We spent three academic quarters focusing on integration in our small groups. The main goal was to try to lay a theological and practical foundation in order to cultivate potential science and faith boundary pioneers. We spent the first quarter on the theology behind integration, the second quarter in trying to live it out in our daily lives, and the third quarter applying it more specifically to science. You can find most of the resources we put together here. Below there will be an explanation of what we did and more targeted links to that material. Most of our resources are still in raw or "alpha" form as we hope that anyone who uses it will shape it to match their context and share what they did with us so we can crowd source these resources in a way that continually improves upon them. We will also add to this material in the future by going deeper in more specific ways and by improving on these foundations through future iterations. All of this is made possible by The STEAM Project grant, funded by the Templeton Foundation and administered by Fuller Seminary.

First Quarter

For our first quarter, all of our small groups went through Every Good Endeavor by Timothy Keller. Keller's book is a phenomenal introductory text on how to integrate faith and work. Most all of our students enjoyed going through the book and one in particular commented that it transformed her perspective of her academic work. If you would like to try to use Every Good Endeavor, here are some summaries and discussion questions that might facilitate discussion.

Second Quarter

Our second quarter book, Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren, was used as an opportunity to practice what we learned about integration in Keller's book. Keller's book focuses much of it's attention on the role of narrative in our lives, whether our own narrative or that of the world around us, including our work worlds. According to Keller, if you can become more aware of the narratives we are immersed in, it becomes easier to put those narratives in conversation with the biblical narrative. Warren's book is a concrete attempt to become aware of the narrative world(s) we're surrounded by, even in the most mundane parts of our everyday lives, so that we can then engage them with the biblical narrative. We found this to be great practice for faith and science integration, not least because often the bulk of scientific research is comprised of a seemingly endless amount of ordinary and mundane tasks in pursuit of some discovery. If this sounds like something you might want to try, here are summaries and discussion questions you might find useful. Note that we did not cover every chapter since we only had 7-8 weeks in the quarter.

Third quarter

During our third quarter we then looked more specifically at the narratives that influence us and science. We started by spending some time reflecting on how to have potentially contentious conversations and then shifted to focusing on the history and philosophy of science. We had only enough time to touch on each subject, but it was enough to lay a groundwork for students who weren't familiar with these ideas. If you're interested in seeing what we tried, here's our 7 week curriculum. Note that the last week is currently missing but will be added soon as we procure it from the student who worked on it.