wfn.org | Being Christian a lifelong endeavor

[NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG]

Oct. 9, 2000 News media contact: Thomas S. McAnally·(615)742-5470·Nashville,
Tenn.     10-71B{454}
 
NOTE: For related coverage of the Christian Educators Fellowship meeting,
see UMNS stories #453 and #455.

By Tom McAnally*

SAN DIEGO (UMNS) -- Living longer means having more time to learn about the
love of God.

That's the conviction of Cheryl Luce, a full-time local church director of
Christian education who has a special interest in older adults. Luce,
president of the Christian Educators Fellowship (CEF) of the United
Methodist Church, said some challenges for the church in past decades
continue into the new century. One of these is the perception that Christian
education is only for children. 

Interviewed during the CEF biennial conference in San Diego Oct. 2-7, Luce
said some individuals are spending as much time in retirement as they spent
employed. 

"Being a Christian is a lifelong endeavor," she said. Luce, a graduate of
Garrett-Evangelical Seminary in Evanston, Ill., is director of Christian
education at First United Methodist Church in Portland, Ore.

Regarding young people, Luce said a major challenge for Christian educators
in the new century is keeping up with technology. "Some of our churches
still have filmstrip projectors in their closets," she said.  

Like the entire church, Christian education is trying to redefine its
identity for the new century, Luce said. "The terms may change, but we must
make Christian education or Christian formation relevant to our members."

Any church of any size can be effective in Christian education, Luce
believes. "Success, however that is defined, depends on relationships and
the modeling of faith, regardless of congregational size." 

Speakers wanting to get a lively response at the conference had only to
refer to Christian educators as under-paid and under-appreciated. On the
whole, Luce agrees, but at the same time, she said she wouldn't hesitate to
recommend Christian education to anyone considering a full-time Christian
vocation. "It's one of the most exciting and challenging places you can
serve in the church," she said. "You are limited only by your own
creativity."

Marjorie Suchocki, one of the Bible study leaders and preachers at the
conference, said Christian educators didn't make their vocational choice
casually. "Nice vocation; guess I'll choose it!" she said. "No, the spirit
of God is with us, and we desire to be pleasing to God, to see persons grow
in the Lord no matter what their age. We yearn for their education."
Suchocki is a professor at United Methodist-related Claremont (Calif.)
School of Theology.
 
In addition to social skills, reading, arithmetic and English literature,
the 67-year-old grandmother said today's children need to learn that Jesus
loves them. "There is more to learn than can be encompassed in grades K
through 6," she said. "They need biblical learnings as well - theology,
Christian history. They need to know that the church began 2,000 years ago
and something has been going on between God and God's people for all these
years."

"Educators, educate!" she commanded. "Take seriously the teen-age years,
when they learn the deep things of God, and don't let them just drift off
into secularity."  

The "past, present and future of Christian education" was examined in a
"good news-bad news" presentation by the Rev. Charles R. Foster, a faculty
member at United Methodist-related Candler School of Theology at Emory
University in Atlanta, and Anne Steary Wimberly, a faculty member of the
Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta.

The presentation began with the good news of the American Sunday School
Union being organized in Philadelphia in 1824, and the bad news that it
avoided anything controversial in doctrine, social policy and congregational
practice.   

In the late 1800s through the 1930s, Foster and Wimberly noted,
denominational youth movements were created, and Christian education
embraced the new thinking on human development and human interaction and
socialization processes from the fields of psychology and sociology. Bad
news was the exclusive attention on the middle class and the dominant
culture.

^From the 1940s through the 1970s, good news included new cooperative
curriculum efforts influenced by World War II movements in biblical
theology, research into human development and the civil rights movement.
Non-denominational movements produced curriculum resources and leadership
training, and ethnic minority congregations continued to mentor youth into
adult faith despite white ethnocentrism in most denominational Christian
education efforts. The civil rights movement forced churches to consider the
reality of racial division and the need for affirming diversity. Strong
campus ministry programs extended the Christian education through the
college years.

On the negative side of the historical review for the period it was noted
that Christian education gave little attention to nurturing denominational
identity or tradition among young people. Little attention was given by the
larger church to educational implications of the havoc in black churches
created by returning veterans from mid-century wars to a racially segregated
church and environment. It was also noted that change in congregational
education based on the affirmation of diversity has been slow. Student riots
of the late 1960s and '70s caused financial support for campus ministry to
drop significantly.

Toward the end of the 20th century, good news was that Christian education
was increasingly marked by a consciousness of global interconnectedness. On
the negative side of this same observation, Foster and Steary said
"complexity of global issues leaves us baffled and overwhelmed, so we often
limit our attention to the local congregations where issues and concerns
seem more manageable."

The increasing number of congregations assuming responsibility for
determining the shape, content and format of their educational ministries is
noted as good news toward the end of the century. However, this is countered
by the bad news that "the majority of congregations lack the financial and
leadership resources to develop a coherent and sustained educational effort
across the age span." As a result, there are "gaps in biblical knowledge, a
loss of a sense of tradition and denominational identity, a failure to
address special life issues, and diminishing participation of children,
youth and young adults in many of these congregations."

Bishop Mary Ann Swenson welcomed the educators to the church's Los Angeles
Area, where she was recently assigned after eight years as bishop of the
Denver Area. Wearing a bright yellow CEF banner, Swenson praised the
educators for their work, noting that while a bishop in Denver she appointed
a Christian educator to her cabinet. She also praised the recent nomination
of the Rev. Karen Greenwaldt, a Christian educator, to head the staff of the
United Methodist Board of Discipleship in Nashville, Tenn.

More than 500 educators attended the San Diego conference, which had
"borders" as its theme.  
The next CEF conference will be Oct. 3-8, 2002, in Norfolk, Va.  

# # #

*McAnally is director of United Methodist News Service, the denomination's
official news agency, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., Washington, and New
York. 

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
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