wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Linda LeBron named 2009 Educator of the Year

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>Linda LeBron named 2009 Educator of the Year

Tells APCE biggest need is 'to help parents nurture their
children's faith, church can't do it all in one hour on
Sunday morning'

>by Eva G. Stimson
>Special to Presbyterian News Service

SAN ANTONIO - As a child growing up in California, Linda
LeBron loved spending time at church with her mother, who
was a director of Christian education. "I thought what she
did was so much fun," says LeBron.

She was ready to follow in her mother's footsteps, but her
pastor warned her that Christian education was too narrow a
field, with few job opportunities. So she got a teaching
certificate instead.

LeBron wishes her pastor could see her now. She stood in
front of more than 1,000 other church educators to be
honored as Educator of the Year at an awards dinner here
Jan. 30. The dinner was a highlight of the 2009 conference
of the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators (APCE).

In an interview earlier with the Presbyterian News Service,
LeBron said she stayed involved as a volunteer in the
church while raising her two children. Her daughter, the
Rev. Camille LeBron Powell, associate pastor of Second
Presbyterian Church in Little Rock, AR, introduced her
mother at the awards dinner by saying, "We don't mind that
you made us your guinea pigs."

After years of teaching Sunday school, directing vacation
Bible school and other tasks at Canyon Creek Presbyterian
Church in Richardson, TX, in 1984 LeBron was asked by the
church to become its director of children's ministries.

A friend introduced her to APCE. Today LeBron says she has
attended at least 20 APCE conventions.

After learning about the certification process for church
educators, LeBron began taking the required courses in her
spare time. She estimates that it took 6-8 years for her to
reach her goal of becoming a Certified Christian Educator.

In 1995 she was elected to the APCE governing cabinet and
called to be director of children's ministries at Preston
Hollow Presbyterian Church in Dallas, where she worked
until retiring in 2002.

She and her husband, Archie, then moved to a home in the
woods in rural Alabama. LeBron becomes wistful when talking
about Archie, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2006, and
also was very involved in church activities.

"He taught Sunday school from his hospital bed," said
LeBron, explaining that a church van brought members of the
adult church school class to the hospital, where Archie was
waiting for them, wearing a tie over his hospital gown.

In the painful months before her husband's death, LeBron
turned to her network of educator-friends across the
country for support. "I lived by e-mail," she said. "That
was a very formative experience, to be pouring out what was
happening to us and getting such faithful, thoughtful
responses.

"There were lots of people praying for a miracle, but not
everybody gets one."

After Archie died, LeBron struggled to adjust to life
without him. "When you lose your spouse, the future you had
planned is gone," she said. "It's like senior year in
college, when everybody wants to know what you are going to
be."

She has since moved to Little Rock, to be near her daughter
and new granddaughter Lily, and perhaps do some consulting
with churches in the area that need help in their
educational ministries. She also enjoys following her son,
Graham, to concerts around the country as he plays keyboard
with an alternative rock band.

LeBron said one of the biggest needs she has tried to
address throughout her career is for resources to help
parents nurture their children's faith.

"When I was growing up, parents felt pretty comfortable
talking to us about Bible stories," she says. "Now we've
raised a generation that reveres the expert." Today's
parents have the attitude, "We're not the experts, so we'll
let the church do it."

But the church can't do it all in an hour on Sunday morning.

So LeBron has taught classes in Christian parenting and
developed take-home materials, including a set of
guidelines to help parents have conversations with their
children about the meaning of the sacraments.

One of her most exciting recent projects was co-writing a
resource for "tweens" (5th and 6th-graders), with Joyce
MacKichan Walker, last year's Educator of the Year. The
resource, with sessions for both children and parents, was
published last summer by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s
office of youth ministries.

LeBron's respect for church educators, beginning with her
DCE mother, has deepened over the years, as she has worked
in the field and observed the dedication of others.
"Educators are the most generous and ego-free people I
know," she said in her acceptance speech at the APCE awards
dinner.

Educators are eager to share their good ideas and
resources, she explained. "If we learn or create something
that blesses others, [we believe] it came from God and
therefore it belongs to Christ's church."

LeBron ended her speech with some straightforward advice to
her fellow educators: "Don't allow yourself to be
undervalued. The church, despite recent changes, still
doesn't quite know what to do with us. . . . Hold your
congregations responsible for honoring your ministry with
fair compensation."

Also recognized at the APCE awards dinner were eight newly
certified Christian educators, five certified associate
Christian educators and two people beginning the
certification process as enrolled educational assistants.

The awards program listed recipients of three kinds of
scholarships offered for those needing financial help to
attend the APCE event:

-E. Valeria Murphy Scholarship - for persons from a
racial-ethnic background working or majoring in Christian
education.

-Global Partnership Scholarship - for international
participants.

-Small Church Scholarship - for Christian education leaders
in congregations with 200 or less members.

APCE is an organization of educators from five
denominations: the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the
Reformed Church in America, the Christian Reformed Church,
the Presbyterian Church in Canada, and the Moravian Church
in America. Also attending this year's event were guests
from countries including Taiwan, Pakistan, South India and
New Zealand.

Eva G. Stimson is editor of Presbyterians Today magazine.

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