"What's happening is this – most of today's younger generation and even many of the baby boomers of the 50's, 60's, and 70's prefer to learn through spoken and visual means rather than written word.

Studies have shown this trend. A 2004 study reported that “literary reading in America is not only declining rapidly among all groups, but the rate of decline has accelerated, especially among the young.” This reflects a “massive shift toward electronic media for entertainment and information.”

But this wave is much deeper than a learning style preference, more than just preferring to watch TV and listen to music. There is also a strong move towards relational, non-linear learning.

he problem is that most of our preaching, Bible studies, evangelism and discipleship are reader-oriented and linear-sequential in thought. Also, the post-modern's learning style involves a more 'poetic' language than a scientific language."


This is from http://storyrunners.com

The World I’m Always Waiting For

Some experiences simply fall into the recesses of our memory until triggered to recollection. Often through unintended connections to the senses or even in unconscious dreams, these fragments race to and contend with our thoughts. This work reflects a few rather small but significant instances in my life that I have rediscovered in my dreams. I chose three of the most rendered memories I had including a perfect sunset, hellish tales told at summer camp, and the first time a stranger remembered my “usual.” The historical facts of the actual events are quite hazy to me, yet the dreams are vivid. The five weeks I have worked here began with several sculptural environments that are the most accurate descriptions of my dreams. Since then I have madly tried to recreate these in my native two-dimensional mediums finding some success, but unable to capture its fullness. Seeking this ideal I now understand that the current condition of my work, or even our world, is interconnected with my hope for completion as well as my inability to achieve it. Consequently I expectantly rest in the threshold.

-Alex

Hey y’all,

Thanks so much for your prayers over this past summer. I apologize that communication was a bit sporadic. For some reason, this summer like no other seemed to hurdle on so fast and I could barely find the handrail to grasp. I’ve attached the project newsletter that one of our staff wrote. It contains a little bit of a description of the Tribeca Summer Project as a whole and information about each of the tracks. If you need a reminder, I was on the arts track.

I’ll go into more detail about the project in my next newsletter in a week or so, but a few quick words of cool thing God did:

1. He definitely knit the community together and worked a lot of issues out in student’s lives and in staff’s lives through the process of artmaking. While this can be painful at the time, each person on our project voiced how thankful they were that God used New York and the process to refine us majorly.
2. Our staff team was amazing. Everyone gave 110% and were always ready to lend a hand even when something wasn’t their direct responsibility. This is the first year that every single staff member has emphatically stated that they want to come back and staff the project again.
3. People from all walks of life in New York heard and saw the Gospel in a variety of means. Through our artist feasts and our exhibition, we were able to continue the conversation with many of them. I’ll get more into their stories in the next letter, but here’s just a few cool interactions: Two of our students were interviewed by two high school students filming a
documentary on the way the media has distorted women’s self image. One of our students had dealt with an eating disorder and was able to, on camera, share her testimony with these two girls and as a result of the filming, the entire high school class heard the Gospel as well.

At FIT (New York’s famed fashion school), we met a man from the Dominican Republic and a man from Haiti and were able to share about the project and our own relationships with Christ. We also met a fashion major who then proceeded to come to every single one of our artist feasts and would come hang out in studio with us late into the night all the time. I could list story after amazing story after amazing story, but I’ll save that for later.

4. God is doing something at SCAD through the summer project. I was thrilled to have Jenn, one of our student leaders from SCAD Atlanta come to New York this summer and to grow in her own walk with God and in sharing her story. She’s already excited to take back what she learned to SCAD.

5. Personally, he definitely began to refine me in the aspect of leadership as I was constantly faced with either my inability without Him to accomplish something, or when I charged ahead and did it anyway, worked out some of my stubbornness!

I can’t say enough how much I appreciated you bringing us before the Father this summer. I can recall on multiple occasions getting an email, a text, call, or facebook message indicating someone had prayed for the project and almost always, it was very specifically for something we were struggling with just before. Thanks for interceding!

As for next steps, I just returned from our staff conference in Colorado and I’m at my parent’s house in Florida “recuperating” a bit. I’ll be headed back to Atlanta on the fifth. There’s some exciting and at the same time, scary, changes going on this next year with my job role and I’ll be rolling more of that out in the next letter. For now, please just pray for wisdom in preparation for some new things.

Thanks!
Bonnie, or as the Tribeca students called me, “Bonquisha”