Adult Education Recordings
While Covenant no longer records its Adult Education classes, we are providing access to past classes to give a sense of our offerings.
December 2021 Recordings
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December 5: During the four Sundays of Advent, November 28 and December 5, 12 and 19, we will close out 2021 with four participatory sessions in which we examine the dimensions of God’s love that Advent calls us to consider - hope, peace, joy and love. Led by Bill Kline, each session will begin with a reflection on the meaning of Advent and an example of God’s love in action in the world today, after which everyone is invited to bring forward their own thoughts or examples of the theme for that Sunday. Each session will conclude with a musical selection appropriate to that theme, most likely from Handel’s Messiah. Everyone is invited to join our Adult Education family as we continue to contemplate God’s love by experiencing Advent together.
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December 12: Our reflection on Advent themes will continue with Joy. A short video on the science of happiness will be followed by considering some examples of joy and happiness, again through an Advent lens. We will conclude with another glorious selection from the Messiah.
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December 19: This Sunday we will complete our Advent series by considering the theme of the fourth Advent candle, Love.
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November 2021 Recordings
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November 28: During the four Sundays of Advent, November 28 and December 5, 12 and 19, we will close out our 2021 archive with four participatory sessions in which we examine the dimensions of God’s love that Advent calls us to consider - hope, peace, joy and love. Led by Bill Kline, each session will begin with a reflection on the meaning of Advent and an example of God’s love in action in the world today, after which everyone is invited to bring forward their own thoughts or examples of the theme for that Sunday. Each session will conclude with a musical selection appropriate to that theme, most likely from Handel’s Messiah. Everyone is invited to join our Adult Education family as we continue to contemplate God’s love by experiencing Advent together.
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November 21: Rev. Laura Mayo is going to base her sermons during Advent on passages in The Gospel according to Luke. For the adult education she provided background information about Luke, the nature of his gospel, to whom he was primarily addressing it, and other characteristics, including a comparison with The Gospel according to Matthew. On the following four Sundays, Bill Kline will lead reflection, discussion, and sharing on the Advent themes of hope, peace, joy, and love—in that order, coinciding with the themes of Laura's sermons. We expect these to be enjoyable and valuable opportunities to deepen our mutual experience of the Advent season and Christmas and urge you to make a special effort to come together for these gatherings of our beloved community.
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November 14: Video interview by Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman with Dr. Robert D. Bullard, often described as the father of environmental justice. He is the former Dean of the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University (2011-2016) and currently the Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning and Environmental Policy and Director of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice. Prior to coming to TSU he was founding Director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University. He received his Ph.D. degree from Iowa State University. He is an award-winning author of eighteen books that address sustainable development, environmental racism, urban land use, industrial facility siting, community reinvestment, housing, transportation, climate justice, disasters, emergency response, and community resilience, smart growth, and regional equity. He is co-founder of the HBCU Climate Change Consortium. Dr. Bullard is also a proud U.S. Marine Corps veteran.
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November 7: video interviews with Holocaust Survivor recollections, then a visit to the Holocaust Museum down the street about half an hour after the worship service. Next week’s newsletter will include details, most of which were included in last week’s issue of The Voyager, the Adult Education occasional newsletter. As added background for the class and museum visit, we recommend that, if you did not watch the class session on October 17, that you view the six short videos comprising an excellent program, Antisemitism, Explained, also available here on YouTube.
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October 2021 Recordings
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October 17: From the introduction to the videos: “Attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions across the US and the globe have brought the issue of antisemitism into sharp focus. ”Antisemitism, Explained” is a six-part video series that digs into the historical roots of antisemitism and how it affects Jewish identity and global events. Written by award-winning journalist Yair Rosenberg, the series explores how to identify antisemitic threats that are outside our control, and inspires the confidence to stand up against them.”
The videos address the following topics: Is the focus on antisemitism overblown? Can Jews be antisemitic? Do Jews cause antisemitism? Is criticizing Israel antisemitic? Beyond left or right: Whose fault is antisemitism?Why is antisemitism still around? |
October 10: Adult Ed offered a program recognizing Indigenous People’s Day by acknowledging some of the issues of justice and racism associated with our history relative to Native Americans. We were introduced through a video to Kaitlin Curtice, a member of the Potawatomi tribe and an author and speaker who speaks about the intersectionality of being raised Christian and her native identity.
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September 2021 Recordings
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September 5: This Sunday we watched a filmed interview and conversation with Isabel Wilkerson, the author of Caste, The Origins of our Discontent, the long-running New York Times bestseller described in August 2020 by a Times reviewer as “elegant and persuasive” and “at once beautifully written and painful to read.”
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August 2021 Recordings
August 8: In two previous excellent lectures on the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, Yale Professor Christine Hayes introduced and discussed several versions of the Documentary Hypothesis, the view that the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) was not written by Moses or in his lifetime, but are an edited compilation from several sources, the most important called J,E,D, and P—more commonly just JEDP. For the Adult Education class on Sunday, August 8, she describes the three identifiable bodies of law found in JE (Exodus), P (Leviticus and Numbers), and D (Deuteronomy), and points to similarities and differences between Israelite law and other Ancient Near Eastern legal traditions such as the Code of Hammurabi. She explains distinctive features of Israelite law as flowing from the claim of divine authorship. If your efforts to read all the way through the Bible ever ground to a halt when you hit Leviticus, this will provide a more interesting lens for appreciating that book and the legalistic passages in Numbers. https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/Nd5chcAiEzY6okQkOAYwpknx4mz4CfPf9cCMdfG0Zoe5oQ8F1EmZjSagIkwAnWa4.U0FUMyok7AeoML7E?startTime=1628429694000
August 1: The Adult Education class for August 1, still Zoomed, will feature a Bible knowledge quiz, led by your genial host, Bill Martin. We won’t choose sides or award prizes, but it should be interesting and fun. Because we are an ecumenical church, drawing on varied traditions, this will not involve Sword Drill, which would give lifetime Baptists an unfair advantage.
https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/play/yFDdurD-4qaaA2St7FXQApiiy8Vr0Q9Tz47Id9iWNMWCJgJfUaWs5drnDwAQYI4gnHGRj3cJDb69Yry4.BTEpWoFzWzzjkJb4
https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/play/yFDdurD-4qaaA2St7FXQApiiy8Vr0Q9Tz47Id9iWNMWCJgJfUaWs5drnDwAQYI4gnHGRj3cJDb69Yry4.BTEpWoFzWzzjkJb4
July 2021 Recordings
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July 11: Dr. Jane Ann Leeves extended her well-received presentation about bipolar disorder, providing an overview of the condition, the importance of reducing the stigma associated with this disorder, and offering further account of her own personal experience with BPD.
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June 2021 Recordings
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June 27: The Adult Education Laura Mayo and Dr. Virgil Fry (Director Emeritus of Lifeline Chaplaincy) discuss grief. While this Sunday is a day of joy as those who are ready return to in-person worship, we also hold tremendous grief for those of our community who have died and for the millions around the world who have died. We also have experienced and continue to experience many losses and disappointments connected to this time of global pandemic.
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June 6: The Adult Education was a presentation by Dr. Carolyn Roberts, a Yale University professor in the Department of History/History of Science and Medicine, the Department of African American Studies, and the Yale School of Medicine Section on the History of Medicine. The title of her talk is “Histories of Harm: Race, Medicine and COVID-19 in Historical Perspective.” She offers this description: "Black people in the United States have had a tumultuous relationship with American medicine for hundreds of years. The crisis caused by COVID-19 offers a critical opportunity to consider the historical legacies that have shaped health disparities. In this talk, we will discuss how the history of slavery, the slave trade and segregation caused medical harm and distrust. Yet, this is also a history of resilience and resistance. Black people then, and now, have utilized their knowledge, resources and ingenuity to endure.”
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May 2021 Recordings
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May 30: May is mental health month. Longtime Covenant member Jane Ann Leeves, MD, is a psychiatrist with both professional and personal expertise with bipolar disorder, since she has experienced it herself for nearly thirty years and has been writing about living with it, including vivd descriptions of some of her episodes. She says, "Research shows that the best way to reduce stigma is to get to know someone who has a mental illness.” Jane Ann’s courageous presentation on Sunday, May 30, will offer our community an opportunity to learn more about bipolar disorder
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May 23: Dr. Anne Chao, Program Manager of the Houston Asian American Archive (HAAA), spoke on "Witness to History: Stories from the Houston Asian American Archive."
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May 16: Our speaker was Amanda Focke, Head of Special Collections at Rice University's Fondren Library. She gave a talk entitled "Where do we go from here? The complex path to memorializing the Sugar Land 95," drawing on her work helping to curate the Reginald Moore Sugar Land Convict Leasing System Research Collection.
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May 9: Laura Mayo leads a discussion of womanist and feminist theology. Learn more about the focus of these theologies, about how they are alike and different, and ways you might consider incorporating these theologies into your theological framework.
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April 2021 Recordings
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April 11: This Sunday's adult education featured a Zoom visit by Amanda Yoder and Anne Slater, therapists who have developed and lead an innovative six-week program called Examining Whiteness. This presentation will not be the first session in this program, but an introduction and explanation of what the program entails, described more fully here. Those who choose to participate in the six sessions of the program would do so in groups of approximately ten people.
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April 4: For this Easter Sunday adult education presented the following video of Amy-Jill Levine from 2015 giving a lecture on Jesus: Who Did They Say He Was? Jesus in Text and Context.
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March 2021 Recordings
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March 28: Adult Education this Sunday dealt with the events of Holy Week, featuring a lecture by John Dominic Crossan, whose lessons added so much to our pre-Christmas classes. Here is the direct YouTube link to the video Bill shared with us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdEnJtvBi84.
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March 21: James Cone presents the Fred D. Grey Plenary Lecture on his book The Cross and the Lynching Tree, in Human and Civil Rights, Alumni Auditorium, Lipscomb University, June 2017.
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March 14: Laura Mayo speaking on substitutionary atonement.
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March 7: This is a presentation by Moonshot Compost, an organization dedicated to reducing food waste in Houston, a significant example of “Sustainable Living,” which the Adult Education Committee plans to add as one of the recurring categories it uses in planning its classes in 2021.
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February 2021 Recordings
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This is the recording of the gathering hosted by Tom Cole and Thelma Jean Goodrich: A Coming Together to Talk About Being Apart.
This time is to provide space and support for sharing about the impact of our isolation brought on by the pandemic. We ask ourselves about common reactions and their cause and we discuss how we can manage these reactions. We use psychological research, spiritual guidance, telling stories, shaping experience through writing to guide our experience. Dr. Thelma Jean Goodrich, PhD, in addition to being a member of our church and a wonderful addition to the choir is a therapist who, in addition to working with clients, services on the faculty of the Institute for Spirituality and Health at the Texas Medical Center and Houston Galveston Family Therapy Institute Advisory Council. She also works with the McGovern Center for Health, Humanities, and the Human Spirit, UT-Houston Medical School. Thelma Jean has been worship leader. Dr. Thomas Cole, PhD, in addition to being a regular attender of Covenant, has just been ordained as a Jewish Spiritual Director. He is the director of the McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics and the author of many books. He has been a proclaimer at Covenant and has led Adult Education on multiple topics. |
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February 21: Dr. Portia Hopkins, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Data Curation for African American Studies at Rice, will join us to discuss the history of St. John Missionary Baptist Church in Missouri City. Founded in 1869 by formerly enslaved people, St John’s has overcome challenges such as racial oppression, arson, and vandalism through the dedication of its small congregation. In 2017, it received a Texas state historical marker, assisted by Dr. Hopkins, who is an expert in community-driven historic preservation.
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February 14: Bill Kline had a fascinating presentation titled "Pumps & Pipes: How I came to discover Houston, love my neighbors, and have more fun than the law allows."
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February 7: Kelli Soika, a member of the leadership team at CoHousing Houston, will speak about the first significant CoHousing community in Houston. Lynn Morstead, another leader in the group spoke to our class about a year ago, to a good reception.
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January 2021 Recordings
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January 10: Bill Martin leads a discussion on the events of the past week and how we might move forward and be a part of a positive change.
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December 2020 Recordings
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December 13: The Examined Life and COVID: 2020 and its inner impact: John, and his life partner, Patricia Kane, brought many gifts to Covenant when they began spending part of each year in Houston when John was teaching at the Jung Center. John shares his gentle wisdom at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-power-your-past
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November 2020 Recordings
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Education for November 1: Ben Ball and Jackie Rundstein led us in an investigation of four questions that John Dominic Crossan addresses to 21st century Christians. We will hear from Crossan via a clip from “Living the Questions” and then discuss various responses to these questions.
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October 2020 Recordings
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Education for October 4: Rice Sociology Professor Stephen Klineberg spoke about his book, Prophetic City: Houston on the Cusp of a Changing America as reflected in 35 years of the Houston Area Surveys.
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September 2020 Recordings
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Education for September 6:
Ben Ball will discuss the topic Taking the Bible Seriously. |
August 2020 Recordings
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Education for August 9:
Bob Tucker, Part 2 on The Invention of Christianity. |
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Education for August 2:
Sarah Winter on Therapeutic Horseback Riding |
July 2020 Recordings
Education for July 12 & 19:
Rent the film for $2.99 here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/strangedemiseofjimcrow Not all the civil rights victories of the '60s were won at the cost of vicious beatings and mass arrests played-out in front of television cameras. The Strange Demise of Jim Crow reveals for the first time on film how many Southern cities were desegregated in a quieter, almost stealthy fashion with behind-the-scenes negotiations, secret deals and controversial news black-outs. It makes visible a fascinating case-study in Houston of how urban power is really wielded. Credits: Creator/Executive Producer: Thomas R. Cole, Director: David Berman Co-producer/Editor: William Howze |
June 2020 Recordings
Education From June 28, 2020
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow One of the most important and influential books written in the 21st century about the injustices of racism, particularly as manifest in the criminal justice system and the War on Drugs, is legal scholar and civil rights activist Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Given the current intense discussion and worldwide protests of racial injustice, we invite you to listen to this powerful presentation and the Q&A that followed by clicking Progressive Forum presents Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow. |
Education for June 21: Bob Tucker, member of Covenant, retired Congregational/United Church of Christ minister, and former executive director of the Foundation for Contemporary Theology, has a presentation on “The invention of Christianity.”
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May 2020 Recordings
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Education from May 31, 2020: Dr. Sravana Varma, who spoke to the class about basics of Hinduism, has given another lecture about the Hindu caste system.
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Education from May 24, 2020:
Letting Go as a Part of Moving On from John Shuster: There are practical and spiritual elements to the Letting Go Process, some of which comes naturally to us and some of which is counter-intuitive and quite difficult for many if not most of us. This session will look at how the Covid factor in our lives has raised many an opportunity on both the practical and the spiritual level to let go, in order to expand or strengthen our soul-life for whatever we face and are managing and praying our ways through. |
