These are the awardees for the Wornom Innovation Grant.
2023 Awardee: Dr. Beth Nolen
Project Title: What do five-year-olds think about God, creation, and relationships with the earth? Insights from a research journey.
Christian schools frequently use Scripture stories to teach children about God and how God invites people to live in the world. As these sacred texts were written thousands of years ago by different authors in varying contexts, teachers can find it challenging to interpret Scripture texts in ways that enable learners to discover appropriate meaning for life today. Without addressing the need to build the capacity of teachers to teach Scripture competently and confidently, children may not develop the skills to discover rich meaning from Scripture texts, limiting their ability to understand God’s dream for our world and the role they can play in bringing about God’s dream. This paper tells the story of a religious education leader who searched for meaningful ways of interpreting and teaching the second creation story in Genesis 2 and outlines her experience of introducing five-year-old children to this text, learning about children’s insights into God, creation and relationships with the earth. The story of a research journey is also presented, highlighting findings about pedagogies, learning and teaching processes and building teacher capacity to teach Scripture in meaningful, engaging ways.
2023 Awardee: Paul H. Van Straten
Project Title: Anticipating the Opportunities and Challenges of Using Commercial-off-the-Shelf Games to Educate People on Environmental Sustainability in a Christian Context.
Some studies show that digital games and board games can be used to facilitate religious learning in Christian post-secondary settings. Would game-based learning be a viable option for educating Christians on environmental sustainability in a congregational church environment? This paper analyzes several commercially-available ecological digital games and board games to explore potential learning opportunities and challenges for integrating such games in a Christian small-group study environment.
2023 Awardee: Shannon Hopkins
Project Title: Notes on the Land: Towards An Economics of Mutuality Formed By and Informing New Communities.
This project wrestles with the undeniable crises that loom over the future of rural land and land use in the UK–the combined effects of climate change, rising inequality, rising food costs and environmental degradation. It seeks to address the following questions: What does the future of land use look like in the UK? What is needed going forward for the health of the land and for the good of people and the planet? What innovations can drive a more sustainable land economy in the UK? Using case studies, signs of hope that are already operating within the ecosystem are considered. By applying “ecosystem thinking” and prioritizing the design principles of community, connection, and creativity, opportunities for progress and innovation are identified and discussed. Overall the project marks the beginning of a conversation and the building of a network to support new interventions with strategic foci, and invites others to co-conspire for change in their regions.
2019 Awardee: Dr. Elliot Ginsburg
Project Title: Beloved Land: Israel and Palestine Through the Kaleidoscope
Sponsored by The Aleph Ordination Israel and Palestine Program, this practitioner-oriented project is designed to create possibilities among Jewish congregational leaders and religious educators for engaging in peaceful dialogue and mutual understanding between Jews and Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank. It requires an intensive online preparatory course followed by an immersion experience in the Land, concluding with an online seminar.
The project brings its Jewish participants into dialogue with Muslims, Christians and others in order to wrestle with the varied claims on the Land and the consequences for faith identity and practice in a region suffering long-term fractures. It thus addresses the REA’s concern for diversity, interreligious engagement and orientation toward building a world of greater justice and peace. The designers are deeply convinced that “As religious educators, we will not, cannot, succumb to living in a post-hope world.” REA is privileged to join as a sponsor of this important initiative.
2018 Awardee: Rabbi Dr. Jeffrey Schein
Project Title: Text Me: Ancient Jewish Wisdom Meets Contemporary Technology
This project was based on the creative energies of the double entendre in the title. The project attempted in various ways to explore the interfaces, synergies and dissonances between contemporary technologies (one meaning of text me) and the wisdom of our religious texts (expanded as a result of this project to include Christian and Islamic as well as Jewish wisdom).
Venues for playing out this symphonic clash of harmonies and dissonances were varied. A professional support/development group of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic educators in the Twin Cities emerged. Dialogues about “digital faith” occurred in three different communities.
The enduring products of the works can be sampled on the website textmejudaism.com. A sample of its method and approach is found here in the graphic novella, It’s Complicated: Scully and the Smartphone.
2017 Awardees: Dr. Lakisha Lockhart and Callid Keefe-Perry
Project Title: Art, Faith, and the Pursuit of Justice: The Sanctuaries and Interreligious Interculturalism among Artists Working for Social Change
The Sanctuaries is an innovative community based in DC that seeks to “activate artists to build power, shift culture, and heal spirits for the wellness of the people.” As a collective they have quickly grown in both number and reach, and with the help of the Wornom grant, they have received invaluable assessment and reflective work to support their rapid growth. In turn this project has provided religious educators a case study in how making art together can operate as a powerful interreligious spiritual practice.