CDM Archive

Discipleship Ministries of the PCA

Dennis

How Should We Understand “Curriculum”? Part 1

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dennis.jpgWe have all used the word curriculum, but not many really know what it means. To most it conveys the material we use. It comes from the Latin meaning “a race.” God’s curriculum, or race, for His children is that in the end we are more like His Son Jesus. What we generally refer to as curriculum is really a curriculum plan. When we use Great Commission’s material for, say, grade three, it is a segment of the overall race that will take a child through the third grade with specific experiences for that quarter and year.

Great Commission Publications has done a great job laying out the curriculum plan up through high school, but what curriculum plan does your church have for adults? God’s plan is clear, but how are we going to know if we are moving each individual in our church toward that goal?

We usually refer to adult curriculum by another term – discipleship. However, if we are to see our people truly discipled we need a curriculum plan! We need to plan how we are to get a new Christian from the point of birth to maturity, from infancy to disciplemaker. If your church doesn’t have a plan let me suggest one for you. This plan allows you to monitor the growth of each individual in your church. If we keep in mind that the work of the pastor-teacher is to “equip the saints for the work of ministry” then the plan here is for the leadership to examine each person in the church, determine where they are at on this chart, and then make a plan to move him or her to where he or she is living for the Lord in all areas of life and discipling others.

A

B

C

D

E

F

Unsaved – Being nurtured along and is very interested in spiritual things

New Christian, immature, needing nurturing

Actively growing personally, but not involved in ministry

Spiritually maturing – needs now to be trained to disciple new believers

Spiritually mature – train to disciple others A-C

Spiritually mature – should be leading the Church A – F
Level 1
Searching		 Level 2
Believing		 Level 3
Growing		 Level 4
Becoming		 Level 5
Serving		 Level 6
Leading

It has often been said that if we have no goal we are sure to meet it. For discipleship to take place there has to be movement in the right direction. CEP is presently working on details for this plan. If we at CEP can help you in any way to accomplish this, please feel free to call us. If you would like to contact me directly, you can reach me at 678-825-1158 or dbennett@pcanet.org

Christian Education – More than Just Sunday School

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dennis.jpgIt never ceases to amaze me that anywhere in the world you say “Christian Education” people automatically think of Sunday school. Is this the only education the church is engaged in? If so, we are in trouble. Let me explain.

I taught the Christian Education (CE) courses at the Bible Institute of South Africa for the last eight years. Our first class exercise was to list every activity and ministry of the church, from worship to soup kitchens, from Bible study to foreign missions. I then challenged them to tell me which one of these ministries is not in one way or the other CE! I challenge you to do the same, because the way you understand the educational ministry of your church will determine the depth of spirituality existent in your people. Disagree? Then the challenge is for me to prove my point.

Let’s look at some of the things that a church does. Let’s start with missions (either foreign or local). My contention is that both are a subset of CE! What do missionaries or evangelists do? They share the Gospel. What does it mean to share the Gospel? It means they teach or explain the meaning of the Gospel – this is CE! When there is a group of converts, a church is started and a church needs trained leaders. Training is CE! How about worship? Worship, done properly, is leading people to understand the importance of what they are doing. It is not only the sermon (which in itself is CE), but it is instructing the people to understand what they are singing and why. Too many services have become little more than the stringing along of many songs, with little attention to purpose or words. A well-thought service of worship is led by one who understands what it means to keep the people focused and aware of what they are doing. This too is CE!

Instead of going on and on through all the things a church does, let me instead challenge you to think about every ministry and activity of your church and see if they are not in actuality CE.

So what is the point of all this? Well, as in any good education program, there must be good planning. This is where many churches often fall short.

If you asked your child’s teacher the first day what she was going to cover that year, how would you react if the teacher told you that she had no idea yet, and that they will figure that out as they went along? Imagine twelve years of this. Would anyone ever get an education? Then why would we think we can do this in the church? Let me challenge you further.

Let’s look at your youth group. What are they being taught? Why? What is the plan? That is, what will they know, be, and do after three to four years? Or is your group like most groups, simply going along teaching one topic this week and another the next, somehow hoping (and maybe praying) that eventually somehow the youth will finally pull it all together by themselves and actually learn something – maybe something that will even affect the way they live their lives not only on Sunday but the rest of the week. Is this really what you want for your young people who will shortly be going on to university, where they will be confronted with philosophies that are not only not Christian, but in many cases anti-Christian? Have you really prepared them? This approach is like the teacher above with no plan.

Let’s look next at your Bible studies. What is being studied? Why are you having them do this study? What are you trying to accomplish in this group and study? What will they be able to know, be, and do? Think about this – if you have no objectives then your objective is to accomplish nothing. But you say, “our objective is to study the book of Romans.” Great! But what does that mean? If you ask that group at the end what they have learned about the book of Romans you might be shocked to learn that little was learned or remembered. Worse yet, little or nothing has happened to change anyone’s life. Should not the goal for any aspect of discipleship be changed lives (transformation)? If our only goal is to cover a book, or to make sure that we know a doctrine better, then true discipleship has not taken place. True discipleship is moving people ever closer (by the work of the Holy Spirit) to being like Jesus (Rom. 8.29). So I ask you again, in teaching of the book of Romans, what are your goals for seeing this group become more like Jesus? Will they see Jesus in every verse? Will they grow in their relationship to Jesus as a result of understanding Romans?

Adopted by God: From Wayward Sinners to Cherished Children

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As a professor in Christian Education in South Africa I am most concerned about the growing rate of biblical illiteracy. It is growing faster than the pastors I talk with are willing even to admit.

Fallout of this lack of Bible knowledge is, in part, the weakening of our Christian families. The “experts” tell us that the rising generation, as well as the previous generation or two, seek one thing above all else in life – a sense of intimacy. Children grow up longing to be part of a family. Since so many families in our country today are falling apart, even children in stable homes feel the same sense of uncertainty about their own family’s welfare.

As a Church we need to put a much greater stress on developing, strengthening and growing our families. There is no way that we can have strong churches if we have weak families. God ordained the family long before He called Israel or the Church. The Church is called a family for a reason – it is made up of families and is to be looked at as an extended family (which is why we call each other brother and sister).

One way to help build intimacy within our churches is to understand how each of us came to be made part of the church – we were ALL adopted! This is not just some nice phrase; it is a term God used in both the OT as well as the NT.

Peterson gives us a great work in Adopted by God, in that he takes us back into every reference to the subject throughout the Bible. But this is not a theological textbook, it is a book about relationships – relationships forged by the One who took us out of the horrible situation we were in with our “birth-family,” where Satan was our father, and He has lovingly adopted us into a new family. This new family, of course, is the Church.

In this book we are allowed to look into the lives of many people who have discovered not only the cognitive meaning of adoption, but also how it has changed their lives and world view as they have, for the first time, come to understand more about God as their Father.

So many in our churches today do not know what it is to have grown up with a loving caring father. It is only through understanding our adoption, and the One who adopted us, that we can come to appreciate how He chose us in Christ, how He chose us in love, and also how He disciplines us with a view to making us more like the Lord Jesus.

There is a wealth of sermon material here that will build up every individual in your church as well as every family. Peterson deals with how this change in family relationship also explains how we are no longer slaves to sin (as we are no longer part of our old family), but we are now free to say no to sin. He explains how each member of the Trinity is involved in our adoption process, and how we can have assurance of our salvation by understanding what it meant when God signed the official papers making us legally part of His family (justification). It is quite amazing when you come to understand how all the parts of salvation are further understood by studying adoption.

My wife and I have four adopted children from three countries. They were adopted at the ages of 17, 7, 16 and 14, so we know first hand what it is like to think through everything involved when we come to Christ. When the children just lived with us (as the last two did for six years) they always had the fear that we would kick them out. Once the judge signed the final papers that fear instantly went away! Even their teachers commented on the change in their whole demeanour.

If you want a whole new, different and refreshing way to present the Gospel to people, as well as a way to strengthen the people already in your church, then I highly recommend Adopted by God. It will change the way you look at God – and the Gospel as well.