Dong-Ha Kim, a recent graduate from Knox College, while updating a 22-year-old video for our denomination, made an interesting observation: “Twenty-two years ago there was an underlying assumption that children and families wanted to be in church.”
Many excellent curricula of the 1950s and 1960s were, in fact, influential not only because of their serious scholarship but also, in great part, because of the sheer volume of post-war children and the assumption that children would be in church on Sunday. Post-war parents, and society in general, took Christian education very seriously. It was a golden era for curriculum development.
Within the past 30 years, there has been tremendous change in curriculum development. Thirty years ago, a new curriculum was launched by a crowded room of theologians (usually professors), clergy, and Christian educators. Today, new curricula are developed by a handful of publishers and marketers. Background pieces for teachers 30 or 60 years ago were serious theological essays. Today, they are two paragraphs. Teaching methods and parenting approaches, too, are drastically different. If, in 1952, a six-year-old couldn't sit still and “listen” in church or Sunday school, he was taken out and spanked. (At least, that happened routinely in my church.)
Today, as theologian Leonard Sweet points out, our Christian education must be EPIC. E stands for Experience. People want to experience God, not simply have a rational understanding of God. P is for Participatory. People want to be really engaged in their own change. I is for Image-driven. Just as Jesus is the image of God, the best religious teachers use metaphors and images. C stands for Connected. Christians choose to be associated with a community.
In the Presbyterian Church, how do we now view educational ministry, appreciating our firm foundation but being realistic about the changing context?
The great Christian educator, Maria Harris, reminds us that curriculum is not merely books and audio-visual resources and programs. Curriculum is the whole church. This means that it is time to do things like these: evaluate the theology of praise choruses, ponder what is being taught when children are excluded from communion, consider what is being taught when the leaders of churches argue bitterly over matters like whether or not they should have a divorced minister. The whole church teaches.
It is time for clergy and worship leaders to take more seriously their role as teaching elders and to understand that, for most clergy, the worship hour is the main contact they have with their parishioners. Without losing focus on the worship of God, the worship hour can also inspire people to learn – to go home and read their Bible, or to ask, “Where is the justice in that? I want to work to change that.” It can evoke in people a desire to pray while they are on the treadmill at the gym, or to research our international mission partners on the Internet.
Educational ministry strengthens from within, while pointing people out to face the world. It was like this even in the early church. The mission is the same. The methods have changed.
