A church’s educational program will be shaped by several factors: its history, denominational relations, size, location, predominant social class, identity, life stage, and leadership, for example. Below are some essential congregational education program areas common to most churches:
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There are many factors that influence Christian education programming in congregations. Two of those factors are staff leadership and congregational size. While we may desire otherwise the fact is that congregations are highly dependent on program staff for leadership, development, and effectiveness for educational programs. And often, educational program leaders are the last staff hired (the typical order of staff hires are: pastor, musician, part-time youth/children staff, full-time youth/children staff, then, educator). Which means that any educator who is the first full-time program staff person in a congregation likely has to deal with years of neglect in the area of church-wide educational programming.
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Adam Kieper wrote a review of Michael Gazzanig’s book, Human titled, “The Synapse and the Soul.” It appears in The Wall Street Journal (July 8, 2008). He begins, interestingly, with philosophical questions:
What is it that makes us human – that sets us apart from other animals? What drives us to act altruistically? Why do we gossip and flirt and empathize? How do we judge beauty, and why are we impelled to create works of art?
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A reader on Margaret Marcuson’s blog, The Leadership Circle blog, asked a good question that comes up every now and again. He asked about the difference between having a will and willfulness. It’s a point of misunderstanding I hear now and again, namely, that having a will is equivalent to willfulness, or, that because “willfulness is bad” then “will,” or exhibiting that one has a will, is bad.
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Um…this is what I like to call those interesting, awkward things we do when we speak in front of a group. Whether we are like preaching, speaking in a Sunday school class, or leading a training session, we all have what I call “The ‘Um’ Factor”.
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I was gratified to read a fine article by Margaret “Meg” Hess in the current issue of the Christian Century magazine. Meg is a participant in the Leadership in Ministry Workshops (LIM) and has written a couple of articles for our LIM newsletter.
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I’ve been invited to write a magazine article on artistic interpretations of biblical texts. I enthusiastically accepted the invitation from the editor. Given my lifelong interest in art in general, and religious art in particular, and the fact that I’ve never written (as well as I can recall) anything along these lines made the novelty attractive.
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My friend and colleague Marty and I have turned in our manuscript for the book on educational planning in the congregational context. This is the sit and wait stage before the next phase of editing. For me this is always a time of gratitude for the break from writing and anticipation toward finishing the work.
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