Religious Studies for International Students

  (My thoughts: I feel that teaching The Reformation Period in Year 11 gives students, who have no previous knowledge about the church, a negative impression of a church during a period of unrest, conflict and attempts at renewal. To paint the other side of the picture, these comprehension texts are taken from Pursuing Peace in Godzone  which describe and explain how the church attempts to be an instrument of peace in NZ history, often under difficult circumstances). Part 1 Icons of Peace In many countries there are religious images, sculptures or statues of Gods, altars of sacrifices with incense and quotes taken from religious texts reminding people of what to do. In Catholicism, religious art has layers of meaning and purpose and are called "icons". In the passage below, these icons are "symbols" that aid worship and visually remind people to seek peace.  "The beautiful and the good--whether this is art, Scripture, liturgy or community--can help form in its ...

Stone Soup is a community initiative in a socially and economically struggling neighbourhood in Whanganui, a small city on the West Coast of the North Island. It has brought neighbours together socially every two months for the past six years. The initiative began as a response to a tragic gang-related drive up shooting, which increased tension and pressures in the community: the incidents resulted in residents moving out, removing their children from local school, and requesting transfers from Housing New Zealand to other parts of the city. Greg and Judy live locally and, as part of Te Ora Hou Whanganui, have worked with young people for 25 years. They got together in 2009 with other local people and Housing New Zealand and decided to do something positive as a neighbourhood. This group came up with the concept of " Stone Soup ", which aimed to strengthen community relationships and support networks in order to help prevent violence. Stone Soup is based on the old story o...

The 100 questions game has two sets: "Getting to know you" and "the God questions". In the easy version, the boys pick four questions they would like to answer and we take turns to answer them. Some questions lead to discussions and more questions. In the harder version, the boys have to answer the cards they pick from the deck. If they answer the question well, they get to keep the card. If they don't know the answer, the person next in turn gets to try to answer the question. The person with the most cards wins. The class can make their own set of cards about God and what they would like to know about each other.    Here's the set of "God questions" we used in class "Getting to Know You" questions