{"id":56802,"date":"1997-04-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1997-04-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/shortcomings-in-lay-education\/"},"modified":"1997-04-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"1997-04-01T00:00:00","slug":"shortcomings-in-lay-education","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/shortcomings-in-lay-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Shortcomings in Lay Education"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Our age is one of specialization, and yet, for the most part, lay education programs have taken a generalist direction. Programs designed with study guides and deepening faith questions have been widely accepted. In the end, however, lay ministers may still be left with a great deal of new and important knowledge, but no practical ideas on how to share it. If there are no opportunities for expressing their deepening faith, then the impression of their studies will be of little value, except self-edification. And we are not called as Christians to wallow in our own knowledge.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3488,3844,4330,4469,4964,5124],"tax_ctp_topics":[378],"class_list":["post-56802","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-bible-study","tax_ctp_tags-edification","tax_ctp_tags-knowledge","tax_ctp_tags-ministers","tax_ctp_tags-sharing","tax_ctp_tags-teaching"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Shortcomings in Lay Education - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/shortcomings-in-lay-education\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Shortcomings in Lay Education - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Our age is one of specialization, and yet, for the most part, lay education programs have taken a generalist direction. 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