This week a college student coolly, cruelly and deliberately murdered thirty-two fellow students and professors at Virginia Tech University. Scores of others..
The following publishers provide a variety of age-appropriate curricula for use in the churches:
Akaloo by Augsburg/Congregational Ministries Publishing
Bible Blitz® by Group Publishing
FaithWeaver® by Group Publishing
The Kerygma
Living Inside Outâ„¢ by Group Publishing
We Believe: God's Word for God's People by Congregational Ministries Publishing
Workshop Rotation Model Sunday School by Potter's Publishing
No matter what level of student you're teaching--pre-school, adult, or anyone in between--your goal is not only to get through the lesson, or even for your students to get information, but to have actual learning going on in your classroom. You want your students to understand God's Word, and to be changed by a relationship with Jesus.
Statistics tell us that people retain only about ten percent of what they hear or read. And with the best of intentions many, if not most, Christian-education programs still teach this way, by reading and/or by the teacher doing all the talking. But those same statistics tell us that people remember up to 90% of what they experience. So how can you bring real-life experience into your classroom?
©2001, Potter's Publishing, adapted with permission
The Workshop Rotation Model is spreading like the flames of the Holy Spirit across the country. Churches embrace the model as the most exciting Sunday school study method in a long time. As it spreads it is important to ensure and preserve the integrity of the model, to maintain consistency with its educational philosophy.
The model's initial attraction is its varied and exciting activities and decorative room interiors. If the model were to rely only on attractive workshops, however, the flames soon would burn out.
Theological and educational underpinnings support the Workshop Rotation Model providing the possibility of creative and sound Bible study.
Stephen Prothero has confirmed statistically what we had perceived anecdotally. His book, Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know--And Doesn't says that Americans are biblically illiterate. George Barna's Growing True Disciples: New Strategies for Producing Genuine Followers of Christ reinforces that assessment. It's no wonder that publication after publication today calls us to re-think our approaches to adult discipleship and the Christian Education that enables such discipleship to develop.
The challenges facing our work in adult discipleship parallel the challenges facing the entire ministry of our congregations. In our high velocity society, we can ill afford to follow the traditional practice of simply repeating last year's program. We need to experiment with ministry designs aimed at developing adults as Christian disciples.
The Church in North America finds itself in a culture that is no longer Christian. Those attending church are getting older while younger people increasingly stay away. The "dropout rate" for college sophomores raised in the church is astronomical (by one count 90 percent). Furthermore, the received wisdom that these adrift youngsters will find their way back to church and faith as parents seeking baptism and nurture for their children no longer bears itself out. (Jim Singleton calls this the "Little Bo Peep" strategy--"Leave them alone, and they'll come home, wagging their tails behind them.") They aren't coming home!
Increasingly the word "missional" is used to describe both the situation in which the church finds itself, and the strategy for us to follow in this "post-Christendom" era. Eddie Gibbs gives a succinct definition: "Missional refers to those congregations who see Western culture [because it is no longer Christian] as a field ripe for mission engagement, thus acknowledging that the period known as Christendom is over." In the congregation I serve as Associate Pastor for Adult Education I have the challenge to reshape one of our denomination's largest adult education programs in light of these realities. Here are some reflections on the issues we face and the steps and changes we're beginning to make.
How many church members know what paintball is, and how many churches have a paintball ministry?
One answer is families in the Santa Ynez Valley Church in Santa Ynez, Calif., and their church. When members started playing paintball, they had no idea it would turn into the church's most highly attended outreach ministry.
"About two and a half years ago my sons were wrapping up the school year and we wanted to do something to celebrate," relates the church's paintball coordinator Jack Drake. The Drakes decided to play paintball and figured it would be more fun if they got a group of people to join them. After passing out some fliers around school and church, their anticipated group of 15 became a group of 40 who traveled the two hours to the commercial paintball field. They had so much fun that day they decided to make their own paintball field, closer to home.
Mom always stopped the car whenever she scouted an open parking space near Joe Gatta's on Main Street. His little deli -- the size of a one-car garage -- provided the freshest fruit and vegetables, delivered there right from the farm.
Today Joe Gatta's is no more. In a supermarket world, only a few delicatessens still survive. We Americans enjoy the wide array of choices and the wide range of prices -- from store brand staples to exotic imports -- now provided by the superstores that dot the landscape.
That culture change has depressed many a Main Street. It also has hurt many a Church Street. Many small and medium size churches have suffered through an era of diminishing returns, as supermarket churches have boomed.
What's it take to build an effective Christian education program these days?
That question is being asked in virtually every Christian education committee in every church everywhere. Curriculum publishing companies are asking it as well. Their answers could help congregations become centers of vital Christian education.
That first question is the biggest: So how do you build an effective Christian education program these days? The one word that arises repeatedly is relevance.
Why are you a Presbyterian? What specifically are the advantages of belonging to this denomination called Presbyterian Church, USA? Let me explain..
Although I am a cradle Presbyterian, I had the wonderful experience of serving in a Episcopalian/Anglican parish for 3 years. Maybe a decade ahead of us in the arguments over what scripture teaches about human sexuality, quite a few of their congregations are now transferring to other parts of the Anglican Communion. To be sure, these are happy days for nobody involved in that process. I am most grieved for how hard they are fighting over property, when they didn't seem to put that kind of energy into protecting the unity and purity of the Church. I am ashamed and heart-broken over what I am seeing in that part of Christ's body. I am unfortunately seeing the same patterns emerge in our denomination.
We need to realize that our conversations about human sexuality are out-of-step with the vast majority of Christians in the world. Living in a 21st century world, where the church is mainly Southern -- as in Nairobi not Atlanta -- most Christians in the world are viewing these issues of human sexuality from traditional points of view. I am not arguing that this is right or wrong; I'm simply saying this is the way things are currently in the world. It is interesting that the Anglicans in America who are joining the Anglican Church in Nigeria are joining a much bigger entity than the Episcopal Church.
Much has been said and written over these past months in the Outlook and other media outlets about the New Wineskins Association of Churches by a variety of interested and concerned Presbyterians. I was delighted to receive my brother Jack Haberer's invitation to share my perspective on things as the Co-Moderator of the NWAC. It is not my intention in this space to respond to or counter any arguments that have been given so far, there are better people than I to do that. What I hope to do is communicate some observations that may inform an understanding of our particular "missiological context" as evangelical Presbyterians in the United States of America.
Divorce is hell. Amicable divorce is an oxymoron. When a church divorces its denomination, it can be just as painful as a marital dissolution. Sometimes it's worse.
You know how divorce happens. The aggrieved party looks back over recent history, shudders over the hurtful things the spouse has done, and remembers all the unrequited steps he or she took to try to bring reconciliation. The aggrieved party transitions from trying to save the marriage to building a compelling case to justify ending it.
In the process, the accused party reacts and does things that are really, really stupid, reinforcing the anger of the aggrieved. Soon each party can't stand the sight of the other.
I've been participant in or immediate observer of a dozen congregational splits and denominational separations. Every one of them has followed that divorcing pattern.
We can do better.
From the graveyard of Gadara
and the well of Isaac's son,
sweeping Light and footsteps
the Kingdom Walking, comes.
With Word, touch and gesture;
muscled arm and steady eye,
the Calling Love of heaven,
brings Himself to die.
No give up in this moment
but Consummated Plan
bound there by the nail and rope
our Lover's Open hand.
Now Open --gates and tombstones
Open -- hearts of men
Open to the Love of God
And never shut again.
@2006 A. Kirk Johnston
Kirk Johnston
First Presbyterian Church
Paola, Kansas
In all the ancient storied script
Recited for our hungry ears
By priests and prophets in our tents
Rejected we the shock and awe
Of disappointment and of fears
A song of safety and of care
The strong and gentle parent sings
Reminder of what love will bear
To win the world from dark'ning sin
And carry it on eagle's wings
One feather at a time is plucked
One leaf that withers in the heat
One cloud the sun could cover up
One cross cross out eternal hope
One stone could love defeat
by Carol E. Bayma
When Christ entered Jerusalem, he rode in upon a donkey. He came as a king, but he came as a king of peace. Of course, as soon as Jesus entered into Jerusalem, what is often ignored by many people is that fact that Jesus chases evil doers and thieves out of the temple (Matthew 21:12) , calls the Pharisees a brood of vipers (Matthew 23:33), and is quoted as saying that the temple in Jerusalem will one day be destroyed (Luke 19:43-44). It should also be mentioned that, even as Jesus encountered Roman soldiers on numerous occasions, nowhere can it be found that he preached that either they or the Temple guards should not be doing what they do. Yes, Jesus believed in peace, but as far as we know, he also believed that armed forces were needed, that stepping up against wrong-doing sometimes required confrontations, and that all people are equally accountable. There are many times, it seems, that those who speak up for peace in speaking up against America's actions seem to have forgotten that aspect of Jesus' character. John the Baptist would tell soldiers in Luke 3 not to take money by force or accuse people falsely. He did not say that there were not times to fight. Indeed, even as I have heard much about Guantanamo Bay and Abu-Ghraib (and rightly so), I have heard far less condemnation from church leaders concerning the beheadings of American citizens, the bombings and killings of our soldiers using illegal I.E.D's, (mines) and the fact that Al Queada terrorists (alongside Iranian and Syrian insurgents) are killing many more innocent Iraqis and other people than they are foreign soldiers. It is my feeling that many Peace Fellowships would hold a great deal more credibility and would represent a true Christ-like spirit if they would treat all as equally accountable to God's call in loving one another as Jesus loves us. "Turn the other cheek" has been twisted to mean that one should never respond when I believe its original intent was to say only that one should not respond to every insult with violence and hatred (Note especially that one is hit on the right cheek in Matthew 5:39. This would make it a back-handed slap, which is more of an insult than inflicted physical harm).
Dearest Jesus, The world is in darkness, the night lasting forever, so it seems. And You are ... dead. I saw..
The first time I heard the term paradigm, I thought something had come back to haunt me from my unsuccessful trigonometry past. Curious, I asked a seminary professor about the term and received a copy of David Bosch's Transforming Mission. I read this voluminous writing. Bosch covered it all from the paradigms of the Enlightenment, the Medieval Church, the Protestant Reformation, the Ecumenical movement, Postmodernism and many more. Later I attended a church conference where the leader presented a paradigm that he believed Jesus initiated. He called it the "missional" church model.
I grew up loving baseball. Although I played Little League, I was never really very good at it. But I loved the game.
The season of Lent anticipates Easter, but almost as important for some of us is the anticipation of the baseball season during Lent. Everything is fresh and new. Fresh beginnings. New opportunities.
Even today, as one in his mid-50s, my heart stirs through spring training as it prepares us for the new season. What joy! What excitement! What anticipation that game engenders for some of us!
based on I Corinthians 15
Text: ©2006 Carolyn Winfrey Gillette.
Used by permission.
Tune: BEACH SPRING
(God Whose Giving Knows No Ending)
Listen, sisters! Listen, brothers
To the news that we proclaim;
Spread the word and tell your neighbors:
We have life in Jesus' name.
All because God loves us dearly,
Jesus died for all our sin.
On the third day, God showed clearly:
Love has conquered, death can't win.
Whether it be spouted by the Jesus Seminar scholars, the Da Vinci Code author or The Lost Tomb of Jesus producer, this is the season when magazines give undeserved attention to Jesus' detractors. In spite of their allegedly formidable arguments, confident Christians worldwide will gather in huge numbers on Easter morning chanting, "He is risen. He is risen. He is risen indeed."
Such affirmations continue undeterred, because the arguments supporting the resurrection and the legacy of Christ-changed lives far overwhelm lame claims about some Passover Plot.
Editor's Note: The following essay is the eighth in a series dealing with topics of interest and importance to Presbyterians. Author Johnson explains: "The report from the General Assembly Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church provides us both the occasion and the urgency for theological dialogue within the PC(USA). This and succeeding essays are offered as a constructive effort in that direction."
The work of Christ for our redemption (atonement) is another place where the current divisions within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) beg for a better way forward, for three reasons. (1) The current Modernist-Pietist Church milieu has narrowed the work of Christ largely to the role of example. (2) Many people today put two atonement ideas into false and unnecessary competition with each other. (3) The "classical" view of atonement, neglected by both sides but deep within the Bible and the Reformed tradition, offers a powerful way to reconfigure the total work of Christ for our redemption. This essay explains these assertions.
Easter 8 Introduction
A lot was going on that first Easter morning. Bewilderment was an emotion shared not only by Jesus' friends, but also by his enemies. Pilate, who had seemed almost skeptical in granting the chief priests' request for a guard to be set on Jesus' tomb, Make it as secure as you can... now finds his ironic words ringing true after all. And what had appeared to be merely the regrettable, yet necessary execution of a rather enigmatic figure he had personally considered harmless, is now threatening to expand into a crisis, perhaps even a potential insurrection. Even as he ponders a plan of action, however, Pilate still finds himself drawn in a curious kind of sympathy toward that strangely dignified and self-possessed victim of whom, just two days before, he had thought he was washing his hands forever.
In light of the coming revisions to the Book of Order - I hope the responsible parties will keep in mind our..
Background links: "Marks of the True Church" (Original article by Merwyn S. Johnson) "Faith is a Result of Salvation?" (Open letter response..
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