One of the most underused, but potentially one of the most transforming, approaches to Christian education formation is the retreat. Often relegated to the area of youth ministry programs (but rarely formatted as a retreat even then) the retreat holds the potential of providing ways of learning and relationship building unavailable in any other type of church education programming. I find that for church leaders and members the first major obstacle to overcome when considering offering retreats is the fear of the unknown (or, “We’ve never done retreats in our church and I don’t think anyone will attend.”).

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Jenell Paris and Margot Eyring have prepared a most useful tool for those involved in missional efforts, whether leader or participant. Urban Disciples: A Beginner’s Guide to Serving God in the Inner City (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2000. 99 pages. $14.00. ISBN 0-8170-1367-9), is a workbook for persons or teams participating in, or planning on engaging in, urban mission experiences. The content is adaptable for various kinds of missions groups, including, as listed by the authors, “church Bible study groups, college ministry groups, small groups, cell groups, urban plunge programs, short-term mission projects, urban ministry courses at seminaries and colleges, and people in the first years of long-term ministry.”

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The title of Maria Harris’ work, Fashion Me a People: Curriculum in the Church (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989), engages the reader from the outset. Here is a work about the Church claiming its identity as the people of God to live out its pastoral vocation. Anyone who is passionate about being God’s people and the particular call “to end our isolation from others by living each day of our lives rooted …in the Christ,” will want to read, explore and most importantly engage this work. However, it is not a book for the pastor’s library or for the Christian educator’s resource shelf alone. It is a work that is written for reading together as the church community and is written to engage both clergy and laity. It is a book written to and for the church with sound theological reason and practical exercises, not only for group reflection but also for group participation.

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No, this isn’t about dancing—or what passes for dance in much of what I witness today. The “moves” I’m referring to is movement in your teaching. A great communicator once said that how you communicate is just as important as what you say. In terms of teaching that may mean that how you teach is as important as the content of your lesson. It’s easy to see how that can be true in Christian education. To teach about God’s love lovingly is more effective than presenting that same message (content) with an attitude of intolerance and impatience. In the Christian faith, “the medium is the message.”

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So the time is finally here. The season most of our folks long for and the children actually pine for is here but are we as a church ready to fulfill those longings? Recently I sat in a team meeting where the focus wasn’t on planning for the Advent season but it did come up. My sense was that as a church we really weren’t ready for this moment.  By that I mean we were not ready to educate our congregation about the meaning of the season.

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The librarian and staff at our theological library have been inviting professors to lunch and conversations. My turn came last week. They are a very intelligent, nice, and helpful group of folks, as librarians tend to be. It was good to be with folks who help make my job in education and research much easier and more pleasant. During the lunch conversation I talked about the educational theory that informs my approach to teaching the education courses at the seminary, Constructivism. Which prompted the question, “So, what is Constructivism?” That’s a good question worth revisiting.

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There is one thing you can be sure of as a primary educator in a local church: inevitably (just as certain as death and taxes), Sunday School teachers will begin to ask for “new curriculum.” This is regardless of the size of the church, the quality of teachers, or even the quality of the curriculum resources teachers currently are using when this mysterious angst strikes!

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Church program leaders will put on a great event for parents or families, get great feedback, and then oddly, never offer that event again. They seem to think that “once is enough.” Or perhaps they imagine that people will say, “Are they offering that again? Didn’t we do that program already?” But effective programming for family life education will give attention to the family cycle in the church curriculum.

If you offer a program for families with children in grade school you can count on two things:

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I do faculty development workshops and seminars for many schools (but not my own. John 4:44 and all that), public, private, theological schools, and congregations. Many of the leaders in those schools, principals, administrators, and deans, invite me to come do “faculty development.” But most of the time what they actually ask for is a seminar or workshop on an instructional issue to help the faculty be more effective in their classroom. So I usually wind up offering an in-service training on instructional methods and approaches, classroom discipline, curriculum and lessons design, etc.

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I’ve had several conversations with people about “how to write” lately. That topic seems to come in waves and in seasons. Over the course of several weeks all of a sudden it seems people get interested in the matter of writing, becoming a writer, or beginning a writing project. I’m never sure about how to help people who come for advice on writing. While I’ve published a few books and write a lot, I don’t identify myself as “a writer.” For me writing is more about having an opportunity to think than it is about getting my name in print, or feeling like I “have something to say.” More often that not, writing for me is a cathartic mind dump. Or, as I kid, “It helps stop the voices in my head.”

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