What do you think are the challenges for Christian Education today? How can Seminary studies help students to face the challenges?
I go around many churches in Singapore, in Malaysia and in Toronto to listen to the teachers and help them with teacher enrichment workshops. I was a consultant pastor at North Toronto Chinese Baptist Church (English ministry) and besides preaching monthly, I was involved with the pastoral leadership team and Sunday school oversight. A perennial problem in many churches is that there is a great lack of Sunday school teachers. Many leaders want to teach but they do not feel confident because they lack biblical and theological knowledge to help them interpret the Bible correctly. Teachers not only encounter difficult passages, they have no idea about how to access good resources.
To teach Bible and theology is difficult enough, but to make it relevant to people’s lives is perhaps a greater challenge. Sadly, many teachers do not know basic human development theory, or how adults learn, or how to structure curriculum and plan a meaningful learning experience. They simply teach they way they were taught, standing in front of the class and loading the people with all the information from their own studies. While there is a place for a good, clear lecture, teaching is more than that. Too much information over and above the students’ heads can be easily mistaken for learning. To teach, in the Christian context, is to provide meaningful encounters with Christ and his word, so that people are challenged and transformed to impact their world.
Effective teaching is a significant challenge because the field of education is undergoing major changes today. When my daughter was at Cummer Valley Middle School, Willowdale (2002-04), she was already doing presentations, discussing case studies, involved in drama and debate. It was not uncommon for them to be engaged in project work as a team, besides the normal routine of writing and reading. If you stand in front of students today who are educated in such dynamic ways, and just present a lecture, you will lose them. Proper teaching is not just for young people, but for everyone.
A common complaint in Sunday school is that we keep covering the same material. People have heard it all before and they stop coming to our classes. A key is really to have a structured curriculum that will nurture believers from the time they encounter the gospel to maturity in Christ (Col. 1: 28). There needs to be a clear understanding of the gospel, the basic creeds of the church, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments (this is the basic curriculum of the early church). Further along the road people ought to learn about the meaning of worship and prayer. There is actually much Christian education happening at our worship, as people encounter God, but it has developed creatively. Other key areas are practices of the Christian life, and the distinctive of one’s religious tradition. As people mature, they will need to learn about spiritual gifts and their place in congregational life (Eph. 4: 7-16). Last, but not least, God’s call is for the people to embody Christ in and for the world. What does this mean for young people at their schools and colleges, for people who work in the office, or for mothers and fathers at home?
How can seminary studies help students to face these challenges? I hope seminary students will take a few courses in CE so they can be adequately equipped for the complex tasks of Christian faith formation. One of the things I say to prospective students attending Tyndale’s Open House is this: “My colleagues teach the Bible, theology, church history, mission, counseling, preaching, leadership, and other important subjects. My contribution as a faculty member is really to help you to organize all the Bible and theology that you have learned, and to teach it meaningfully to strengthen the church.” These students can then model what good Christian education can be like and nurture other teachers in their congregations.