Mobility is my confession that I need to offer multiple avenues of learning to engage diverse students and the learning community. Agility is my confidence that students have the ability to use these avenues to steer the pathways of their lives for their good, our good, and God’s glory. “Theological agility” conveys my goal for this teaching approach: the way of understanding one’s own beliefs and engaging the beliefs of others with: 1) non-machine-like, playful thinking, 2) the ability to question the current picture and investigate the larger picture, 3) adaptability and resourcefulness, 4) perception and patience, and 5) inventiveness and an openness to being wrong/corrected.

​

My confidence in student abilities is grounded in my theological approach, which pairs the meaning of Sabbath rest and the delight of play experience. I pair these two components to provide a playful learning experience that is entertaining and meaningful without needing to indoctrinate students in prevailing cultural values of overproduction (overworking oneself to earn a good grade) and overconsumption (greedily and unethically grasping for a good grade rather than valuing the learning). Further, this is a theological approach to learning that navigates, rather than retreats, from the secular world that the students already know. By modeling Sabbath rest and playful delight in my teaching style and class structure, I embody and cultivate the five dimensions of theological agility for students with five corresponding habits:

 

1) New Partnerships: In the Sabbath, Christians remember God as the Good Creator, and themselves as God’s good creation. This is a reminder that God begins human existence and human “doing.” People’s truest activities emerge from God’s goodness entering into human life through the “newness” of play that interrupts routine reality. My classes reflect newness by encouraging students to get to know unfamiliar classmates through multiple partnerships, via playful in-class small group discussions and outer-class cooperative projects which help students get each other to cultivate habits of spiritual nourishment, self-care, and safe community. These new partnerships with new people outmaneuvers patterns of professional isolation and machine-like thinking by cultivating the intellectual openness that enables students to engage the viewpoint of another with theological agility.

​

2) Non-Anxious Work Patterns: New partnerships complement the Sabbath rest, which fills Christian habits with the menuha that slows or stops life-depleting activity in order to embrace God’s life-bringing activity. God begins and completes Creation by accomplishing rest. God calls us to imitate this pattern, which is found in playful experiences which liberate people from the need to be finished, yet requires a surrender of routine urgency. I reflect this "non-anxiety" by structuring my classes with optional opportunities to earn points toward one's desired grade throughout the entire semester/term, rather than assessing student performances by deducting points for mistakes. This structure contributes to a healthier pace of coursework throughout the semester, lessened conflicts of commitment to other classes, and better sensitivities to the life situations of different students. These non-anxious work patterns outmaneuver depleting patterns of overwork and greedy competitiveness by cultivating the habitual openness to that enables students to slow down, in order to question overwork and overproduction with the larger picture of God's activity with theological agility.

​

3) Non-Practical Study: Non-anxious work patterns resonate with Sabbath’s non-agenda, which reaffirms the value of Christians without requiring social utility. God invites humanity to trust in His freedom and sufficiency, and to surrender their compulsion to prove their usefulness, and embrace the "non-practicality" that is often experienced while playing. My courses reflect this non-practicality by placing less emphasis on passing exams and more focus on creatively retaining theological lessons. College study is often understood only in terms of academic performance; once the final exam is completed, all of the knowledge accumulated during the semester evaporates. Rather than contributing to this narrow and ephemeral type of studying, my course structure calls for students to present reflective projects and digital content creation activities with adaptability and resourcefulness, to ensure they retain the material and value learning more the final grade. These types of non-practical study outmaneuver compulsory productivity by cultivating the teleological openness that enables students to practice adaptability and resourcefulness with theological agility.

​

4) Adventurous Expression: The affirmative nature of non-practical study coincides with Sabbath service, in which God’s abundant hospitality is received and shared with others. The Sabbath is a time where God sees and meets people as they are, and also reveals who He created them to be. This time is discovered in the "ventures" of everyday play. My courses reflect God's venture when a student’s “true self” is empowered to evaluate and interact with church traditions and Christian teaching. Modern students may resist studying authoritative voices in theology, because they have been alienated by people whose life experience wildly differs from their own. I offer a learning environment where the church history and theology can be heard as the church's “notes.” Here, the church is not rendered in terms of alienation, but participation. This understanding allows students to “play out” the “notes,” of the church, by bringing their true selves into into activities of perception and patience, which include responding to class lectures, participating during in-class and online small group discussions, and sharing the stories of their belief journeys. Adventurous expressions outmaneuver alienating overproduction and overconsumption with patience and perception, because it cultivates the relational openness that enables students to explore their own faith and other beliefs with theological agility.

​

5) Vibrant Engagements: The sufficiency found in adventurous expression resonates with Sabbath refreshment. The Sabbath is when God breathes His holiness and wholeness into human existence. This generative energy is discovered in play experiences of vibrancy. My courses reflect this vibrancy by inspiring and energize students to pursue and fulfill their callings through the "mini-presentations" and Social Media posts which offer faithful and enjoyable discourse of fellow learners, rather than the closed and domineering order of a demanding overseer. The work ethic culture influences students to think that discerning one’s calling or vocation is a life-depleting process of being told what they must sacrifice for the sake of accomplishing their singular, set-in- stone purpose, as if trying to find the one snowflake in a blizzard with their name on it. I offer an idea of calling/vocation in which every snowflake represents a purpose in which God will be with them, thus attaching a students' sense of calling to God's generous purposes. These activities allow students to play out inventiveness, and also, experience the openness to being wrong and corrected. Vibrant engagements outmaneuver domineering vocational control of overproduction and overconsumption by cultivating the transformational openness that enables students to chart their career and life course with theological agility.

​

If students cannot pick up and carry information with them, or use it to steer their lives for their good, our good, and God's glory, it will not advance beyond the classroom, and will ultimately be left behind in the journey of life. Theological content must make us theologically agile.

​