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GA06098
Swim in figure-eights instead of circles, Nishioka tells educators
by Erin S. Cox-Holmes
BIRMINGHAM, June 19 — Keynote speaker Rodger Nishioka, associate professor of Christian Education at Columbia Theological Seminary, energized the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators on Monday with chuckles as he told the story of his younger brother and his brother's goldfish, Snerdless the Gert.
When Snerdless, won at a carnival, outgrew his jar, the younger Nishioka decided to free the fish to swim in the bathtub. But even in the new, wider space, the fish still swam in the same tight pattern.
"I think at times that God drops us into bathtubs and it's our one chance to do figure-eights, and all we do is keep going in circles," Nishioka told the crowd.
Noting that Columbia is the first seminary to offer a Doctor of Educational Ministry degree, and that the program has more applicants than can be admitted, Nishioka is excited by burgeoning energy for the "Once and Future Church School."
Drawing upon the work of Loren Mead, The Once and Future Church, Nishioka described this as a time of "the passing of paradigms — worldviews. We've gone from the Christendom paradigm into the Post-Christian age."
Nishioka just completed a study on young adults, and their attitudes toward church. He found that 93 to 97 percent of Americans — including young adults — call themselves spiritual.
"I expected them to be hostile," he said. "But the project indicates young adults aren't hostile to us. They're just indifferent. … (They) call themselves spiritual; they're just not religious.
"They are desperately looking for community. These 20 to 30 year olds, who are so technologically connected, they are looking for community. They're looking for a way to be engaged beyond themselves. They're looking for ethical vitality, integrity. They're asking, how do I live this day?"
Meanwhile, church attendance has plummeted. "You and I are in the spiritual formation business," Nishioka said. "That's what Christian education is. Spiritual formation is the desperate need of our time. Educators are going to be crucial in the coming spiritual reawakening."
Noting "even at the General Assembly, we're in the business of passing statements and paper as if the rest of the world were waiting for our pronouncements," Nishioka suggested the problem is we continue to organize our educational ministries as if existing approaches will continue to work.
"You and I, we're the church people. We're the Christendom paradigm," he said. "And I think it's so broken, we can't even tell it's broken. We're still doing our circles. Sometimes we deceive ourselves into thinking it's still OK, because it still works for the dwindling few who are still engaged."
Nishioka said we must develop new ways to build up communities who live to praise God and to transform the world. Nishioka suggested three ways we need to change.
(1) We must shift from tribal education to immigrant education. Following the work of C. Jeff Woods, who wrote Congregational Megatrends, Nishioka said, "The problem is we think we're still about the tribe, but immigrants are all around us. An excellent way to discover whether a church is oriented toward the tribe or toward immigrants is to walk around trying to find the bathroom. Are there signs? We need to focus on those who don't belong to the tribe."
(2) We must focus education on experience rather than knowledge. "Although the old paradigm assumed we know basically through hearing and head knowledge, new generations learn experientially, which means we engage more than one sense at a time. Disney has figured this out, developing rides that engage all the senses. But we're still doing tribal worship that involves staring ahead and listening, and then at the end of the hour thinking people should now know God."
(3) All educational endeavors must be grounded and centered on worship. "Time is such a precious commodity. Education in our congregations will be linked more by the participation in our members in the shared proclamation of the Christian story. Formation will come through the worship of God. I'm not sure the church school hour will last much longer."
Nishioka called the educators to "agility and flexibility," with leadership that is less turf-conscious, less interested in credentials and more in gifts.
"The big thing," he said, "is to quit swimming in the same circles.
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