Seminary Saturday – April 14, 2012

Coloring Outside the Lines: Reaching Children, Encouraging Moral Development
Dr. Kathryn Ott, Assistant Professor of Christian Social Ethics

How do we create ministries with children and youth that encourage social justice (not just charity)? The first section of the workshop will explore what we know about children/youth’s understanding and exercise of moral decision-making–choosing right and wrong in their daily lives. We will look specifically at children’s play and youth social interaction to observe children’s moral practices and reflect on how children/youth view and recreate their complex social world related to issues of race, sex/gender identification, and consumerism. The examples will help us to see how Christian values are or are not being put into practice. In the second half of the workshop, participants will evaluate how religious education programs and liturgical practices influence (for better or worse) children/youth’s use of racialized, sex/gendered, and consumerist material to develop a sense of accountability to the Christian call for social justice.

The Spiritual Dimension of Caregiving
Rev. Lynn Czarniecki, Chaplain, St. Barnabas Hospice and Palliative Care Center, West Orange, NJ, Deacon, Trinity and St. Philip’s Episcopal Cathedral, Newark, NJ

This seminar will explore the varied ways that spirituality impacts those who are caregivers of the sick, the elderly or the dying. Through lecture and dialogue the participants will examine the spiritual issues that arise for people who are caring for others, responses to suffering in the bible and church history, and how caregiving impacts the caregiver’s spirituality and faith. Different caregiver roles will be discussed as they relate to spirituality and faith and interventions that can enhance caregivers’ coping and relationship to the transcendent will be considered.