to them what I believed to be the significance of the psalm. (6df, 11acd).
Psalm 8
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