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2008-02-19 issue:

Mennonite educators explore discipleship

by Anna Groff

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PITTSBURGH—More than 600 teachers in Mennonite schools explored the positive and negative influence of electronic culture Jan. 31.-Feb. 2 at the Mennonite Educators Conference here with the theme “Discipleship in the Digital Age: Forming Followers of Jesus in a Hyper-Media Culture.”




Darvin Yoder, art teacher at Iowa Mennonite School, demonstrates the Chinese yo-yo at the first-ever talent show at the Mennonite Educators Conference Jan. 31.

At the opening session, keynote presenter Shane Hipps told the group they have the ability to anticipate the future and power of electronic culture, just as educator and philosopher Marshall McLuhan did in the 1960s.

Hipps, pastor of Trinity Mennonite Church, Phoenix, Ariz., was a strategic planner in advertising for Porsche before he followed his call to be a pastor.

While the call of educators is to “shape minds and souls of humans,” technology also does this—sometimes working for and sometimes against educators, he said.

Hipps did not call for ending the use of technology but stressed McLuhan’s phrase, “The medium is the message.” We must acknowledge everything as an extension of ourselves, so we do not become slaves to technology, he said.

Diane Zaerr Brenneman, pastor and educator, and John J. Miller, music and drama teacher at Lancaster (Pa.) Mennonite School, led worship at the conference, which is a partnership of Mennonite Education Agency and Mennonite Schools Council.—Anna Groff

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