Pastors and Christian Education

Christian Education is big business in America. In the area of the local churches alone it involves 40 million people in Sunday Schools and Bible classes. No other agency in the churches is doing more to teach the Word of God, build Christian character, and train church leaders and workers. Modern pastors have the opportunity and responsibility of guiding this vast enterprise into ever-enlarging fields of usefulness.

The traditional Sunday School was organized for Bible study. This must still be its chief concern. Through the years, however, experience has shown that the total educational task of the church is much broader. Young people’s societies with specialized expressional functions were set up to meet the needs of a limited age group. Other groups demanded similar attention, so ladies’ guilds, men’s clubs, and clubs for boys and girls were formed. Missionary promotion resulted in missionary societies. The inadequacy of time in the single Sunday study hour gave rise to weekday schools and vacation Bible schools. As new educational needs came to light, new agencies arose. There was little or no organizational relationship between these groups. In some cases their functions overlapped with resulting friction and inefficiency. Often these agencies were not amenable to the properly constituted authority of the church itself. Through them the church’s life was often segregated into isolated blocs which made for division and offered a breeding ground for strange doctrines and subversive influences.

The modern concept of Christian education in the local church rises above this provincial and inadequate situation. It sees the church’s total educational function merged into a properly correlated and supervised organization that fully meets the needs of the individual and the community. The challenge of building an adequate program of Christian education for the church in our day should elicit the highest qualities of leadership the pastor has to offer.

The day has passed when the minister can devote himself exclusively to preaching and ignore the fact that he is the overseer of the church and its educational functions. The pastor who is most successful and whose influence counts for most in teaching the Word of God and building character now has a great church school “used as a field to be reached and as a force to be worked.” Here is an area in which his whole ministry can be enlarged in teaching, administration, evangelism, and in community outreach and service.

As the key figure in the life of the church, the pastor must interpret the privilege and task of Christian education to the entire congregation. He can create a community conscience by occasional sermons that lay on the hearts of his people the inescapable duty of every church to advance its members—young and old—in the truths of Holy Scripture, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and in effective Christian service. In meetings with church officials and key leaders in auxiliary agencies, he can enlist cooperation in an enlarging and continuing educational program.

To do this competently presupposes an expert knowledge of Christian education in the local church. Unfortunately many pastors have had little opportunity to study the subject either in church colleges or theological seminaries. Progressive schools provide courses in Christian Education. Some institutions have a department of religious education wherein it is possible to major in courses leading to graduate degrees. History, principles, and methods are taught. Lectures are given by successful church-school leaders, and project work is carried on through nearby churches. If the ministerial student avails himself of several of these courses he will take up his active duties as a pastor equipped not only for the pulpit but for leadership and administration in Christian education.

A recent survey, however, indicates that there are still scores of colleges and seminaries so behind the times, in their concepts of training essential to an effective ministry in this modern age, that they provide either inadequate studies or no such studies at all. The pastor who finds himself in the predicament of being illiterate in this field needs to equip himself by reading the best books available. His first books should deal with the general field and the philosophy, psychology, pedagogy, and theology underlying the educative process. After that any number of specialized texts can be studied, as well as leading periodicals devoted to Christian education and church school methods. Every down-to-date church has a library with books and periodicals available to all interested persons.

The pastor is responsible for determining and maintaining educational standards. During recent years the Sunday School has been undergoing serious criticism because of its haphazard program and inadequately prepared teachers and leaders. Capable observers also point out that other educational factors are operating in a disorganized and uncorrelated manner. Where this situation exists the pastor is primarily to blame. He is the expert, the leader to whom the church looks for guidance in this as well as all other matters pertaining to church welfare. Sometimes the pastor finds it difficult to deal with all the problems involved. One or more of the agencies concerned have a long-standing tradition of independence or leadership, however, inadequate, that considers itself indispensable. Such a situation requires much prayer, tact and patience, a long-term program of educational change and revitalization, and perhaps a gradual change of personnel. Whatever the barriers to the ultimate achievement of educational effectiveness, there should be vision and faith enough to move toward the goal. The minister may have to start with personal conferences, then move to group study and planning, cooperative adventures, and finally official action by the responsible church boards and organizations. Some sort of group clearing-house at high-echelon level—a council, a cabinet or an advisory committee of which he is an ex-officio member—may accomplish what the existing agencies of the congregation are not prepared to do.

Curriculum content and method should be under constant ministerial scrutiny. Proper choice of materials is often a serious problem in the church school. Too often study helps and guides contain teachings foreign to accepted Christian doctrinal and social principles or are of mediocre quality. There are instances where materials have been used to destroy faith in Holy Scripture or to promote socialistic or communistic political views. Authority for choice or approval of curriculum materials should be vested in a well-qualified committee of which the pastor should be an ex-officio member. Among the matters to be considered are (1) Is the material in harmony with the objective sought? (2) Is it true to the Bible? (3) Does it contain subversive doctrinal or social views? (4) Is it prepared by scholarly and otherwise capable writers? (5) Is it suited to the needs and capacities of the pupils? (6) Can the teachers use it successfully? (7) Is it otherwise practical in the light of local conditions? Merit based on some such standard as this should be the primary consideration in choosing from a wide range of samples which have been made available to the committee for study and criticism.

It is essential that Bible instruction be suited to the age, abilities, and circumstances of the pupil. Experts, realizing the problem that exists here, have come to favor graded lessons which provide the pupil at each step of his growth with adequate lessons and teaching approaches. Beyond the study of the Bible itself, there is a rich store of study materials in missions, church history, religious art, stewardship, hymnology, and kindred subjects. Special consideration should be given to personal problems, vocational guidance, spiritual nurture, social issues, parent training, leadership training, and other vital matters. In the average church, who but the minister fully understands what is involved in the educational process and is capable to direct planning and give guidance in this area?

The time factor is directly related to this problem. The average Roman Catholic church in America gives 300 hours of religious instruction annually to its pupils; the Jewish synagogue schools, 305 hours; the average Protestant church schools, a maximum of 25 teaching hours. It is small wonder that the average child in most Protestant homes can give no adequate reason for his faith. Furthermore, the major time allowance for religious instruction is poorly distributed. Half-hour lessons a week apart make continuity of instruction well-nigh impossible. Many educators believe that a few weeks of continuous, intensive training (such as offered by Vacation Bible Schools) is far more fruitful than 52 weeks of Sunday School instruction. The child mind is unlikely to carry a line of thought from one study period to another when there is an interval of seven days. Neither trained teachers, good equipment, nor improved lesson materials can adequately overcome the lack of time for instruction.

The church school of the future will not only meet on Sunday morning, but Sunday evening and through the week. It will give expressional training not only to the youth but to the child and the adult. It will not only “teach the Bible” but will offer advanced courses in every area of knowledge and practice vital to Christian living and Church efficiency. Such a concept of the church school makes it the supreme opportunity of the church to become the medium through which souls are intelligently led to accept Christ as Saviour and Lord. Here characters are molded, life is interpreted in Christian terms, abilities are developed for church leadership, and service and Christians are equipped to live in a world which is in dire need of the Christian life and message. It is the minister who must provide the impetus for this enlarging impressional and expressional educational program.

Trained and qualified leadership in Christian education is a primary concern of the pastor. In a very real sense he is responsible for the instruction of his flock. Most of their training is accomplished through the instrumentality of the church school. The character of the teachers and supervisors of instruction, their beliefs, their capabilities, their effectiveness, and their loyalty to the church are extremely vital. To provide this, leadership training classes should be conducted regularly and a system of preliminary internship should be developed under proper supervision. If the pastor has the time, he could use his abilities to no better advantage than in teaching one of these classes and counselling the growing recruits. The texts and requirements for leadership training should be carefully screened and only those with a sound philosophy and methodology approved. Weakness at this point can endanger the whole educational structure.

The pastor who visualizes the school as an evangelistic medium and thus utilizes it to the fullest degree can build a great church. The amazing growth of the Southern Baptist churches in America is largely due to the instrumentality of the Sunday School. The largest Sunday Schools and the largest churches in the nation are to be found in this denomination. Surveys of American Protestant churches over a period of years reveal that 50 per cent of the new additions to church membership come through the work of the Sunday School alone; 35 per cent through the school and other agencies; and only 15 per cent through media other than the school. Millions of people in America are out of Christ. Many of these have never been touched by the church or any of its agencies. It is said that there are some 20 million children and youth, four to eighteen years of age, who are not in any church school. The Sunday School offers an already-organized body of workers equipped to make a graded approach to the unreached and unsaved. Once imbued with the spirit of evangelism, the school can develop a list of prospective church members which may well be the potential church of tomorrow. Through the medium of the school new members and prospective members may be trained in classes taught by the pastor. Thus he can become intimately acquainted with each new church member and live his life into their own. Educational evangelism and evangelistic education give new life and purpose to the church school.

Adequate buildings and equipment for education will be provided on the advice and approval of the pastor. If he really believes that religious education is a basic and indispensable factor in the training of the children and youth of the congregation and the community at large, he will not be satisfied until the church has the best possible facilities.

Underlying and undergirding the educational task of the church there must be a distinctively evangelical Christian philosophy and theology. One of the great needs of the hour is an entire volume dealing with these foundational considerations, and written in the context of our modern culture. We can only intimate skeletal outlines. (1) Christian education has its source and end in God—a perfect, self-revealing, unitive Person. (2) God created man in his image—a self-conscious, self-determinative being, but man has fallen from his perfect state. (3) God makes himself known to man through natural and special revelation. The written Word of God is the authoritative revelation of God and his purpose. (4) The nature and the needs of man are to be served to the end that he may have fellowship with God, with mankind, and with himself to the glory of God. (5) The design of God revealed in Christ to man through the Holy Scriptures gives unity, meaning, and purpose to all of life. (6) Since modern man is generically sinful, self-centered, and evil he must recognize the need of redemption in Christ and the reorientation of his life, ideals, and experiences. (7) The Word of God is the source of authority for and the essential content of the curriculum by which God reaches into the whole man with his redemptive purposeful power. It is the basis for vital, personal choices and experiences when coupled with capable instruction and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. (8) Comprehensive goals embracing all of life’s needs and experiences will be achieved through growth in knowledge, spiritual understanding, and through right choices and activities. (9) The pole of interaction in the educational process is the authority of Christ as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and the orb of creativity is the experience of the whole person. (10) Thus the pupil grows into a perfect measure of Christ’s moral stature and makes his maximum contribution to the moral and social order to the glory of God. Such an understanding in depth of what the church school is set to accomplish is essential if the pastor is to direct intelligently this important arm of his church program.

The pastor is under divine compulsion to direct and participate in the task of Christian education. Our Lord set the example in such a deep educational concern that he was hailed as “the Master Teacher.” Before Christ’s ascension, he gave the directive that was to activate the Christian ministry for all time to come: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to do all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you alway even unto the end of the world. Amen” (Matt. 28:19, 20. ASV). Teaching was at the heart of the Christ-centered program of the apostolic church and was largely responsible for its intelligent virility and effectiveness. Our continuing ministry must conform to that pattern if it is to achieve the divine purpose in our day.

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