Henriet's Blog

Henriet and Semper Vita Update

Though my blog has stood still for several weeks, I certainly have not. I just returned from Tennessee where I attended the Wesleyan Holiness Women's Clergy Conference and visited my friend Susan. Though Nashville, Tennessee was unseasonably cold, the time was wonderful. Imagine a conference with 600 women pastors from various holiness denominations including Free Methodist, Salvation Army, Church of the Nazarene, Church of God Anderson, Evangelical Friends, Wesleyan and some others. Pretty amazing.

FULLER EDUCATION:

On Friday, March 21, I finished my Winter Quarter. This was the course on Theology and Pop Culture. To those who took the survey, "THANK YOU!" You helped me get an "A" in my class. You really outdid yourselves. 127 out of 150 took the survey. Most had not seen Eli Stone-though some have added it to their "must watch" list since.

I'm doing an independent study for my Spring Quarter. The goal is to develop a training module for Semper Vita that includes Myers-Briggs and StrengthsFinder.

SEMPER VITA:

God is doing some amazing things. The Board/launch team has been meeting monthly. We've prayed, planned, and acted. Currently, we are working on developing a logo, the software, a web site, and marketing materials. 

In order to write the Semper Vita training module, I have attended and finished the Myers-Briggs (MBTI) and Gallup StrengthsFinder training. I passed the MBTI test in March and am now MBTI qualified. Additionally, I completed the Gallup StrengthsFinder training in April. I need to meet with 10 people for StrengthsFinder coaching and then I'll be certified. If you'd like to be one of the 10, send me an email!

We also opened a bank account and have a Semper Vita mailing address. We would love your support and partnership. If you'd like to help us, please send us your tax-deductible donation. Make checks payable to "Semper Vita." Our address is: 23515 NE Novelty Hill Road, Suite B221 PMB 201, Redmond, WA 98053.

Help! Please Take Our Survey!

Really, if you take this survey you'll really help us! So, can you give us 5 minutes (or less)? Why help and submit yourself to this ordeal? You'd be helping two "desperate" seminary students working on a different kind of final project for their Theology and Pop Culture class. Check it out:

Henriët and Tamara's Final Project Survey

The name describes the purpose but leaves you wanting for more information, doesn't it? What is this project about? Well, in a nutshell, my friend Tamara and I are in the same Theology and Pop Culture class at Fuller. We are doing a joint final project that will help us with Semper Vita, the new non-profit ministry organization we recently formed.

Our final project mixes a little bit of television, specifically "Eli Stone"...with a bit of post-Christianity (huh?)...with a brief theological discussion with Lesslie Newbigin (a missional theologian). The assignment is to take a pop culture medium (we chose TV), relate it to a post-modern phenomenon (we chose post-Christian) in discussion with a theologian (we chose Newbigin). Sounds a bit tough? I thought so too. In fact, I was quite perturbed until Tamara and I sorted out a project we could get excited about and relate to Semper Vita. 

So, will you help? Your input will add an invaluable element of the conversation. So you see, we can't do it without you!

What's the Survey Going to Ask?

This anonymous survey (yep you're totally safe here) has three primary sections, with a handful of questions in each:

• Personal beliefs - about God and spirituality in general

• Television - your likes & dislikes

• "Eli Stone" - a new show on ABC

If you've never seen "Eli Stone," it's on Thursday nights at 10 PM PT. It's a brand new show. It would be great if you could take a little extra time and watch it before responding to the survey. Otherwise, just take the survey. We're interested in (and need) your feedback either way. 

As indicated earlier, all the survey responses are anonymous. We definitely will respect your privacy. Rest assured, we'll have no clue who responded and how each person responded. We're just interested in the summary results-lots of them!

Time is Ticking!!

The survey will be open until midnight on Friday, March 14th. Our final project is due on Friday, March 21st. We will publish the summarized results on our blogs soon thereafter. So jump in now! Proceed to...

Henriët and Tamara's Final Project Survey

THANK YOU!!

Collaborative Capacity: life, faith and Jesus

Life, Acts and school have kept me busy these past few weeks. I'm completing week four of the "Collaborative Approaches in Ministry" class at Fuller (online). We've discussed various topics and concepts, including identity, organization, and developing collaborative capacity.

For this class, we work together in a group activity and have to come up with twelve word definitions--based on the reading, research, personal experience and the lectures.

Definitions of Identity and Organization

Our group defined identity as: The essence of being known that embodies uniqueness, negotiation, compromise and agreement. 

We defined organization as: Collection of people vision driven towards common goal, adapting & impacting its changing environment.

Collaborative Capacity

It's amazing how much more you can discover and produce together than alone. That's one of the concepts behind collaborative capacity. As your radar grows and your horizon expands, you can see more and together do more.

Life, Faith and Jesus

This mirrors my experience as we study the book of Acts with a group on Sunday mornings at Timberlake. The early church discovered, experienced and learned together what it meant to follow Jesus. Church is not an hour on Sunday listening to a preacher and singing some songs. Church is connecting with others trying to do life, exploring our faith and learning to follow Jesus--together.