Adult Education Recordings
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Recordings of member's personal spiritual journeys can be found on the Member Area on the Adult Education Recordings page. You will need a password to access those.

July 2021 Recordings

July 25: This is the second video of an excellent Yale University class on the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). The first lecture, like a second to follow soon, focuses on how the Hebrew Bible came to have the form in which we know it. 
July 18: This is the first of several videos of an excellent Yale University class on the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). The first lecture, like a second to follow soon, focuses on how the Hebrew Bible came to have the form in which we know it. It is a fine story, well told. 
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. 

June 2021 Recordings

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.
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.”

May 2021 Recordings

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
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." 
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.
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.​​​

April 2021 Recordings

April 25: Yan Diglov, Executive Director, Firestarter; Producer, We Are In It (2016), Lessons in Seeing (2017), and Seeds of All Things (2018) spoke on The Cost of Bipartisanship: How compromise led to neglect in U.S. refugee resettlement. Americans should take valuable lessons from the history of refugee resettlement to understand the inevitable outcome of political posturing. Texas has been fertile soil for new political games that led to the steady deterioration of a previously functioning public institution. I will trace how the system of refugee resettlement went from giving me and my family a chance to demonizing communities fleeing their homes.
April 18: Richard Johnson talked to us about sustainability. As his Rice bio makes clear, he is eminently qualified to share his knowledge and wisdom with us. Richard Johnson is the director of the Administrative Center for Sustainability and Energy Management at Rice. In this role he leads Rice’s sustainability program and also oversees a team of energy managers and analysts. Richard holds appointments as a Professor in the Practice of Environmental Studies in Sociology and as an Adjunct Lecturer in Civil and Environmental Engineering. Richard also serves as the Co-Director of the Environmental Studies Program. 
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.
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.

March 2021 Recordings

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.
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. 
March 14: Laura Mayo speaking on substitutionary atonement.
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.

February 2021 Recordings
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. 
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.
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."
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.

January 2021 Recordings

January 31: In keeping with the Adult Education program’s practice of periodically featuring the distinctive interests and gifts of Covenant members, Rebecca Spears will talk about and share her poetry.
January 17: Ben Ball led us in an exercise of using our own life experience in thinking theologically.
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. 

December 2020 Recordings

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

November 2020 Recordings

Education for November 29: 
In recognition that November 29 is the first Sunday of the Advent season, the adult education class will be the first of two sessions featuring portions of a set of fascinating recorded lectures by John Dominic Crossan, one of the prominent scholars of the life of the historical Jesus and a key leader of the Jesus Seminar. He is also a delightful teacher. The title of the lectures is “The Challenge of Jesus,” referring to the threat Jesus posed to the Roman Empire and by extension to local rulers of the empire such as Herod Antipas and Pontius Pilate. In these first selections, Crossan provides the historical background and delineates the theological beliefs about Caesar Augustus that legitimized Caesar and the Empire and that were challenged by the advent, life, and ministry of Jesus and John the Baptist. Led by Bill Martin.
Education for November 22: 
Laura Mitchell talked about ways that we are taking care of ourselves and learn new ways to care through breathing and mindfulness movements. We are a community that takes care of each other and our world around us. In order to continue doing that in these difficult times, we must learn how to take care of ourselves. We need to look inward to ourselves in order to look outward to our community. Be ready to do some simple movements either standing or sitting in a chair. Also, I encourage you to have a journal/paper, pens/markers with you to express your creativity as we move through the process of taking care of ourselves and others.
Education for November 15: The adult education will be a portion of a Baker Institute Religion and Public Policy Program webinar, "The Fight to Make American Christian Again: Christian Nationalism in National and Texas Politics." Christian nationalism — the belief that the U.S. should be an expressly Christian nation governed by biblically-based laws — has become a significant overt force in U.S. politics and religious life. In this webinar, four leading scholars and researchers discussed their recent research on Christian nationalism. Bill Martin, director of the Baker Institute program, moderated the discussion. This portion, best seen after the previous segments, can be accessed on the Baker Institute website.
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.

October 2020 Recordings

Education for October 25: 
Mark P. Jones, Ph.D., fellow in political science at the Baker Institute and the Joseph D. Jamail Professor in the Department of Political Science at Rice University is a frequent commentator in local, state, national and international media on government, politics and public policy.
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The presentation covered the race for the White House and battle for control of the U.S. Senate at the federal level. At the state level, the focus was on the Democratic effort to flip the Texas House as well as what to watch at the congressional level, from the U.S. Senate contest to the most competitive U.S. House races.
Education for October 11: 
Sunday's class featured a Baker Institute webinar on The Age of Addiction: How Bad Habits Became Big Business, featuring Professor David Courtwright.  The addictions to be discussed include, in addition to alcohol and other drugs, food, gambling, video games, and social media. Courtwright describes the myriad ways what he calls "limbic capitalism," referring to the ways "big business" can manipulate the pleasure centers in our brains for financial gain.  The webinar was moderated by Bill Martin.
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.

September 2020 Recordings

Education for September 27:
Bob Tucker: Sibling Rivalry, on science and religion. 
Education for September 20:
Bob Tucker: Saved. Again. And Again. Sexual abuse and the unwillingness to talk about it.
Education for September 13:
Ben Ball and Jackie Rundstein will discuss the topic Thinking Theologically.
Education for September 6:
Ben Ball will discuss the topic Taking the Bible Seriously.

August 2020 Recordings

Education for August 30:
Zoroastrian theology and principles. 
Education for August 23:
Laura Mitchell, Part 2 on race, culture and identity.
Education for August 16:
Laura Mitchell, Part 1 on race, culture and identity.
Education for August 9:
Bob Tucker, Part 2 on The Invention of Christianity.
Education for August 2:
Sarah Winter on Therapeutic Horseback Riding
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July 2020 Recordings

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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

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.