CDM Archive

Discipleship Ministries of the PCA

Teachers/Disciplers

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?

Small Groups – A Place for Bible Study

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If you read this column regularly you might have noticed similar articles related to small group ministry in the last two issues.

Some years ago when I began having regular meetings with the small group leaders at our church (Covenant in Fayetteville, GA), I introduced Lyman Coleman’s three legged stool. It’s not complicated: Bible study, share your story, task. Still it was months into the meetings before the leaders could immediately recite those three basic elements.

Bible Study:

Years ago the small group model identified with InterVaristy Christian Fellowship focused almost exclusively on Bible study. Today there are small group ministries that de-emphasizing Bible study, preferring to concentrate on fellowship. I believe this is a mistake.

1. We all are painfully aware that people today don’t know the Bible. It’s not just foreign to our culture, it is virtually a closed book to many who profess faith in Christ. Yet it is on the Scripture that we base our faith. Consequently, if a group is to have a Christian focus the Bible must be prominent.

2. With some, there is a question regarding the difference between a small group that does Bible study and a Sunday school class. Because the Sunday school class is usually larger and the small group more intimate, the study of Scripture in the small group can be more personal. If such is the case its message can become more pointed as the Spirit applies the Word through the discussion of those present.

3. Finding materials for the sort of Bible study that will facilitate meaningful personal interaction around the Scripture can be problematic. More and more I find myself doing my own material. It’s time consuming. Some will feel inadequate making such an attempt. But the reward can be great.

I include a couple of other things under the Bible study heading:

1. Singing: there are groups where this is a regular part of their meetings. 2. Praying: at Covenant I encourage each group to have a significant time of prayer. That is our congregation at prayer. In the group I lead, we have practical “conversational prayer” which is basically the group having a conversation with God. This allows members to enter in as often as they like. We can easily spend 15-20 minutes in prayer and to me it seems more like just a few minutes. More importantly, we’ve seen God work in our midst in significant ways. Often the most rewarding part of our evening is the conversation we had with our Father.

In today’s world there is at least one other caution that is important. Too often people looking at a biblical text ask the question “what does it mean to me”? wthout first asking “what does the passage mean”? and asking the first question without dealing with the second is to run a significant risk. That the Bible will be made to say whatever an individual or group wants it to say, the meaning will be entirely subjective. And the truth found in Scripture will not only be compromised it could be lost.

Small group ministry is an important facet of many church programs. But small groups meeting without wrestling with the implications of the Scripture for their lives, individually and corporately, are at the very least deficient.

Small Groups – A Place to be Known

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Continuing from the last issue with the topic of small groups, I would like to review Lyman Coleman’s three-legged stool approach. A Christian group needs to involve:

1. Bible study, or more broadly worship. Some groups sing. Each group I work with allots a significant time for prayer. And the Bible should always be our reference point. 2. An opportunity to tell our stories. Everybody has a story to tell and almost everybody wants somebody to hear it. These stories are seen against the backdrop of Scripture, which gives us ongoing instruction for living and encouragement in our various relationships. 3. A task. We need to look beyond ourselves. That might involve inviting others to the group and/or taking on some sort of service project. Much of the mercy ministry effort in the church I work with flows from the small groups. It could also be that the task would be primary with time allotted for the other elements such as a choir, Session or Board of Deacons.

Small group suggests a level of understanding that grows as people come to know each other better. And that is a significant inhibitor. Many of us don’t want to be known. This makes us vulnerable. If they really know me will they still accept me? I ask myself that question. Whether you ask it or not, there’s a real possibility that it makes you cautious in relationships.

Yet we long for meaningful relationships. Many of us are lonely and feel somewhat isolated. But we fear what might be entailed in attempting to really connect with others. So we choose to remove ourselves, limiting relationships to those that are casual and consequently non-threatening.

To get close to someone suggests caring for that person. And caring can be both costly and scary. Often when there is a death we don’t know what to say to the one grieving so we avoid the issue by avoiding the person. When there is a serious illness the tendency is to refrain from any mention of it. We don’t want to say the wrong thing so we say nothing. When there is public sin there is a tendency to talk about the sinner but not to the sinner. Yet if it’s a friend isn’t there an obligation?

It might surprise you to know that many who practice such avoidance are the clergy – people we tend to think of as professionals in relationships and the practice of caring.

Friendships carry obligations. To avoid those obligations, we must avoid friendships.

Christians have experienced the love of God in Christ. That love should cause us to love others the way we have been loved. One forum for that is a group where people learn to look out for each other, challenge one another and pray with and for each other all the while reflecting on the message from the God who has brought us together.

Are you involved with a group of Christians who are stimulating your growth in grace? If not, why not?

Small Groups – A Program with Purpose

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bob.jpgAt the last PCA General Assembly I was amazed when some 150 people came to a seminar I led on small group ministry. (I had prepared for 25 thinking I might have 10.) Those who came represented a variety of situations. Some wanted to know how to start a small group ministry. Others wanted tips for enhancing already thriving ministries.

Small group ministry is not new-or even relatively new. I remember how many Christians viewed small groups with suspicion in the ’60s and ’70s. Today, if you don’t have such a ministry you’re out of step. It’s become a major component in discipleship efforts.

First century believers met regularly in homes. These were relatively small groups. The Methodists, who got their name because they had a method, met each week in groups. It was part of the method. One question they asked was, “how is it with your soul?” The Sunday school has, for the most part, been a small group ministry.

What churches presently call small groups are in place in part because our living situations have become so transient and relations so scattered that the need for connectedness is often acute. Small groups, in some measure, help plug that gap.

Last May, as the group I led was winding down for the summer, I asked them to talk about their reaction to our previous ten months of meetings. One couple said that this was the primary means by which they had gotten to know some people in the congregation. That’s not unusual.

But small group ministry is a program. Like any program it should be viewed as a means to an end. If you don’t have a clear idea what you want a program to accomplish its value ought to be seriously questioned. To put it another way: don’t have a small group ministry because you think everyone else has one.

My purpose in small group ministry is threefold. I obtained this outline from Lynn Coleman a number of years ago:

  1. Bible study: Actually I would broaden it to say “worship”. Each group needs to base their discussions on the Scripture. Further, I want each group at Covenant Church, where I work, to have a significant time of prayer. That is Covenant Church at prayer.
  2. The opportunity to tell your story: Everybody has a story to tell. Often those most reluctant to begin are ones who talk the longest. Over time those stories are seen in the light of the biblical message.
  3. Task: At Covenant we do much of our mercy ministry through our groups. We’ve often encouraged Lyman Coleman’s empty chair-praying that someone will fill that chair in the group.
  4. If you want to re-examine the purpose of your group ministry the three-legged stool is a good plan to start.

The Use of Knowledge

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There’s been a tacit assumption in our wing of the church that correctly understood, affirmed information will produce a corresponding change in a person’s life.

It’s possible to cling to that belief because there is such rampant biblical ignorance at every level in the church-from children to adults, from new believers to those with years in the faith, from occasional attendees to seminary students to church officers.

It is also true that in spite of the trouble we have communicating the Bible’s message, the easiest component to accomplish and the easiest to check is information.

In a variety of contexts we try to teach the Bible. But the problem doesn’t seem to get much better. It might help if we were to do more to determine just what people are learning. But that’s a partial answer at best.

We must challenge the assumptions. There’s a small minority of people who know a lot of what might be called Bible trivia, i.e., the name of Moses’ wife or even an outline of John’s gospel. But they haven’t gotten the Bible’s message. There’s another small group who are attracted to Christianity’s philosophical system. It hasn’t, however, had much impact on the way they live. It’s possible to know a lot about the Bible and still not know God

There’s a much larger group of Christians living with varying degrees of hypocrisy. We either ignore certain aspects of the biblical message, rationalize our disobedience or suffer from deep-seated feelings of guilt. We’ve heard the message but for one reason or another it hasn’t changed us.

Part of this might be the attitudes of the Christian culture. The people we associate with will significantly shape our thinking. On the one hand, those attitudes might reinforce biblical teaching or they could distort it.

Divorce has become commonplace. Getting a divorce is easier in spite of our efforts to strengthen marriages. To minister to those who have divorced means holding in tension the reality before us as well as God’s pronouncement. He hates divorce.

The myriad of individual decisions that lead to dissolving a marriage is at the heart of the breakdown of family life. Moving beyond divorce can sometimes take a lifetime for a couple and their children. While divorce is sometimes permissible according to biblical teaching and on occasion necessary, those ought to be the exceptions.

Christians might agonize over a divorce, wrestling with things like concern for the children as well as feelings of inadequacy and failure. They might raise questions about God’s love and grace. Such a rupture could stir guilt while at the same time virtually compelling self-justification.

Too often the fundamental teachings of Scripture are either ignored or conveniently forgotten as the drama plays out and its ramifications ripple through the months and years. It would seem that far too many people abandon the church (or the church abandons them) in their crisis.

A head full of biblical data and doctrinal formulations mean little if they are not used by God to influence our behavior when confronted with obvious life-altering decisions. However, if the information isn’t there, it can’t be used.

Keep that in mind when children learn the Catechism in Pioneer Clubs (as happens at our church). Keep it in mind when biblical accounts are studied in Sunday school. When Bible passages are memorized, remind yourself that this is the sword of the Spirit. But just as the Spirit uses people to explain the Word, he uses people to apply it.

Educators vs. Indoctrinators

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By Joel Belz. Having spent the last fifty years as a student, a teacher, an administrator, and a board member in a variety of schools at all levels, I can tell you that I have yet to meet a professional educator who will stand up and say unambiguously: “We’re here not to educate but to indoctrinate your child.”

Why is it that the one term gets such good press and the other one such a bad rap? Why is it that in most people’s minds education is a high and lofty thing while indoctrination is the work of Puritans and Nazis? Why is it, in contemporary parlance, that liberals are portrayed as the educators while conservatives get consigned to the role of indoctrinators.

Why, as a result, does almost everyone want his or her children educated, while almost no one wants them indoctrinated?

In fact, the definitions of the two words highlight no radical distinctions. “Teaching,” “training,” and “instruction” are part of both education and indoctrination, according to my trusty desk dictionary.

Yet the two are different in modern usage, and only a fool would deny it. Part of the difference has to do with twentieth century distaste for doctrine. For most people today, the word doctrine has a harsh, narrow-minded, and intolerant sound. When evangelical ministers, youth leaders, professors, and other leaders can go around saying, as they regularly do, that they don’t want to get hung up on doctrine, it shouldn’t be surprising that the population at large has a negative view of the word. To call someone “doctrinaire” is rarely a compliment.

Modern people, in fact, have been taught that it’s arrogant to assert very much at all to be true. The becoming posture is not to affirm, but to question. Within education, especially in the context of higher education, we are told the assignment is to examine, explore, and evaluate, rather than to assert, proclaim, or indoctrinate.

There’s just enough truth in those assertions to be believable. (But weren’t we doing away with assertions? Is somebody trying to indoctrinate us about the nature of education?)

You have to be a pretty clumsy and amateurish communicator not to have discovered that a frontal approach is rarely the best means of being persuasive. It is far better to walk tentatively about the subject, probing cautiously here, poking hesitantly there, and joining everyone else in a certain air of detachment before saying what you maybe believe. Even the parent of a teenager knows that such a roundabout approach is typically the best way to make a point.

But let’s all stop pretending that the disjunction is between the truly objective folks on the one hand (the educators) and the sneaky, opinionated people on the other hand (the indoctrinators). In fact what we’re really talking about are effective indoctrinators on one hand and blunderbuss indoctrinators on the other. Some are deft at their work (they’re the really good educators), and some are awkward and transparent in their efforts to win the hearts and minds of their students.

Where is the effective educator who has no mission? Where is the master teacher who hasn’t got a list of goals and aspirations for every student? What does it mean to instill those values and those standards in the thinking process of another human being?

No matter how it’s done, isn’t it indoctrination?

Modern state education, pretending to be valueless, is one of the greatest-and most monolithic-purveyors of a value system in all of human history. As such, while pretending to be open-minded, it is also one of the greatest indoctrinators in all of history. That’s what education does.

But Christians have also often tended to get especially gun-shy on these issues. We’ve become scared to admit that we are indoctrinators. Instead, we should admit it right up front. Then we should explain quite openly how we go about the task of indoctrinating our young people and anyone else who will listen.

We do it by saying crisply, clearly, and winsomely what we believe. And then we say: Now let’s take all that apart. Let’s see whether what we’ve affirmed can withstand the light of day and the arguments of our opponents. Let’s explore whether we’ve left out some criticisms and counter-opinions, which, if we had included them, would have prompted us to make our assertions in a different way.

Do you call such a process “education” or “indoctrination”? I suggest it’s the best of both.

A few days ago, I found myself following a station wagon down the street. It was, of course, a Volvo. The back end was plastered with a predictable array of bumper stickers, including a pro-abortion slogan, a “Support Greenpeace” encouragement, and a call for “Free Needles for All.” The sticker that really got my attention, though, in the middle of the mess, was one that said: “A Mind Is a Terrible Thing To Clutter Up.”

I pity the teacher (or the magazine publisher) who expects his or her assertions and proclamations to be believed just because they’ve been asserted or proclaimed. But I pity even more the critics of indoctrination who don’t seem to have a clue what they themselves are doing.