Rethinking Christian Education in the Church Foster Hall C

1. RethinkingChristian Education in the ChurchFoster Hall C Being a Church for the World

2. Thesis • Christian education can include any form of education that better enables believers to serve as witnesses to God’s grace. • Relies on and includes Biblical instruction • Also: • Social awareness • Knowledge of what “unholy systems” hold people captive • Motivation to address real needs • A vision that portrays the world as our parish (Wesley) • An expectation that our faithfulness will meet with God’s providence

3. ~Social Awareness~ Case Study: Kansas City ~2004 • “Kim”- age 17- neighbor to a sizeable Nazarene Church • Single mother, removed from her family’s home • Supporting herself and her child alone • Invitation to church • “Services not conducive to making friends without feeling like a spectacle” • What classes are there for her to join? • High School? • Young Adults? • Singles? • Small groups? • Asked CE director • “None”

4. Opportunities • Their CE was modeled after the the circumstances of the people who were already members • The perceived needs of current church attendees informed their SS choices • Consequences of that model: • No place for those in the community whose life does not look like those in the church • No comfortable avenue into the church for people who’s life experiences are different • No natural means of outreach to proximate needs of people • Unnecessarily limits the mission of the church

5. ~Knowledge of Unholy Systems~Case Study: GBIO • Greater Boston Interfaith Organization • Education, Health care, personal finance • 15 years • Health care initiative • 400,000 for Massachusetts in 2006 • ACA for United states in 2013 • Moving from Debts to Assets • Small groups learning personal finance from professionals within religious congregations • Financing from Mass-based bank - $500 grant per graduate • Over 900 graduates

6. Learning from Their experience • Interfaith effort • Catholic, Jewish, Presbyterian, UCC, UU, Methodist, Baptist, Nazarene • Each congregation recognizes • The stress debt and poverty can bring • That personal financial security enables believers to contribute even more greatly to the ministry of the congregation • Testimonies of success bring new participants • Some of our deepest and most crippling needs go beyond boundaries of church walls

7. ~Knowledge of Unholy Systems~Case Study: Ohio • 75% of credit card carrying college students were unaware of late payment charges. • 30% of 18-24 year olds income goes towards debt repayment. • 30% of college students with loans drop out without a degree. • In 2010, more individuals filed for bankruptcy than graduated from college • Only 17 states require a high school course in Personal Finance (OH not one of them) • Source: Council for Economic Education (http://www.surveyofthestates.com/)

8. Personal finance concerns • And only 22 states require a high school course in Economics. • Only five states require a stand-alone course in personal finance for high school graduation. • 81% of college students underestimate how long it will take to pay off a credit card balance. • 1/3 of parents are more comfortable talking with their kids about smoking, drugs, and bullying than about money. • Source: Council for Economic Education (http://www.surveyofthestates.com/)

9. Ohio Public schools • Have standards for content • Districts implement these standards (not State-enforced) • Require student testing, though not to take a course • Source: Council for Economic Education (http://www.surveyofthestates.com/)

10. Other opportunities: • Instruction in lending and borrowing • Resume-building/interview skills • Religious literacy (!) • Literacy (!) • Eating healthy on a budget • Internet use and safety • Book club (because it's not just about the book) • What other churches have efforts in place already?

11. Luke 17:11-19 • 11 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee.12As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance,13they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”14When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean.15Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice.16He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.17Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?18Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”19Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

12. Luke 17:11-19 • Some come to faith, and we rejoice when they do. • While 9 out of 10 lepers do not return, all 10 were made well • Unbelievers still suffer, and their suffering matters • When we focus only on conversion, the defiant are counted as lost • Jesus asked no questions before attending to a serious social concern

13. ~Envision the World as our Parish~our Heritage: • Wesley • The ‘long road’ to holiness • May take years to pursue Christian holiness • Included the personal behaviors of members, even how they dress and exhibit wealth • Nazarene • Earliest Nazarene compassionate ministries were toward • Orphans • Unwed mothers (think post-Civil war, Spanish American War, WWI) • Urban rescue missions • “We want places so plain that every board will say welcome to the poorest.” • P. F. Bresee (1902)

14. The church for the world • Looks for sources that tell of the challenges experienced in our local community • Can be public information • Looks for ways to understand their neighbors and form healing relationships • Across (religious, ethnic, criminal, etc.) backgrounds • Different religions represented in your community • Causes for homelessness in your area • Causes for violence or abuse in your area • “A church dedicated to changing hearts while leaving them captive to unholy systems is inadequate” • –Carl Leth describing the Spaldings’ papers

15. The Church for the World • Believesthe Gospel can manifest itself without words • Believes a Gospel community rightly sees unholy systems as a threat to our well being • Believes that the purpose of the Church is to be for the world without expecting any return. • Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Phil. 2:3

16. So … Christian Education? • To intentionally keep our mission toward the world from becoming a program • To keep our mission toward the world within our regular ecclesial practice • Christian Education demands that we make it a practice to stay familiar with our world in addition to developing a biblical faith • Because it better enables believers to serve as witnesses to God’s grace.