Basics of Christian Education

Karen Tye

• Publisher: Chalice Press
• Year: 2000
• eBook ISBN: 9780827202405
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Congregations are always struggling with what quality Christian education is and how to build and maintain it. In this concise and easy-to-use guide, Karen Tye offers practical help, addressing the vital areas that need attention when planning for and building a Christian education program. Questions and exercises at the end of each chapter help pastors, Christian educators, seminary students, and laity apply the information to their own unique setting, building on the basics to renew and transform Christian education.

Chapter 1

CONCEPT:
What Is Christian Education?

It happens each time. Everything is quiet as they sit with somewhat puzzled looks on their faces. It is the first day of class, and I have just asked the students in the seminary’s required course on the foundations of Christian education to respond in writing to the question, What is Christian education? After a few moments, there is a rustle of papers as students begin to write, many of them still with a little frown wrinkling their foreheads.

As we talk afterward, I find out that this is the first time many of them have thought about this question. In fact, it is the first time many of them have had the question asked of them. They have heard the term Christian education used often, but they’ve never stopped to think about what it means. They simply assumed that they knew, that everyone else in the church also knew, and that they were all in agreement.

This same phenomenon happens with regularity when I work with a local church’s Christian education committee. When I ask them to respond to the question, What is Christian education? one of two things generally occurs. Either committee members seem puzzled and, after some reflection, indicate that they have never really thought about it before, or they begin talking about Sunday school and teaching children. Their primary points of reference for Christian education are children and Sunday school. Although I would not argue that Christian education involves Sunday school and children, to define it in these terms is limiting and does not provide an adequate foundation on which to build this important ministry.

Why is our CONCEPT of Christian education a basic building block for educational ministry? Why is it important to ask the question, What is Christian education? I believe it is important because it will determine what we do in the name of Christian education. Our understanding of what it is will influence and shape what we do, why we do it, and how we go about this vital ministry of the church. As one of my mentors, Dr. Charles Melchert, once said,

If we are unclear about what it is or what we are looking for in the process, the best we can hope for is to get where we are going part of the time by accident. I would suggest both our people and our God are entitled to expect more of us than that.¹

Like Melchert, I believe we should not be carrying out the church’s educational ministry by accident or happenstance. We need to have some clarity about what we are doing. It is too important a ministry not to have thought through what it means in order to then give it our best efforts.

When I look at the life and ministry of Jesus, I am struck by how important it was that he named clearly who he was and what he was about. The story of his temptation seems to me to be a story of his coming to clarity about his own identity, of his being able to name both what it meant and what it did not mean to be called the Son of God. It seems significant that Luke’s telling of the temptation story (Lk. 4:1–13) is followed by a description of Jesus’ visit to the synagogue in Nazareth where he boldly names the ministry to which he is called (Lk. 4:14–21). In this naming, he places before himself and his listeners a clear picture of the path he will follow. And the gospels bear evidence that he was true to his name and to the claims of his ministry.

However, I want to speak a word of caution here. I do not think that the goal of working with the building block of concept is to come up with one common definition, a kind of “one-size-fits-all” approach. Like the noted Christian educator Thomas Groome, I believe that the enterprise of education is too complex for there to be one universally agreed upon definition.² Instead, my goal is for the church to have an open and honest conversation about what Christian education is, what we think we are doing. Through such a conversation we can name those assumptions we take for granted, we can talk about the concept of Christian education that seems to be implicitly at work in our congregation, and we can look at ways in which our taken-for-granted definition may be limiting or preventing us from carrying out a more effective educational ministry.

Ways of Defining Christian Education

What are some ways in which we might define Christian education? How might we give some shape and form to this building block? When working with the issue of concept with students or local congregations, I often begin by asking them to tell what Christian education already means to them. The list of words and phrases has grown considerably over the years. Those I have heard repeated time and again include:

nurture	conversion
instruction	habit formation
teaching	indoctrination
development	catechesis
critical thinking	socialization
transmitting the faith	character formation
growth	moral development
conserving the faith	transformation
faith development	schooling
spiritual formation	belief formation

It seems to be quite a varied list, and the words don’t all appear to suggest the same thing. However, I think there is a way to make some sense out of this rather diverse list and begin to distinguish some core characteristics of Christian education.

As I studied these responses over time, they suggested to me four ways of understanding Christian education.³ The first sees Christian education as religious instruction. The terms teaching, instruction, transmitting the faith, conserving the faith, indoctrination, catechesis, belief formation, and schooling suggest this understanding.

This definition of Christian education highlights deliberate and intentional efforts by the church to transmit the knowledge and practices of the Christian faith. Although I agree with Sara Little that we must be careful not to equate instruction with the school setting,⁴ this definition does focus on the more formal and structured teaching process for the passing on of knowledge, especially facts and information, and the acquisition of certain beliefs.

The second definition of Christian education that emerges from our list of terms is that of a socialization process. Jack Seymour and Donald Miller call this the faith community approach.⁵ Others have called it the “community of faith enculturation” model.⁶ Terms like nurture, socialization, habit formation, enculturation, and even conversion, depending on how one understands this process,⁷ point to this definition.

To define Christian education in this manner highlights the ways in which people become a part of a particular group, take on its identity, and acquire its beliefs, habits, and behaviors. It calls attention to how people come to know who they are and what they believe through their interactions with those in the church. Such an understanding of Christian education would certainly value participation in the worship services—hearing the hymns, prayers, and spoken word and taking part in the various ritual acts, such as communion—as an important way in which children and youth learn what it means to be a Christian. As Charles Foster says, “We know we are Christian because we participate in Christianity’s historical embodiment (i.e., the church).”⁸

The third way of defining Christian education that I see reflected in the list is the personal development approach. The words growth, faith development, spiritual formation, moral development, and character formation are suggestive of this approach.

This understanding of Christian education finds its roots in developmental theory, which suggests that there is a structure of growth involving various steps or stages through which every individual moves and that education is a process that assists this growth. Defining Christian education as personal development highlights the need for an environment that nurtures all persons in whatever stage they are in on their faith journey and helps them move from stage to stage. The reliance on age-graded curriculum resources in the church school is one indication of the presence of this approach. The key characteristic to remember here is the emphasis on nurturing and assisting individuals in growing and maturing through their own personal spiritual journeys. Education is understood primarily as an individual rather than a communal activity.

The remaining definition of Christian education that I see reflected in the list of terms is a process of liberation. The terms critical thinking and transformation point to this approach. Education as liberation is concerned with transformation, the “forming over” of the church, of persons, and of society. Such education emphasizes the “development of a new Christian consciousness which will be aware of the global context of oppression and will lead Christians in constructing new, faithful, lifestyles.”⁹

Seen in this way, education becomes a prophetic activity. It seeks to develop critical reflection skills and enable participation in social action. This concept of Christian education calls for direct involvement in the world through activities such as mission trips and community service projects rather than remaining in traditional church contexts such as church school.

My own experience tells me that these four definitions of Christian education—as religious instruction, as socialization, as personal development, and as liberation—are present in the church, shaping what we do as educational ministry. Although I believe that these are not the only concepts of Christian education at work in the church today, I do think that these are representative of the more prevalent viewpoints. I also believe that these seldom exist in “pure form.” You may have been thinking as you read each of the descriptions that some aspect of each description would fit your setting. The church with which you are familiar may emphasize the church school and formal religious instruction. Yet it also uses age-graded curriculum resources. And it encourages participation by children in the worship service so that they can come to know the appropriate responses and behaviors for members of that faith community.

My purpose for naming these various definitions is not to create a set of mutually exclusive concepts from which we are to choose the “correct” one. Instead, I see these various descriptions offering us an opportunity to reflect on and think about how each of us would name Christian education in our own church setting. Are there ways in which we limit ourselves because we have defined education from only one perspective? Are there ways in which we need to expand our definitions in order to carry out more vital educational ministries? This important building block is the key to such vitality.

Laying the Foundation: Developing a Definition

Although each of these meanings of Christian education is present in the church, I believe that any given congregation tends to emphasize one over the others. Much of this is rooted in habit—we’ve always done it this way—and the fact that we do not often talk about such basic things as our concepts of Christian education. We tend to emphasize a certain approach, and it becomes the primary vision that shapes our educational ministry. Many churches emphasize formal religious instruction as the primary meaning of Christian education and put their energies into formal church school programs and Bible studies. Other churches give emphasis to the personal development approach and build their education programs around small sharing groups that provide nurturing environments for exploring one’s life journey and discerning God’s presence and leading. Still others take a strong liberation approach and focus energy on mission and service as the means by which one truly learns about the life of discipleship.

The difficulty comes when we operate out of one narrow definition of Christian education and are unable to see other ways of understanding what we are doing. Daniel Aleshire points out, “One purpose of a definition is to erect a fence to distinguish what is inside from what is outside.”¹⁰ However, he goes on to argue, the fence can be too small and leave too many things outside. He calls for a broad definition of Christian education. As he puts it, “A broad definition does not require us to change what is done at church so much as it causes us to look at it differently.”¹¹ Given the shifting sands of the times in which we live, there is strong evidence of the need for the four approaches to educational ministry mentioned, and I believe our task in the church is to work at integrating these perspectives into our own definitions of Christian education.

Aleshire offers a definition that is suggestive of how we might integrate various approaches into a broader vision. He defines Christian education this way:

Christian education involves those tasks and expressions of ministry that enable people (1) to learn the Christian story, both ancient and present; (2) to develop the skills they need to act out their faith; (3) to reflect on that story in order to live self-aware to its truth; and (4) to nurture the sensitivities they need to live together as a covenant community.¹²

I believe he is certainly getting at the basics of Christian education and, in doing so, integrates the various approaches named above. “T...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 - Concept: What Is Christian Education?
• Chapter 2 - Purpose: Why Do We Educate?
• Chapter 3 - Context: Where Do We Educate?
• Chapter 4 - Content: What Do We Need to Know?
• Chapter 5 - Participants: Whom Do We Educate?
• Chapter 6 - Process and Method: How Do We Educate?
• Chapter 7 - Assessment and Evaluation: How Are We Doing?
• Chapter 8 - Hindrances: What Stands in Our Way?
• Postscript
• For Further Reading
• Notes