We need a gracious revolution in our thinking about world missions. We are not likely to be effective in the next century by merely becoming more efficient within the old paradigms. Mission boards, churches, training schools, and mobilizing organizations need a new paradigm to guide their agenda. As I describe three common mission paradigms—Factory, Wildflower, and Pilgrim, each of which have influenced me at different times—I admit that, for the sake of clarity, I may be presenting extremes. In any case, I believe we must leave the first two paradigms behind and move on to become pilgrims in mission.
The Factory
The dominant assumptions underlying some contemporary missions are rooted in what I call the factory paradigm. The industrial revolution gave us this paradigm. The factory metaphor places a high value on precision, quantitative goals, predictability, efficiency, and control. It moves planners to set goals that can be easily measured. They want to know exactly what the final result will look like, when it will be accomplished, and how much it will cost.
Such a mind-set within the Christian community affects the way we look at the task,
strategies, leadership, and evaluation of mission. When we aim only at what can be measured,
we ignore the more important goals of character, discipleship, and holiness, which we cannot predict or quantify without falling into legalism. Factory thinking forces us to aim for goals that can be accomplished in a specific time frame. It inhibits vision for the qualitative development of people, of the church, and of society.
Fortunately, most factory-minded missiologists also have a genuine love for the Lord and a deep passion for the church, which produces qualities of character in people despite the inadequate aspects of the paradigm. But while the factory model has been helpful in defining the task, far too often lukewarm churches are the result of the assembly-line mind-set.
The Wildflower
In reaction to the factory model, the wildflower metaphor, a more intuitive paradigm, has gained strength. This model emphasizes personal experience, emotions, spiritual warfare, and inner healing. While the paradigm may provide a corrective to the factory model, I question the extent of its integration with biblical teaching, and I fear it may blindly build on contributions from existentialism and Freudianism. Wildflower missionaries often prefer a “go-with-the-flow” approach to missions; they are so embedded in the existential present that they have little time for future planning, or they may assume such thinking is unspiritual. If factory-oriented missionaries have their day planned in fifteen-minute intervals, wildflower missionaries seem to be blissfully unmindful of the calendar. One manages by objectives, the other by interruption. Wildflower missionaries have many strengths and bring spiritual vigor to missions because their flexibility and people orientation enhance their ministry. The danger is that they may lose the foundation of biblical Christianity, become inward looking and lack strategic planning for world outreach.
The Pilgrim
A better mental image is that of pilgrimage. Pilgrims have a visionary goal and a sense of direction, but they realize that the path often leads through rugged mountains and foggy swamps, bringing unexpected joys and sorrows. Pilgrims travel together, helping each other follow the map of the Word of God. Because pilgrims have a sense of direction, they are better able to decide if an event is an unfolding opportunity or a sidetrack interruption. Missionary pilgrims are not surprised by difficulty and ambiguity. They are motivated in their service by a vision of the kingdom.
><> ><> ><> ><> ><>
An Agenda for Revolution
We in missions need a gracious revolution as much as any mission, a revolution based on the pilgrim paradigm. Our direction can be outlined in the following twelve-point agenda.
1. Vision
The pilgrim missionary is driven by a vision of what God can do for people, for the church, and for society. Pilgrims invite lost people to join them on the road to Christ, involve them in a community of believers, and help them to become all God intends them to be. They challenge them to follow the map of the Word and to become lifelong obedient students of Jesus.
For the last ten years we have been conducting vision seminars in its candidate classes, leadership development courses, and field conferences. We also conduct regional vision consultations for missionaries and church leaders in South America, West Africa, East Africa, and Asia. When field directors report to the International Council (which meets every three years), they talk about their vision and the indications they see that the Lord is fulfilling that vision.
In all our efforts, while we encourage after-the-fact numbers to describe results, we focus on inner qualities that describe pilgrims marching toward a vision of the future. We ask, What difference does our ministry make in the lives of people, in society, and in the church? As we become ever more efficient and technologically competent at doing secondary things, I fear we might lose our vision for the work of Christ’s kingdom. Instead of church growth in mere numbers, we need a vision for a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle or any other blemish, holy and without fault. Instead of completing a precise task by a specific date, pilgrim missionaries have a dream of what people might look like if they enrolled as students in the lifelong school of discipleship and more consistently evidenced the fruit of the Spirit.
2. Strategy
It is not enough to have a vision. Strategic plans—action steps—are necessary. In a world of constant change and uncertainty, vision provides a foundation for pilgrim missionaries who dream of creative, innovative, and even audacious strategies. When missionaries unwittingly work from a factory paradigm, they are tempted to aim at programs or methods rather than eternal results. For example, the vision for a theological school should be more than to double the size of the library or build a new chapel. Vision foresees Christ-like qualities in students and the influence they will have on the church and society.
In each vision seminar during the last five years, we have discussed and planned action steps. A pastor’s library project, which provided about 20,000 small theological libraries and training sessions for pastors in Nigeria and South America, grew out of a vision for powerful preaching by better-equipped pastors. Out of a vision for the majestic Andes mountains ringing with the praises of redeemed Quechua grew a radio ministry for that people group. Out of a vision to reach upper-middle-class people of Lima, Peru, grew a Christian TV station. Out of a vision to reach Muslim beggar boys grew a friendship and feeding program.
3. Leadership
All pilgrims are called to be both leaders and followers in the body of Christ. The doctrines of the priesthood of all believers and of spiritual gifts mean that each pilgrim is responsible to lead by taking initiative to help others in the body of Christ. Since no person has all the gifts needed for the pilgrim band, there are times when all pilgrims need to follow other spiritually gifted pilgrims. There is often a need for a person to coordinate the gifts of other pilgrims. A coordinator does not take the place of Christ, the true Head, but has special abilities to maximize the effectiveness of other pilgrims. The most appropriate style for the pilgrim coordinator is team leadership. The pilgrim coordinator needs to be proactive, pushing the process of visionary thinking and action, while trusting the insights of others.
The primary focus of factory leaders is simply to use the person to accomplish the task. Task-oriented leaders tend to use a controlling style that stifles the development of people. Wildflower leaders seek to develop the person but often ignore the task. In contrast, the primary focus of pilgrim leaders is to use the task of world missions to develop other pilgrims.
4. Evaluation
Pilgrims use evaluation not to place blame for past failures or for boasting but rather to help colleagues do a better job next time. Many times the results of ministry are serendipitous—wonderful and unexpected. Thousands of people in a resistant people group decide to follow Christ. Revival breaks out in a Bible college. A women’s fellowship group in Africa catches the vision for supporting their own missionaries to a neighboring country. Evaluation in these cases is not to transfer to humans the credit that belongs to God alone but rather to rejoice in what God has done. Similarly, when results are discouraging, the purpose of evaluation is to figure out what might be done to improve the situation the next time, not to assign blame for failure.
SIM is in the process of changing ministry evaluation forms to focus on three questions: What was your situation? What was your vision? and What did you do to get there? We ask about indicators of results in the hearts of people and look for ways to improve the strategy in the coming months. Under the wildflower paradigm, evaluation tends to focus on how people feel about themselves; attention is concentrated on interpersonal relationships. Evaluation under the factory paradigm, in contrast, is often threatening because it measures specific outcomes in comparison to predetermined goals.
5. Evangelism
John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress illustrates that evangelism is a necessary—indeed urgent— step in helping pilgrims flee the City of Destruction, enter the gate of salvation, and leave their burden of sin at the cross of Christ. Although the global Christian community has grown rapidly over the last century, due to population growth, there are today more people outside the gate than ever before. As a result, evangelism is needed as never before. Evangelicals working from all three paradigms place a strong emphasis on evangelism. While factory-oriented missiologists have been somewhat mechanical in their approach, they have provided a most valuable service in pinpointing areas of need and drawing attention to unreached peoples. Missiologists working under the wildflower paradigm have helped to emphasize the joy of the Lord for new believers and have encouraged greater creativity in expressions of worship. SIM acknowledges its debt to these streams of mission influence and seeks to be faithful as pilgrims in evangelism.
Along with our related national churches, SIM regularly asks if there are unreached people groups in our areas of responsibility. A high percentage of our missionaries are working with unreached people groups, and we have recently entered some of the most needy areas of the world.
6. Discipleship and Church Growth
When Bunyan’s hero, Christian, flees the City of Destruction, enters the gate of salvation, and leaves his burden of sin at the cross, he is just beginning the next stage of the journey. Evangelism is a most necessary and crucial step, but it is not sufficient. The most urgent need in world missions is the task of helping pilgrims become disciples, learning to obey everything Jesus commanded. There may be as many as 1 billion lukewarm, nominal Christians in the world today. Transformed by Christ, these pilgrims could evangelize their world and flood the earth with justice. Rwanda, Congo, Liberia, Colombia, China, and the United States would become models of justice and peace. Racism, ethnocentrism, and poverty would end as people began to evidence the fruit of the Spirit in their communities.
Growth in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus is an inner, qualitative process that is difficult to predict, control, and measure. It does not fit the factory paradigm. But world evangelization by itself is not the fulfillment of Christ’s Commission. Christ commands us to make disciples who will obey everything he commanded. This is a lifelong process, not a precise task that can be finished by the year 2000 or any time before Christ returns. Church growth as defined by logarithmic graphs and ten-year projections has never been a New Testament ideal for a church.
7. Theological Education
Visionary theological educators see teaching as an opportunity for fellow pilgrims to spend time in what Bunyan called Interpreter’s House. Solid biblical content is taught to help pilgrims find the right path, discover resources to win spiritual battles, and catch the vision of the ultimate goal. Teaching Bible content is a means, not an end. The implicit curriculum for the pilgrim educator is the development of a caring community of disciples learning to obey all Jesus commanded. Wildflower educators often downplay the need for formal education or emphasize personal experience over theological reflection and biblical interpretation. Factory-oriented educators preoccupy themselves with behavioral objectives, test scores, and outward compliance with course requirements.
There are about 18,000 students in our related theological schools or extension programs. A high percentage of our missionaries are involved in pastoral education. We also have worked in a low-profile manner to help promote renewal in theological education. We have encouraged international accrediting in Africa and South America, promoted Theological Education by Extension, and helped to publish the writings of theologians from the Two-Thirds World. We have led seminars for theological educators from dozens of countries, urging a quiet revolution in theological education. But I am afraid that the factory paradigm is still common in our related theological education.
8. Meeting Human Need
Pilgrims are concerned about poverty, sickness, injustice, and hopelessness; the Holy Spirit helps them respond with love and practical action. Both factory- and wildflower-oriented missionaries also have a heart for helping people in need. The factory paradigm, however, tends to see the task in terms of doing things for people, like giving them pills, fertilizer, roads, and wells. It tends to measure results in terms of economic indicators, the number of schools, and so on. Wildflower-oriented ministries tend to give aid based on the emotions of the moment rather than on the long-range development of people in need. But all real development is human development—development that leads people to become all God intended for them.
Even though we can cite many failed efforts from our past, we hope we have been
learning from our mistakes. We support programs that involve people in their own development, such as People Oriented Development in Nigeria and the Niger Integrated Development team, and helping churches minister to the poorest of the poor, for example, in Guayaquil, Ecuador. It is most fulfilling to see the churches we helped to plant catch the vision for meeting human need through their own development projects.
9. Mission and National Church Relationships
Pilgrim missionaries have the task of planting and nurturing churches in other cultures, while
avoiding the temptation of trying to run them. Missionaries need to get out of leadership positions in national churches as soon as possible. Growing churches need to be self-supporting, self-governing, self-propagating, and self-nurturing. At the same time, however, we must confess that an “independent” church is an oxymoron. How can members of the universal body of Christ in one country be independent of the rest of the body? The ideal relationship is one in which the national church and the foreign mission work together in a loving, trusting, and interdependent relationship, each fulfilling complementary functions, neither dominating the other.
Missions working from a factory paradigm seldom see a loving, interdependent relationship as the goal. They are primarily interested in evangelism and precise time-specific targets. For example, they may say that when 20 percent of a people group have become Christians, then 95 percent of the missionaries need to be moved to a new field. Such a strategy may avoid some tensions of church-mission relationships, but it also misses the joy of cross-cultural discipleship and the excitement of partnering together to reach the rest of the world.
We at times has had problems with national church relationships. Sometimes we have held control too long and hindered the development of the national church. But there also have been times when we lost our identity as a cross-cultural mission and fused with the local church. This has meant losing our distinct function as a cross-cultural mission. Through channels such as Evangel Fellowship, which every two years brings together leaders from our related fields, we are endeavoring to develop healthy interdependent relationships.
10.Mission Church Relationships
The home-based sending churches and mission boards have an interdependent relationship. Each needs the other. It is not healthy for a sending church merely to send the missionary and the monthly support and not be involved in the care, encouragement, and prayer for that missionary. Likewise, it is difficult, inefficient, and usually ineffective for local churches to send isolated missionaries around the world. Mission boards provide not only logistic and spiritual support but also structures for field-based visionary planning and for accountability. For individual churches to send missionaries around the world would be like local towns sending their own soldiers into war and having the soldiers report back to the mayor of their home town rather than to the officer in the field. Such a plan not only would be more expensive, it would create chaos in the battle. Sending churches and mission boards are mutually dependent on each other.
Churches and mission boards with a factory paradigm have a more difficult time with an interdependent relationship. Factory-oriented mission boards have a passion for control and may feel threatened by local churches wanting to take more initiative. Factory-oriented church mission committees may feel threatened by the mission board and resent the fact that they use so much money for administration and don’t consult them for every strategic move on the field. The pilgrim paradigm is driven by vision and has a higher tolerance for the more ambiguous relationship of interdependence.
We are learning how to listen to sending churches. While the missionary is the primary
contact with supporting churches, we can learn much from listening to highly motivated mission pastors and committees. In the past two years, leaders have hosted significant meetings with missions pastors and laypeople from major missionary-supporting churches in five key cities. The purpose is not to indoctrinate them about our mission but to listen to their vision and problems and ask if there are things we can do to help them. Several major initiatives have resulted from these meetings.
11. Partnering with National Church Missions
A primary reason why a mission needs to continue a noncontrolling, interdependent discipling relationship with national churches is so we can partner together to reach places neither could reach on their own. The Gospel will be preached in all the world with much more power and credibility if it can be preached by Bolivians together with Australians and Nigerians. It is difficult for a Muslim to say that Christianity is a Western religion when he is hearing the Gospel from a team made up of missionaries from Japan, Canada, and Ethiopia. An ideal is for Christians from any country to be able to share the Gospel together in any other country.
The factory paradigm places a high value on efficiency and getting the most results for the least amount of money. Advertisements in major magazines like Christianity Today challenge churches to simply send their money to support national evangelists because it is cheaper or more efficient. While there may be situations where churches in more-developed countries should send money to support national evangelists, the process is loaded with danger. Seldom does the national church feel the responsibility to pick up the support of the evangelist when foreign funding is eventually cut off. Often the local evangelist does not feel accountable to the local church. Moreover, sending churches in the West do not get the blessing of sending their own daughters and sons to their “Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Our related churches in Nigeria and Ethiopia each have more than 1,000 cross-cultural missionaries, supported primarily by local churches.
12. Revival
Pilgrims need regular renewal. It seems that the normal tendency is for missionaries, supporting churches, and field churches to lose their way and fall into the Slough of Despond, to be tempted at Vanity Fair, chained in Doubting Castle, or captured by the Giant of Despair. We become discouraged and begin to fight with each other. Revival helps us to get back on the pilgrim path. Revival is not the ultimate goal for the church any more than getting back on the track is the ultimate destination of a derailed train. Without revival, however, we get stuck with all kinds of problems for a long time.
Factory-oriented churches either try to control revival or are afraid it will become too emotional. Wildflower churches may at times think that the emotional high of revival is the ultimate goal rather than a means for pilgrims to get back on the path of worship and service. Pilgrims seek daily revival as the Spirit uses the Word to challenge and correct those who stray from the path.
Since 1998 we set aside the ten days between Ascension and Pentecost for fasting, confession, and obedience to the Word. Guided by the model of revival in Nehemiah 9, we included confession, worship, prayer, and obedience. We used e-mail as the primary means of encouraging the mission family each day to continue to seek the Lord.
We now have four couples who travel around the mission world as international pastors. Many times the Lord brings renewal during the annual spiritual life conferences held on each field. Many have told me that they are praying daily for revival in our mission, in our supporting churches, and in the thousands of our related churches in Africa, Asia, and South America. May the Lord graciously give us profound times of refreshing and renewal.
What might happen if churches, missions, and schools would catch a vision for a gracious revolution in world missions? Could it be that the twentieth century, an amazing century of progress in missions, will be seen by historians as a mere prologue to the astounding growth of biblical Christianity in the twenty-first century? May it be so.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Agenda for A Quiet Revolution in Christian Education [1]
The field of Christian Education by its very nature needs renewal in each generation. Because we are involved in the ongoing process of helping to mature believers, we are always only one generation away from extinction. It is easy, and maybe natural, for Christian educators to lose the vision of the previous generation, and to merely perpetuate the mechanics of programming. Rather than being motivated by the driving force of our movement's founders, we are often motivated by a need for mere survival. In each generation we must seek to rekindle the fire and vision of those who have gone before us.
In some ways we are facing a crisis today as great as or greater than ever before. Anti-Christian values are more obvious in society. Families are facing pressures greater than could have been imagined 50 years ago. Missions have been very successful in the last half-century, but now much of the church around the world is facing a second-generation lukewarmness. Nominal Christianity in many of the developing nations is growing at an astounding rate.
Meanwhile, the field of Christian education is again becoming stagnant. Today we seem to be enamored with a mechanistic view of ministry -- or else we move to the opposite extreme and "buy into" a romantic intuitive view. The Christian education pendulum swings back and forth between an agenda that on one hand stresses efficiency in depositing information into the head of the learner, and an agenda which on the other hand merely stimulates people to contemplate their proverbial navels.
The church around the world is facing the age-old crisis of nominalism while the field of Christian education is again urgently in need of renewal. We must rethink both our theory and practice. This is not to say that there are not healthy signs of renewal in many of our organizations, but we can all benefit from a rekindling of our vision.
Renewal Is Difficult But Not Impossible
We err when we think that renewal in Christian education will be simple. But we also err when we think it is impossible.
Often we are tempted to think that renewal in Christian education can be brought about by adding more efficiency to our method or by instituting better planning. Sometimes we seem to assume that if we can learn to control the environment a bit more efficiently, we can program the Holy Spirit and organize the universe.
Even if we could achieve perfect curricula, programs, structures, methods, and teachers we would never be able to guarantee Christian growth. Thus, it is naive to think that we can bring about renewal by demolishing the Sunday School, by incorporating computers, or by using more creative teaching techniques. neither can we guarantee success by merely encouraging more fellowship and sharing.
Renewal in Christian education seldom comes through long-range planning. It has most often come through men and women of vision, faith, and action who were able to inspire others. If the process of Christian growth is impossible to pre-determine, then it is impossible to set a time-table for our agenda. Our agenda for renewal is not to figure out a better system. Our agenda must be to stimulate vision and action in men and women of faith.
It would be easy to conclude that renewal in Christian education is impossible. When we study the history of God's people from Adam and Eve to the present we see a frightening pattern of rebellion and refusal to grow in grace. Jesus found it much easier to raise the dead and walk on water than to promote faith in his disciples -- and how many of us can even walk on water? The story of the children of Israel is a case study in the difficulty of promoting spiritual growth. God had much less trouble getting the people out of Egypt than he did in getting Egypt out of the people. The prophets were frustrated with the ongoing problem of rebellion and idolatry in the children of God. Even with the teaching and modeling of the apostles, the power of sin was still strong in the hearts and actions of the early Christians. For some reason, God chooses not to force spiritual growth in his people, even though he has perfect control over all the curriculum factors.
Yes, it would be easy to think that the task of renewing Christian education is impossible, and in one sense it is. Yet in another important sense, it is irresponsible for us to think that we cannot work to rekindle our vision and renew ministry. We have supernatural resources. Throughout history there have been examples of people who have sought God, prayed, and through the power of the Word and the Spirit have brought about a revolution in ministry. Renewal is possible only through the grace of God, but that grace is real and is greater than all our sins. Renewal is both necessary and possible.
Hopeful Signs
There are already hopeful signs of renewal in the field of Christian education. Hundreds of dedicated youth directors are spending thousands of hours discipling youth and are using creative methods to stimulate growth. Summer missions projects are stirring up a new sense of commitment to the Lord and to ministry. The Christian camping movement is challenging youth to a deeper commitment to Christ. Seminaries are producing hundreds of graduates each year who have basic Christian education skills and a heart for ministry. Christian radio and television ministries seek to strengthen the home and the church. Topical seminars and films are meeting needs of struggling Christians. Para-church organizations are continuing effective ministries which play an important part in bringing renewal. Christian education publishing houses are producing innovative curriculum to further stimulate the educational work of the local church. Missionaries are becoming more aware of the need for understanding the cross-cultural implications of Christian education principles. Third-world church are taking advanced degrees in Christian education and related fields.
The Need For Renewal
Yet as I talk to Christian education leaders in seminaries, publishing houses, and para-church organizations, I sense discouragement, dissatisfaction and a hunger for renewal. Too often we merely go through the motions to keep out organization from collapsing. Survival or profitability, rather then significance, have too often become our chief concerns. While there are signs or renewal in Christian education, the general pattern is not encouraging.
As I suggest an agenda for renewing Christian education, I do so not as a distant critic, but as a fellow struggler. An agenda is not intended to be a final statement, but a guide for dialogue. Both the agenda itself and the implications of the agenda are intended to stimulate discussion and debate. I encourage disagreement and trust that you will help me to see the agenda more clearly.
Agenda Item #1:
We Must Cooperate.
Most of our organizations represent centers of influence in Christian education. One organization may be seeking renewal yet be frustrated by lack of support from other organizations. We tend to blame other centers of influence for not doing their part. Church may blame seminaries for not producing youth ministers with practical skills, and seminaries may blame publishing houses for not being more innovative. Publishing houses say they can't sell innovative curricula to traditionally minded churches. Creative directors of Christian education say they will get fired if they don't do what the management-minded local church Christian educational committee wants them to. The need for renewal in one center of influence calls for renewal in another centers.
Many adult Sunday school are merely providing a dull second sermon. Christian education directors may jump from one curriculum fad to another while unaware of basic questions.
Christian education in the home has been emphasized, but does not yet seem to be having much effect in helping with the problems of marriage and parenting. Parents are not finding answers and are becoming more desperate. Deep problems in the home carry over to the church and make it difficult to renew the Sunday school. Likewise, problems in the Sunday school make it difficult to renew Christian education in the home.
Publishing houses are often frustrated in their desire to improve curriculum. They know that local churches will not buy anything too different. Knowing that teachers are volunteers, and knowing they will most likely spend less than 20 minutes preparing the lesson, they give step-by-step formulas to the teacher. Such formulas make it more difficult for a teacher to adapt a lesson for the specific needs of the students. Students get bored, teachers resign in disappointment and the superintendent madly rushes to coerce another unsuspecting teacher into the cycle.
Pressure is put on academic departments of Christian education to attract more students. We compete with each other in trying to "sell" our degree as being the easiest to earn, the cheapest of the most practical course of study. Sometimes we achieve this by requiring students to do less theoretical and scholarly reflection. We are often subtly pressured to give students easy, "cook book" answers to complex problems and to give them a "bag of tricks" called teaching methods. We in the academic study of Christian education are not being encouraged to rethink our philosophical and theoretical assumptions. On the other hand, some Christian educators involved in scholarly reflection do not test and revise their theories by attempting to improve the practice of Christian education. Too often there is an antagonism between scholars and practitioners of Christian education. This antagonism leads to an isolated, ivory tower scholarship that results in poor theory, or else it leads to an uncritical acceptance of methods that results in poor practice.
No single center of influence will be able to bring about renewal. If we are to bring about renewal in Christian education, we must work together. Individual seminaries, publishers, para-church organizations, denomination and local churches will not be able to bring about a renewal. Christian education centers of influence re-enforce each other in promoting or hindering renewal. Yet our moral tendency is to compete with each other and to blame each other for failure in the church or the home, rather than to cooperate in strategizing for renewal.
Many of us are tired of shallow gimmicks and of organizational competition. In spite of the overt success of some of our churches and organizations, many insiders have the growing suspicion that the field of evangelical Christian education is again stagnant and in need of renewal. While we are bogged down with internal struggles, families are falling apart, individuals are faltering in their growth toward maturity in Christ, and churches are becoming lukewarm. The urgency of the task demands not primarily survival, but significance. Our task is to foster the maturity of individuals and the Church. This task should be our top priority.
Agenda Item #2:
We Must Re-Evaluate Out Purposes.
(BOX A)
Renewal in Christian education will not be possible until we re-evaluate the ultimate purposes of our organizations. What is the ultimate purpose of Christian education? The problem among evangelicals is not that we are unable to answer the question. We would most likely answer that the chief purpose of our organization is to glorify God. But we tend to answer as if this were a catechism question. We might say the right words but we are not sure of their significance. We say we believe that our purpose is to glorify God, but seldom understand the implications of such a statement for our ministry. Our stated purpose is seldom our actual purpose.
If we really believe that the ultimate purpose of Christian education is to glorify God, then our ultimate purpose must not be Bible knowledge, organizational survival, human development, or even church growth. All of these are means to a greater end. If they become ends, they become idols. Teaching the Bible, developing programs, building relationships and showing concern for the poor are good, but in themselves they do not automatically contribute to the glory of God. When they become ultimate ends, the educational process becomes unbalanced and less than biblical.
I fear that in actual practice, most of our organizations make idols out of means. We must re-evaluate our ultimate purposes.
Agenda Item #3:
We Must Re-Evaluate Our Motivation For Ministry.
Our real ultimate purpose, in contrast to our stated ultimate purpose, also controls our motivation, or our moral reasoning. Even good actions can reflect low levels of moral reasoning. God is concerned not only with what we do, but also with our motives. People look on outward behavior, but God is more interested in the heart. Eating and drinking can be either good or evil, but whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we must do it for the highest levels of principled morality for the glory of God.
Schools, churches, para-church organizations, denominational structures and publishing houses must operate at some level of moral reasoning. If the level of moral reasoning is to glorify individuals, or the organization, or even the Church, then the activities and results of the organization will not contribute to renewal. Our programs will reflect our level of moral reasoning, or our motives for ministry. If we could make the glory of God our actual purpose rather than an afterthought tacked on to organizational purpose statements, we would be much more willing to cooperate with each other, would have a deeper sense of personal satisfaction in our ministry, and we would rekindle the vision for renewing the field of Christian education.
I fear that in our day-to-day activities, our real motivation is seldom to bring glory to God.
Agenda Item #4:
We Must Study More Thoroughly The Nature Of Human Development.
(Box B)
In order to bring about renewal in Christian Education we must do more to study the nature of people and how they develop. Our current emphasis is inadequate. We learn about the nature of persons through special revelation in Scripture and through natural revelation. We believe that Scripture is the ultimate authority, but that God wrote the book of nature as well. The two sources are complimentary, even when they at times may seem to contradict each other.
Our first source of information about the nature of persons is special revelation. In order for us to understand the nature of persons, we need to understand the nature of God. As Christian educators we need to study theology more deeply. But again, it is not enough to know "correct" answers regarding the nature of persons. We must integrate this information into the theory and practice of Christian education. We believe that God created people in His image, yet our educational methodologies often treat people as if they were machines or animals. Other educational strategies (even those used by evangelicals) tend unconsciously to ignore the Fall and the fact that people are basically selfish and depraved. We have lost something of the image of God and thus we cannot bring about Christian growth by means of our own internal resources. We are tempted to think that we can "educate" or socialize people into the Kingdom. Even we evangelicals are tempted to think that if we can somehow get rid of poverty and injustice people will be whole. We must struggle more fully with the educational implications of our theological understanding of the nature of persons.
The second source of information regarding the nature of persons is empirical observation. Christian education at Wheaton has always studied the nature of persons. Twenty-five years ago when I was a student here, we studied age-group characteristics based on the findings of Gesell and others. We charted characteristics and implications for the practice of ministry. A sensitivity to such research helped us realize that our task was not just to teach the Bible, but to teach it to real people with specific interests and abilities.
But evangelical Christian education has been slow to catch on to the significance of newer bodies of research about nature of persons. As the LeBars learned much about the nature of persons from research in their time, we today will have much to learn about the process of human development from more recent research.
We should take the initiative in conducting research in human development. The more we can discover about how God intended people to grow, the more insights we will gain for promoting that growth. we are not doing enough serious research about human development and about the variables that promote or hinder development. Research questions should be generated from our understanding of both theology and social science. Solid theoretical research has many practical applications. Such findings are broadly generalizable and are thus useful in many more situations, including inner-city and non-western cultures. Theoretical research will help us to answer not only, "What kinds of programs work?", but more importantly, we will begin to address, "Why does it work?" and "How can we do it better?" For example, what factors in the Christian home promote or hinder internal faith convictions? What is the relationship between moral reasoning and Sunday school teaching styles? Research is crucial in helping us to understand the nature of people and the factors that promote the kind of development intended by God.
Christian educators have often been slow to see the value of theoretical research. Such research does not seem "practical," at least not for the pastor urgently seeking ideas for setting up a personal filing system. Theoretical research in human development does not seem practical for the Sunday School teacher trying to find techniques to make flannel-graph stick to the board.
Seminaries and Bible colleges have a professional orientation and do not claim to be strong research institutions. It is appropriate for them to generate practical projects rather than to conduct correlational or quasi-experimental research. But solid research must be done within the Christian liberal arts context.
All social science research builds on philosophical assumptions. Our research must be built on our theological and philosophical assumptions. For example, the recent research in faith development is an example of interesting and important research that is flawed by poor theological assumptions. But who is doing such research from an evangelical framework?
Para-church organizations and publishing houses are learning the value of market research. Such research is valuable, but it does not go far enough. We need to know not only which curriculum is most likely to be bought by churches, but also need to investigate the relationship between curriculum and spiritual growth. We need to go beyond asking, "which colors attract buyers?" to "what is happening in the lives of students and teachers as a result of the curriculum?"
If our ultimate purpose in Christian education is to help others to more fully glorify God, then we need a deeper commitment to discovering how God intended people to grow toward that purpose. We will never fully understand the secrets of human development, but a deeper understanding of God-ordained human development is a necessary precondition for re-thinking aims and means in Christian education. Apart from this kind of research we will be tempted to adopt methods without reflecting on their implications for promoting or hindering Christian growth.
I challenge us to do more research from a theological and theoretical perspective, to learn more about human development. We need to take the initiative in this research, to the glory of God.
Agenda Item #5:
We Must Reconsider The Aims Of Christian Education.
(Box C)
We will not be able to renew Christian education if we continue with inadequate aims. Our aims for Christian education must be generated from our understanding of ultimate purpose, and from our understanding of the nature of persons. Our ultimate purpose is to glorify God in what we do and why we do it. Basic to understanding the nature of persons is knowing that we are created in the image of God, yet we are fallen. In our fallen state we do not glorify God. Thus we need new birth and God-ordained development. Such development is both natural and supernatural. Growing out of these understandings, our aim must be to promote the kind of growth which will enable us to more fully glorify God.
The greatest need of the human race is to regain the completeness of the image of God which was lost in the Fall. The reason we are not able to glorify God in all that we think and do is because we have been children of the Devil. Christ died and rose again in order for us to be restored. We must be born again into God's family. Then we need to grow more and more into the likeness of Christ. This is the aim of Christian education -- to be born into God's family and to mature toward the likeness of Christ. Our aim is to promote natural and supernatural growth. Yet, we know that we shall not be like Him until we see Him as He is. In some sense, then, we can never fully achieve the aim of Christian education this side of heaven.
Growth is an inner, active and continuous process. Yet too often Christian educators understand the aim not as an inner process, but as promoting outward behavioral character traits. Often our aim is merely to impart bodies of information. Fads in teacher education tempt Christian educators to aim at pre-determined behavioral objectives. Secular trends in educational measurement tempt Christian educators to aim for measurable and quantifiable results. But our measurements are only of religious behavior or religiosity, rather than inner "heart development." Since we are able to observe and quantify much educational activity, and since we feel our aims must be measurable, our unconscious aim becomes educational activity rather than inner, active and continuous growth toward becoming all God intends us to become. Outward behavior is not a guarantee of inner spiritual growth. (In spite of what my mother taught me, cleanliness is not an indication of godliness.) People with polite character traits are not necessarily godly people. Some of the most evil people throughout history have been knowledgeable of the Bible. Satan probably would have no trouble getting a perfect score on our Bible diagnostic exams.
To be sure, outward behavior must change as we become more Christ-like. But such behavior is an indication of heart development, and is not an aim. When the indicator, or outward, behavior becomes an aim, we are really teaching people to become pharisaical.
On the other hand, some Christian educators are reacting so strongly against behavioristic aims that they say aims are not necessary at all. Some say we should just teach the Bible and let the Holy Spirit determine aims for the learner. Yet Scripture does give us aims.
Aims are not end points, but directions. We can never check off the list of the fruit of the Spirit as something finally accomplished. We can never fully say we have accomplished love, so now it is time for us to get to work on joy, and next year peace, and maybe before I die I'll get to self-control. Growth in grace is never fully achieved in this life, but it does give us an aim or a direction. Faith, hope and love do not evidence themselves in pre-determined and fully predicted behaviors. Our aim must be to promote a process rather than to predict a product. That process is growth -- both natural and spiritual growth.
God has given the human teacher a part to play in promoting growth, yet he or she is responsible for only a part of the process. Although Bible knowledge is important. But Lois LeBar taught that the Bible is a means for promoting growth and is not an end. Our greatest danger in Christian education is that we make the means the end. The result will be merely external or "outer" development. Is it any wonder that most of our efforts in Christian education do not produce "inner" results.
The aim of the teacher, then, is to stimulate conditions which are most likely to foster the process of growth.
It may be appropriate for our organizations or businesses to have pre-determined objectives and measurable standards. But we should not confuse organizational aims with educational aims of ministry.
I fear that we carry over our understanding of management objectives to the task of Christian education, which is primarily an inner process. Such a management philosophy in Christian education will produce hypocrisy rather than spiritual growth. If we see the aim as a product, we still aim for knowledge, skills, habits or character traits, all of which may or may not be an indication of true inner development. A product understanding of aims may be the reason why nominal and lukewarm Christianity is growing so rapidly in our evangelical churches.
In order to renew Christian education we must rethink our aim. The aim to foster the God-ordained process of development.
Agenda Item #6:
We Must Rethink Our Methods.
(Box D)
If the aim of Christian education is to foster a process, then the means for promoting the process is of utmost importance. In a certain sense, fostering the means for promoting the process becomes the aim.
Learning is an inner, active, continuous and disciplined process. Thus, we should begin with the felt needs of learners rather than from the theoretical knowledge of Scripture. The Bible is a means for promoting maturity in Christ and was not intended by God to be an end in itself. Such thinking is radical. Christian education methods are still too often characterized by tactics which intend the learner to be passive. Our methods are so dependent on external motivation and external behavior that we may actually hinder inner growth in grace. Too often we seek to control outer behavior rather than to compel active reflection. We use gimmicks to get the attention of the student, but such gimmicks seldom lead to an inner sense of need.
We must begin with the felt needs and experiences of the learner. We must then help the learner to see his or her own experience in light of the authoritative Word of God. When we compare Scripture with experience, we sense disequilibration. Such disequilibration can be used by the Holy Spirit to convict us and motivate us to put our experience and life more into submission or equilibration with Scripture. The process is often best done in a community of learners. The job of the teacher is the Word, the Spirit and the body of believers. The essence of interaction must compel thinking and action in the learner, relating experience to the Bible.
Methods based on technology have only limited potential. Technology can be useful for transmitting information, but usually by itself, does little to foster the process of critical reflection and action in the learner.
Neither are romantic teaching methods sufficient. such methods tend to focus only on experience, without stimulating reflection on content.
Social learning theory provides an inadequate model for method. Scripture must be free to critique society. Modeling by itself is not a good method for stimulating critical reflection between Scripture and experience.
Methodology in Christian education is in need of renewal. Too often we accept methods merely because they seem creative, make us feel good, or seem to be "at the cutting edge" of technology. We must rethink our educational methods.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I fear for the Church around the world. Almost everywhere the Church is plagued by apathy. Half-hearted Christianity is becoming a dangerous epidemic. There's a war going on! The Church is in trouble, and we Christian educators, who can provide resources for the battle, are ourselves complacent and in need of renewal. We must seriously rethink our purposes, our motives, our understanding of persons, our aims and our methods. We must move beyond our narrow organizational horizons and rekindle this strategic vision. Discussing the agenda must be only the first step.
[1] Adapted from a talk given May 22, 1988 for the celebration of the Price - LeBar Endowed Chair in Christian Education at Wheaton College
In some ways we are facing a crisis today as great as or greater than ever before. Anti-Christian values are more obvious in society. Families are facing pressures greater than could have been imagined 50 years ago. Missions have been very successful in the last half-century, but now much of the church around the world is facing a second-generation lukewarmness. Nominal Christianity in many of the developing nations is growing at an astounding rate.
Meanwhile, the field of Christian education is again becoming stagnant. Today we seem to be enamored with a mechanistic view of ministry -- or else we move to the opposite extreme and "buy into" a romantic intuitive view. The Christian education pendulum swings back and forth between an agenda that on one hand stresses efficiency in depositing information into the head of the learner, and an agenda which on the other hand merely stimulates people to contemplate their proverbial navels.
The church around the world is facing the age-old crisis of nominalism while the field of Christian education is again urgently in need of renewal. We must rethink both our theory and practice. This is not to say that there are not healthy signs of renewal in many of our organizations, but we can all benefit from a rekindling of our vision.
Renewal Is Difficult But Not Impossible
We err when we think that renewal in Christian education will be simple. But we also err when we think it is impossible.
Often we are tempted to think that renewal in Christian education can be brought about by adding more efficiency to our method or by instituting better planning. Sometimes we seem to assume that if we can learn to control the environment a bit more efficiently, we can program the Holy Spirit and organize the universe.
Even if we could achieve perfect curricula, programs, structures, methods, and teachers we would never be able to guarantee Christian growth. Thus, it is naive to think that we can bring about renewal by demolishing the Sunday School, by incorporating computers, or by using more creative teaching techniques. neither can we guarantee success by merely encouraging more fellowship and sharing.
Renewal in Christian education seldom comes through long-range planning. It has most often come through men and women of vision, faith, and action who were able to inspire others. If the process of Christian growth is impossible to pre-determine, then it is impossible to set a time-table for our agenda. Our agenda for renewal is not to figure out a better system. Our agenda must be to stimulate vision and action in men and women of faith.
It would be easy to conclude that renewal in Christian education is impossible. When we study the history of God's people from Adam and Eve to the present we see a frightening pattern of rebellion and refusal to grow in grace. Jesus found it much easier to raise the dead and walk on water than to promote faith in his disciples -- and how many of us can even walk on water? The story of the children of Israel is a case study in the difficulty of promoting spiritual growth. God had much less trouble getting the people out of Egypt than he did in getting Egypt out of the people. The prophets were frustrated with the ongoing problem of rebellion and idolatry in the children of God. Even with the teaching and modeling of the apostles, the power of sin was still strong in the hearts and actions of the early Christians. For some reason, God chooses not to force spiritual growth in his people, even though he has perfect control over all the curriculum factors.
Yes, it would be easy to think that the task of renewing Christian education is impossible, and in one sense it is. Yet in another important sense, it is irresponsible for us to think that we cannot work to rekindle our vision and renew ministry. We have supernatural resources. Throughout history there have been examples of people who have sought God, prayed, and through the power of the Word and the Spirit have brought about a revolution in ministry. Renewal is possible only through the grace of God, but that grace is real and is greater than all our sins. Renewal is both necessary and possible.
Hopeful Signs
There are already hopeful signs of renewal in the field of Christian education. Hundreds of dedicated youth directors are spending thousands of hours discipling youth and are using creative methods to stimulate growth. Summer missions projects are stirring up a new sense of commitment to the Lord and to ministry. The Christian camping movement is challenging youth to a deeper commitment to Christ. Seminaries are producing hundreds of graduates each year who have basic Christian education skills and a heart for ministry. Christian radio and television ministries seek to strengthen the home and the church. Topical seminars and films are meeting needs of struggling Christians. Para-church organizations are continuing effective ministries which play an important part in bringing renewal. Christian education publishing houses are producing innovative curriculum to further stimulate the educational work of the local church. Missionaries are becoming more aware of the need for understanding the cross-cultural implications of Christian education principles. Third-world church are taking advanced degrees in Christian education and related fields.
The Need For Renewal
Yet as I talk to Christian education leaders in seminaries, publishing houses, and para-church organizations, I sense discouragement, dissatisfaction and a hunger for renewal. Too often we merely go through the motions to keep out organization from collapsing. Survival or profitability, rather then significance, have too often become our chief concerns. While there are signs or renewal in Christian education, the general pattern is not encouraging.
As I suggest an agenda for renewing Christian education, I do so not as a distant critic, but as a fellow struggler. An agenda is not intended to be a final statement, but a guide for dialogue. Both the agenda itself and the implications of the agenda are intended to stimulate discussion and debate. I encourage disagreement and trust that you will help me to see the agenda more clearly.
Agenda Item #1:
We Must Cooperate.
Most of our organizations represent centers of influence in Christian education. One organization may be seeking renewal yet be frustrated by lack of support from other organizations. We tend to blame other centers of influence for not doing their part. Church may blame seminaries for not producing youth ministers with practical skills, and seminaries may blame publishing houses for not being more innovative. Publishing houses say they can't sell innovative curricula to traditionally minded churches. Creative directors of Christian education say they will get fired if they don't do what the management-minded local church Christian educational committee wants them to. The need for renewal in one center of influence calls for renewal in another centers.
Many adult Sunday school are merely providing a dull second sermon. Christian education directors may jump from one curriculum fad to another while unaware of basic questions.
Christian education in the home has been emphasized, but does not yet seem to be having much effect in helping with the problems of marriage and parenting. Parents are not finding answers and are becoming more desperate. Deep problems in the home carry over to the church and make it difficult to renew the Sunday school. Likewise, problems in the Sunday school make it difficult to renew Christian education in the home.
Publishing houses are often frustrated in their desire to improve curriculum. They know that local churches will not buy anything too different. Knowing that teachers are volunteers, and knowing they will most likely spend less than 20 minutes preparing the lesson, they give step-by-step formulas to the teacher. Such formulas make it more difficult for a teacher to adapt a lesson for the specific needs of the students. Students get bored, teachers resign in disappointment and the superintendent madly rushes to coerce another unsuspecting teacher into the cycle.
Pressure is put on academic departments of Christian education to attract more students. We compete with each other in trying to "sell" our degree as being the easiest to earn, the cheapest of the most practical course of study. Sometimes we achieve this by requiring students to do less theoretical and scholarly reflection. We are often subtly pressured to give students easy, "cook book" answers to complex problems and to give them a "bag of tricks" called teaching methods. We in the academic study of Christian education are not being encouraged to rethink our philosophical and theoretical assumptions. On the other hand, some Christian educators involved in scholarly reflection do not test and revise their theories by attempting to improve the practice of Christian education. Too often there is an antagonism between scholars and practitioners of Christian education. This antagonism leads to an isolated, ivory tower scholarship that results in poor theory, or else it leads to an uncritical acceptance of methods that results in poor practice.
No single center of influence will be able to bring about renewal. If we are to bring about renewal in Christian education, we must work together. Individual seminaries, publishers, para-church organizations, denomination and local churches will not be able to bring about a renewal. Christian education centers of influence re-enforce each other in promoting or hindering renewal. Yet our moral tendency is to compete with each other and to blame each other for failure in the church or the home, rather than to cooperate in strategizing for renewal.
Many of us are tired of shallow gimmicks and of organizational competition. In spite of the overt success of some of our churches and organizations, many insiders have the growing suspicion that the field of evangelical Christian education is again stagnant and in need of renewal. While we are bogged down with internal struggles, families are falling apart, individuals are faltering in their growth toward maturity in Christ, and churches are becoming lukewarm. The urgency of the task demands not primarily survival, but significance. Our task is to foster the maturity of individuals and the Church. This task should be our top priority.
Agenda Item #2:
We Must Re-Evaluate Out Purposes.
(BOX A)
Renewal in Christian education will not be possible until we re-evaluate the ultimate purposes of our organizations. What is the ultimate purpose of Christian education? The problem among evangelicals is not that we are unable to answer the question. We would most likely answer that the chief purpose of our organization is to glorify God. But we tend to answer as if this were a catechism question. We might say the right words but we are not sure of their significance. We say we believe that our purpose is to glorify God, but seldom understand the implications of such a statement for our ministry. Our stated purpose is seldom our actual purpose.
If we really believe that the ultimate purpose of Christian education is to glorify God, then our ultimate purpose must not be Bible knowledge, organizational survival, human development, or even church growth. All of these are means to a greater end. If they become ends, they become idols. Teaching the Bible, developing programs, building relationships and showing concern for the poor are good, but in themselves they do not automatically contribute to the glory of God. When they become ultimate ends, the educational process becomes unbalanced and less than biblical.
I fear that in actual practice, most of our organizations make idols out of means. We must re-evaluate our ultimate purposes.
Agenda Item #3:
We Must Re-Evaluate Our Motivation For Ministry.
Our real ultimate purpose, in contrast to our stated ultimate purpose, also controls our motivation, or our moral reasoning. Even good actions can reflect low levels of moral reasoning. God is concerned not only with what we do, but also with our motives. People look on outward behavior, but God is more interested in the heart. Eating and drinking can be either good or evil, but whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we must do it for the highest levels of principled morality for the glory of God.
Schools, churches, para-church organizations, denominational structures and publishing houses must operate at some level of moral reasoning. If the level of moral reasoning is to glorify individuals, or the organization, or even the Church, then the activities and results of the organization will not contribute to renewal. Our programs will reflect our level of moral reasoning, or our motives for ministry. If we could make the glory of God our actual purpose rather than an afterthought tacked on to organizational purpose statements, we would be much more willing to cooperate with each other, would have a deeper sense of personal satisfaction in our ministry, and we would rekindle the vision for renewing the field of Christian education.
I fear that in our day-to-day activities, our real motivation is seldom to bring glory to God.
Agenda Item #4:
We Must Study More Thoroughly The Nature Of Human Development.
(Box B)
In order to bring about renewal in Christian Education we must do more to study the nature of people and how they develop. Our current emphasis is inadequate. We learn about the nature of persons through special revelation in Scripture and through natural revelation. We believe that Scripture is the ultimate authority, but that God wrote the book of nature as well. The two sources are complimentary, even when they at times may seem to contradict each other.
Our first source of information about the nature of persons is special revelation. In order for us to understand the nature of persons, we need to understand the nature of God. As Christian educators we need to study theology more deeply. But again, it is not enough to know "correct" answers regarding the nature of persons. We must integrate this information into the theory and practice of Christian education. We believe that God created people in His image, yet our educational methodologies often treat people as if they were machines or animals. Other educational strategies (even those used by evangelicals) tend unconsciously to ignore the Fall and the fact that people are basically selfish and depraved. We have lost something of the image of God and thus we cannot bring about Christian growth by means of our own internal resources. We are tempted to think that we can "educate" or socialize people into the Kingdom. Even we evangelicals are tempted to think that if we can somehow get rid of poverty and injustice people will be whole. We must struggle more fully with the educational implications of our theological understanding of the nature of persons.
The second source of information regarding the nature of persons is empirical observation. Christian education at Wheaton has always studied the nature of persons. Twenty-five years ago when I was a student here, we studied age-group characteristics based on the findings of Gesell and others. We charted characteristics and implications for the practice of ministry. A sensitivity to such research helped us realize that our task was not just to teach the Bible, but to teach it to real people with specific interests and abilities.
But evangelical Christian education has been slow to catch on to the significance of newer bodies of research about nature of persons. As the LeBars learned much about the nature of persons from research in their time, we today will have much to learn about the process of human development from more recent research.
We should take the initiative in conducting research in human development. The more we can discover about how God intended people to grow, the more insights we will gain for promoting that growth. we are not doing enough serious research about human development and about the variables that promote or hinder development. Research questions should be generated from our understanding of both theology and social science. Solid theoretical research has many practical applications. Such findings are broadly generalizable and are thus useful in many more situations, including inner-city and non-western cultures. Theoretical research will help us to answer not only, "What kinds of programs work?", but more importantly, we will begin to address, "Why does it work?" and "How can we do it better?" For example, what factors in the Christian home promote or hinder internal faith convictions? What is the relationship between moral reasoning and Sunday school teaching styles? Research is crucial in helping us to understand the nature of people and the factors that promote the kind of development intended by God.
Christian educators have often been slow to see the value of theoretical research. Such research does not seem "practical," at least not for the pastor urgently seeking ideas for setting up a personal filing system. Theoretical research in human development does not seem practical for the Sunday School teacher trying to find techniques to make flannel-graph stick to the board.
Seminaries and Bible colleges have a professional orientation and do not claim to be strong research institutions. It is appropriate for them to generate practical projects rather than to conduct correlational or quasi-experimental research. But solid research must be done within the Christian liberal arts context.
All social science research builds on philosophical assumptions. Our research must be built on our theological and philosophical assumptions. For example, the recent research in faith development is an example of interesting and important research that is flawed by poor theological assumptions. But who is doing such research from an evangelical framework?
Para-church organizations and publishing houses are learning the value of market research. Such research is valuable, but it does not go far enough. We need to know not only which curriculum is most likely to be bought by churches, but also need to investigate the relationship between curriculum and spiritual growth. We need to go beyond asking, "which colors attract buyers?" to "what is happening in the lives of students and teachers as a result of the curriculum?"
If our ultimate purpose in Christian education is to help others to more fully glorify God, then we need a deeper commitment to discovering how God intended people to grow toward that purpose. We will never fully understand the secrets of human development, but a deeper understanding of God-ordained human development is a necessary precondition for re-thinking aims and means in Christian education. Apart from this kind of research we will be tempted to adopt methods without reflecting on their implications for promoting or hindering Christian growth.
I challenge us to do more research from a theological and theoretical perspective, to learn more about human development. We need to take the initiative in this research, to the glory of God.
Agenda Item #5:
We Must Reconsider The Aims Of Christian Education.
(Box C)
We will not be able to renew Christian education if we continue with inadequate aims. Our aims for Christian education must be generated from our understanding of ultimate purpose, and from our understanding of the nature of persons. Our ultimate purpose is to glorify God in what we do and why we do it. Basic to understanding the nature of persons is knowing that we are created in the image of God, yet we are fallen. In our fallen state we do not glorify God. Thus we need new birth and God-ordained development. Such development is both natural and supernatural. Growing out of these understandings, our aim must be to promote the kind of growth which will enable us to more fully glorify God.
The greatest need of the human race is to regain the completeness of the image of God which was lost in the Fall. The reason we are not able to glorify God in all that we think and do is because we have been children of the Devil. Christ died and rose again in order for us to be restored. We must be born again into God's family. Then we need to grow more and more into the likeness of Christ. This is the aim of Christian education -- to be born into God's family and to mature toward the likeness of Christ. Our aim is to promote natural and supernatural growth. Yet, we know that we shall not be like Him until we see Him as He is. In some sense, then, we can never fully achieve the aim of Christian education this side of heaven.
Growth is an inner, active and continuous process. Yet too often Christian educators understand the aim not as an inner process, but as promoting outward behavioral character traits. Often our aim is merely to impart bodies of information. Fads in teacher education tempt Christian educators to aim at pre-determined behavioral objectives. Secular trends in educational measurement tempt Christian educators to aim for measurable and quantifiable results. But our measurements are only of religious behavior or religiosity, rather than inner "heart development." Since we are able to observe and quantify much educational activity, and since we feel our aims must be measurable, our unconscious aim becomes educational activity rather than inner, active and continuous growth toward becoming all God intends us to become. Outward behavior is not a guarantee of inner spiritual growth. (In spite of what my mother taught me, cleanliness is not an indication of godliness.) People with polite character traits are not necessarily godly people. Some of the most evil people throughout history have been knowledgeable of the Bible. Satan probably would have no trouble getting a perfect score on our Bible diagnostic exams.
To be sure, outward behavior must change as we become more Christ-like. But such behavior is an indication of heart development, and is not an aim. When the indicator, or outward, behavior becomes an aim, we are really teaching people to become pharisaical.
On the other hand, some Christian educators are reacting so strongly against behavioristic aims that they say aims are not necessary at all. Some say we should just teach the Bible and let the Holy Spirit determine aims for the learner. Yet Scripture does give us aims.
Aims are not end points, but directions. We can never check off the list of the fruit of the Spirit as something finally accomplished. We can never fully say we have accomplished love, so now it is time for us to get to work on joy, and next year peace, and maybe before I die I'll get to self-control. Growth in grace is never fully achieved in this life, but it does give us an aim or a direction. Faith, hope and love do not evidence themselves in pre-determined and fully predicted behaviors. Our aim must be to promote a process rather than to predict a product. That process is growth -- both natural and spiritual growth.
God has given the human teacher a part to play in promoting growth, yet he or she is responsible for only a part of the process. Although Bible knowledge is important. But Lois LeBar taught that the Bible is a means for promoting growth and is not an end. Our greatest danger in Christian education is that we make the means the end. The result will be merely external or "outer" development. Is it any wonder that most of our efforts in Christian education do not produce "inner" results.
The aim of the teacher, then, is to stimulate conditions which are most likely to foster the process of growth.
It may be appropriate for our organizations or businesses to have pre-determined objectives and measurable standards. But we should not confuse organizational aims with educational aims of ministry.
I fear that we carry over our understanding of management objectives to the task of Christian education, which is primarily an inner process. Such a management philosophy in Christian education will produce hypocrisy rather than spiritual growth. If we see the aim as a product, we still aim for knowledge, skills, habits or character traits, all of which may or may not be an indication of true inner development. A product understanding of aims may be the reason why nominal and lukewarm Christianity is growing so rapidly in our evangelical churches.
In order to renew Christian education we must rethink our aim. The aim to foster the God-ordained process of development.
Agenda Item #6:
We Must Rethink Our Methods.
(Box D)
If the aim of Christian education is to foster a process, then the means for promoting the process is of utmost importance. In a certain sense, fostering the means for promoting the process becomes the aim.
Learning is an inner, active, continuous and disciplined process. Thus, we should begin with the felt needs of learners rather than from the theoretical knowledge of Scripture. The Bible is a means for promoting maturity in Christ and was not intended by God to be an end in itself. Such thinking is radical. Christian education methods are still too often characterized by tactics which intend the learner to be passive. Our methods are so dependent on external motivation and external behavior that we may actually hinder inner growth in grace. Too often we seek to control outer behavior rather than to compel active reflection. We use gimmicks to get the attention of the student, but such gimmicks seldom lead to an inner sense of need.
We must begin with the felt needs and experiences of the learner. We must then help the learner to see his or her own experience in light of the authoritative Word of God. When we compare Scripture with experience, we sense disequilibration. Such disequilibration can be used by the Holy Spirit to convict us and motivate us to put our experience and life more into submission or equilibration with Scripture. The process is often best done in a community of learners. The job of the teacher is the Word, the Spirit and the body of believers. The essence of interaction must compel thinking and action in the learner, relating experience to the Bible.
Methods based on technology have only limited potential. Technology can be useful for transmitting information, but usually by itself, does little to foster the process of critical reflection and action in the learner.
Neither are romantic teaching methods sufficient. such methods tend to focus only on experience, without stimulating reflection on content.
Social learning theory provides an inadequate model for method. Scripture must be free to critique society. Modeling by itself is not a good method for stimulating critical reflection between Scripture and experience.
Methodology in Christian education is in need of renewal. Too often we accept methods merely because they seem creative, make us feel good, or seem to be "at the cutting edge" of technology. We must rethink our educational methods.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I fear for the Church around the world. Almost everywhere the Church is plagued by apathy. Half-hearted Christianity is becoming a dangerous epidemic. There's a war going on! The Church is in trouble, and we Christian educators, who can provide resources for the battle, are ourselves complacent and in need of renewal. We must seriously rethink our purposes, our motives, our understanding of persons, our aims and our methods. We must move beyond our narrow organizational horizons and rekindle this strategic vision. Discussing the agenda must be only the first step.
[1] Adapted from a talk given May 22, 1988 for the celebration of the Price - LeBar Endowed Chair in Christian Education at Wheaton College
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Measurable Objectives, NO! - Faith Vision, YES!
Dear Missionary: are you longing for fresh vision? Do you experience a lack of appreciation for your ministry, loneliness, cultural frustrations and sickness can make your original missionary call seem like it came in a different lifetime. Several times during our lifetime we need to rekindle our original vision, our ultimate purpose for existence and for ministry. But in praying for a fresh faith vision should we not strive to try to predict and control future outcomes with measurable objectives.
I have found that much of the popular teaching on goal-setting can be discouraging rather than inspiring. As a mission executive I once wrote an evaluation for a missionary couple. Their home church wanted to know their measurable goals for the year and wanted to know whether the missionaries had achieved these goals. The same couple told me that last year the church had cut their support by $600.00 because they didn’t produce hard numbers of the people saved through their ministry.
Why is the missionary world so far behind the word of secular business? Tom Peters, famous for the book In Search of Excellence, writes in a recent article:
"Plans? Goals? Yes, I admit that I plan and set goals. After I’ve accomplished something, I declare it to have been my goal all along. One must keep up appearances: In our society “having goals” and “making plans” are two of the most important pretenses. Unfortunately, they are dangerous pretenses -- which repeatedly cause us to delay immersion in the real world of happy surprises, unhappy detours, and unexpected byways."
"Meanwhile, the laurels keep going to those mildly purposeful stumblers who hang out, try stuff with reckless abandon-- and occasionally bump into something big and bountiful, often barely related to the initial pursuit. (The Bookstore Journal, Feb. 1991)"
If secular managers are rejecting the old management-by-objectives movement, why are we still trying to do missions-by-objectives?
People with a passion for measurable objectives have a passion to control the details of the future. They have little tolerance for ambiguity, for the unfolding serendipitous opportunities the Lord may bring. Missionaries who are forced to write measurable objectives are tempted to “think small” so that they will be quite sure they will be able to be accomplished. Here are some problems with trying to control the future by precisely predicting outcomes.
• Measurable objectives are often not outcomes but activities. An example of a measurable objective might be to hand out 100 tracts per day. Such an activity is measurable, but we don’t know the outcome. Do the tracts make people angry, cause a litter problem, or actually are used by the Spirit to bring conviction of sin. Measurable objectives are often pseudo-aims and are merely a to-do-list activity and not real goals.
• Measurable objectives often reflect bad theology. Eternal outcomes for our ministry are in the hands of the Lord Jesus. For example, it reflects bad theology for us to set a measurable objective of saving ten people per week. When we say that our goal is to plant one church per year, we may get trapped into thinking about a mere building and forget about the inner qualities and true nature of the church. The church is a body of the people of God, whether meeting in a building or under a tree. Healthy churches are measured by the inner quality of faith rather than by the external quantity of numbers or buildings. It is heretical to attempt replace God so as to precisely predict and control inner spiritual qualities.
• Measurable objectives grow out of anti-Christian philosophy. Dangerous philosophies are often below the level of our awareness. The Western world is strongly influenced by logical positivism which argues that all meaning must be verifiable by empirical data. Behaviorism claims that observable behavior is all that matters. The secular world tells us that what we can see and count is the only reality. But Paul commands us to “fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor 4: 18).
• Measurable objectives stifle vision. If we know our support might be cut because we don’t meet predetermined objectives, we will aim at goals that are easy to attain. We will set goals that will make us look good at the end of the year rather than goals that grow from faith in a God of hope. Such goal-setting is a dreary guilt-producing exercise. People often produce measurable objectives out of fear and a desire to look good, or at least not look too bad in front of others.
• Measurable goals encourage us to control and manipulate people. If all our energies are focused on a predetermined quantifiable goal, we tend to use people as mere objects to help us accomplish our goals. Leadership style becomes controlling when the task requires us to treat people as objects. Measurable objectives require leaders to control people and coerce them into accomplishing our goals.
While measurable objectives are often mere activities, heretical, and discouraging, faith goals help us to focus on the eternal. Faith goals are visionary and can become a driving force for our ministry. Faith goals give us pictures of how the Lord God Almighty might use us to make an eternal difference in the hearts of people. We set faith goals by spending time on our knees in prayer. I often ask, “If God were to pour out his blessing on my ministry, what might it look like in the lives and hearts of other people?” What inner qualities of faith, hope and love might I see in others or in the church I am helping to plant. What qualities of the fruit of the Spirit might I see in my students?
• Visionary Faith Goals grow out of good theology. Faith goals begin with a fresh vision of the God of hope. We are convinced that the promises of God are true and trustworthy. Because we believe in a God of hope, we must think big goals even if we are in the midst of difficulty. Faith goals grow out of a fresh vision of the Lord who loves us and wants to use us for his glory. Only God can predict and control the future.
• Visionary Faith Goals seek eternal results. Missionaries with great faith goals live with a healthy tolerance for ambiguity. We are not in control of eternal results in the hearts and souls of people. Faith goals are difficult to predict with precision, because we may not see the results of our ministry until we reach heaven. But if the results of our ministry are only for this world, we are missing out on the most important goals.
• Visionary Faith Goals grow out of prayer. There is no simple formula for deciding faith goals. Computer projections do not establish faith goals. Faith goals come from spending time on our knees. We need to be open to the mystery of the powerful hand of the Lord in our lives. Wait patiently for him. Ask the Lord for his vision for the future.
• Visionary Faith Goals describe inner qualities rather than external quantities. I would encourage you to describe your goals as qualities. Don’t merely record how many people you wish to contact with the gospel, but describe what could happen in the lives of people when they give their lives to the Lord. Describe godly qualities in the lives of students you are teaching. Describe loving relationships between missionaries if the Lord would send a revival to your station. Describe a healthy church in your town rather than merely projecting numbers of believers. Then get on your knees and pray for this vision of blessing on your ministry.
• Visionary Faith Goals grow out of team ministry. Faith goals are not individualistic but depend on the Body of Christ. Individuals are stimulated by the faith goals of others in the team. And because no one missionary has all the spiritual gifts needed to help the Body to function, we absolutely must work as a team. This team includes national believers and first-term missionaries as well as experienced veterans.
Suggested action steps:
• Begin with yourself. Spend time in prayer asking the Lord to give you a fresh vision of Himself. Ask the God of hope to rekindle hopes and dreams, and faith goals for ministry. Picture with eyes of faith how your ministry might develop if the Lord would wonderfully bless your efforts.
• Dialogue with national church leaders and other missionaries. Be ready to enlarge your faith goals as you listen to the vision of co-workers. Share your faith goals with the team.
• Continue wider discussions in your district or country. What is the Lord showing you as a family? Be willing for many faith goals. Don’t make this a mechanical exercise, but an exercise of the family of God catching a fresh vision of his glory and our task.
When the Lord has given us faith goals, we are then ready to begin planning strategy. May the Lord rekindle enthusiasm for the his vision, renewed excitement for your ministry, and fresh appreciation for the Body of Christ.
Adapted an Evangelical Missions Quarterly article 1994
I have found that much of the popular teaching on goal-setting can be discouraging rather than inspiring. As a mission executive I once wrote an evaluation for a missionary couple. Their home church wanted to know their measurable goals for the year and wanted to know whether the missionaries had achieved these goals. The same couple told me that last year the church had cut their support by $600.00 because they didn’t produce hard numbers of the people saved through their ministry.
Why is the missionary world so far behind the word of secular business? Tom Peters, famous for the book In Search of Excellence, writes in a recent article:
"Plans? Goals? Yes, I admit that I plan and set goals. After I’ve accomplished something, I declare it to have been my goal all along. One must keep up appearances: In our society “having goals” and “making plans” are two of the most important pretenses. Unfortunately, they are dangerous pretenses -- which repeatedly cause us to delay immersion in the real world of happy surprises, unhappy detours, and unexpected byways."
"Meanwhile, the laurels keep going to those mildly purposeful stumblers who hang out, try stuff with reckless abandon-- and occasionally bump into something big and bountiful, often barely related to the initial pursuit. (The Bookstore Journal, Feb. 1991)"
If secular managers are rejecting the old management-by-objectives movement, why are we still trying to do missions-by-objectives?
People with a passion for measurable objectives have a passion to control the details of the future. They have little tolerance for ambiguity, for the unfolding serendipitous opportunities the Lord may bring. Missionaries who are forced to write measurable objectives are tempted to “think small” so that they will be quite sure they will be able to be accomplished. Here are some problems with trying to control the future by precisely predicting outcomes.
• Measurable objectives are often not outcomes but activities. An example of a measurable objective might be to hand out 100 tracts per day. Such an activity is measurable, but we don’t know the outcome. Do the tracts make people angry, cause a litter problem, or actually are used by the Spirit to bring conviction of sin. Measurable objectives are often pseudo-aims and are merely a to-do-list activity and not real goals.
• Measurable objectives often reflect bad theology. Eternal outcomes for our ministry are in the hands of the Lord Jesus. For example, it reflects bad theology for us to set a measurable objective of saving ten people per week. When we say that our goal is to plant one church per year, we may get trapped into thinking about a mere building and forget about the inner qualities and true nature of the church. The church is a body of the people of God, whether meeting in a building or under a tree. Healthy churches are measured by the inner quality of faith rather than by the external quantity of numbers or buildings. It is heretical to attempt replace God so as to precisely predict and control inner spiritual qualities.
• Measurable objectives grow out of anti-Christian philosophy. Dangerous philosophies are often below the level of our awareness. The Western world is strongly influenced by logical positivism which argues that all meaning must be verifiable by empirical data. Behaviorism claims that observable behavior is all that matters. The secular world tells us that what we can see and count is the only reality. But Paul commands us to “fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor 4: 18).
• Measurable objectives stifle vision. If we know our support might be cut because we don’t meet predetermined objectives, we will aim at goals that are easy to attain. We will set goals that will make us look good at the end of the year rather than goals that grow from faith in a God of hope. Such goal-setting is a dreary guilt-producing exercise. People often produce measurable objectives out of fear and a desire to look good, or at least not look too bad in front of others.
• Measurable goals encourage us to control and manipulate people. If all our energies are focused on a predetermined quantifiable goal, we tend to use people as mere objects to help us accomplish our goals. Leadership style becomes controlling when the task requires us to treat people as objects. Measurable objectives require leaders to control people and coerce them into accomplishing our goals.
While measurable objectives are often mere activities, heretical, and discouraging, faith goals help us to focus on the eternal. Faith goals are visionary and can become a driving force for our ministry. Faith goals give us pictures of how the Lord God Almighty might use us to make an eternal difference in the hearts of people. We set faith goals by spending time on our knees in prayer. I often ask, “If God were to pour out his blessing on my ministry, what might it look like in the lives and hearts of other people?” What inner qualities of faith, hope and love might I see in others or in the church I am helping to plant. What qualities of the fruit of the Spirit might I see in my students?
• Visionary Faith Goals grow out of good theology. Faith goals begin with a fresh vision of the God of hope. We are convinced that the promises of God are true and trustworthy. Because we believe in a God of hope, we must think big goals even if we are in the midst of difficulty. Faith goals grow out of a fresh vision of the Lord who loves us and wants to use us for his glory. Only God can predict and control the future.
• Visionary Faith Goals seek eternal results. Missionaries with great faith goals live with a healthy tolerance for ambiguity. We are not in control of eternal results in the hearts and souls of people. Faith goals are difficult to predict with precision, because we may not see the results of our ministry until we reach heaven. But if the results of our ministry are only for this world, we are missing out on the most important goals.
• Visionary Faith Goals grow out of prayer. There is no simple formula for deciding faith goals. Computer projections do not establish faith goals. Faith goals come from spending time on our knees. We need to be open to the mystery of the powerful hand of the Lord in our lives. Wait patiently for him. Ask the Lord for his vision for the future.
• Visionary Faith Goals describe inner qualities rather than external quantities. I would encourage you to describe your goals as qualities. Don’t merely record how many people you wish to contact with the gospel, but describe what could happen in the lives of people when they give their lives to the Lord. Describe godly qualities in the lives of students you are teaching. Describe loving relationships between missionaries if the Lord would send a revival to your station. Describe a healthy church in your town rather than merely projecting numbers of believers. Then get on your knees and pray for this vision of blessing on your ministry.
• Visionary Faith Goals grow out of team ministry. Faith goals are not individualistic but depend on the Body of Christ. Individuals are stimulated by the faith goals of others in the team. And because no one missionary has all the spiritual gifts needed to help the Body to function, we absolutely must work as a team. This team includes national believers and first-term missionaries as well as experienced veterans.
Suggested action steps:
• Begin with yourself. Spend time in prayer asking the Lord to give you a fresh vision of Himself. Ask the God of hope to rekindle hopes and dreams, and faith goals for ministry. Picture with eyes of faith how your ministry might develop if the Lord would wonderfully bless your efforts.
• Dialogue with national church leaders and other missionaries. Be ready to enlarge your faith goals as you listen to the vision of co-workers. Share your faith goals with the team.
• Continue wider discussions in your district or country. What is the Lord showing you as a family? Be willing for many faith goals. Don’t make this a mechanical exercise, but an exercise of the family of God catching a fresh vision of his glory and our task.
When the Lord has given us faith goals, we are then ready to begin planning strategy. May the Lord rekindle enthusiasm for the his vision, renewed excitement for your ministry, and fresh appreciation for the Body of Christ.
Adapted an Evangelical Missions Quarterly article 1994
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Prayer & Praise Hymns for Ascension Day - May 17, 2007
Come my soul, thy suit prepare;
Jesus loves to answer prayer;
He himself has bid thee pray,
Therefore will not say thee nay.
Thou art coming to a King,
Large petitions with thee bring:
For his grace and power are such,
None can ever ask too much.
With my burden I begin:
Lord, remove this load of sin;
Let thy blood for sinners spilt,
Set my conscience free from guilt.
While I am a pilgrim here,
Let thy love my spirit cheer;
As my Guide, my Guard, my Friend,
Lead me to my journey’s end.
Show me what I have to do,
Every hour my strength renew:
Let me live a life of faith,
Let me die Thy people’s death.
John Newton
><> ><> ><>
Ascension Day Hymn
Tune: Hyfrydol
Alleluia! Sing to Jesus,
His the scepter, His the throne;
Alleluia! His the triumph, His the victory alone.
Hark the songs of peaceful Zion
Thunder like a mighty flood.
Jesus, out of every nation,
Hath redeemed us by His blood.
Alleluia! not as orphans
Are we left in sorrow now;
Alleluia! He is near us,
Faith believes, nor questions how:
Though the cloud from sight received Him
When the forty days were o’er,
Shall our hearts forget His promise,
“I am with you evermore”?
Alleluia! Bread of Heaven,
Thou on earth our food and stay;
Alleluia! Here the sinful
Flee to Thee from day to day;
Intercessor, friend of sinners,
Earth’s Redeemer, plead for me,
Where the songs of all the sinless
Sweep across the crystal sea.
William C. Dix 1866
><> ><> ><>
For Ascension Thursday
Hail the day that sees Him rise, Alleluia!
To His throne above the skies; Alleluia!
Christ the Lamb for sinners given, Alleluia!
Enters now the highest heaven. Alleluia!
There for Him high triumph waits; Alleluia!
Lift your heads, eternal gates, Alleluia!
He hath conquered death and sin, Alleluia!
Take the King of glory in! Alleluia!
See, He lifts His hands above! Alleluia!
See, He shows the prints of love. Alleluia!
Hark, His gracious lips bestow, Alleluia!
Blessings on His church below. Alleluia!
Lord, beyond our mortal sight, Alleluia!
Raise our hearts to reach Thy height, Alleluia!
There Thy face unclouded see, Alleluia!
Find our heaven of heavens in Thee! Alleluia!
Charles Wesley 1739
><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><>
Jesus loves to answer prayer;
He himself has bid thee pray,
Therefore will not say thee nay.
Thou art coming to a King,
Large petitions with thee bring:
For his grace and power are such,
None can ever ask too much.
With my burden I begin:
Lord, remove this load of sin;
Let thy blood for sinners spilt,
Set my conscience free from guilt.
While I am a pilgrim here,
Let thy love my spirit cheer;
As my Guide, my Guard, my Friend,
Lead me to my journey’s end.
Show me what I have to do,
Every hour my strength renew:
Let me live a life of faith,
Let me die Thy people’s death.
John Newton
><> ><> ><>
Ascension Day Hymn
Tune: Hyfrydol
Alleluia! Sing to Jesus,
His the scepter, His the throne;
Alleluia! His the triumph, His the victory alone.
Hark the songs of peaceful Zion
Thunder like a mighty flood.
Jesus, out of every nation,
Hath redeemed us by His blood.
Alleluia! not as orphans
Are we left in sorrow now;
Alleluia! He is near us,
Faith believes, nor questions how:
Though the cloud from sight received Him
When the forty days were o’er,
Shall our hearts forget His promise,
“I am with you evermore”?
Alleluia! Bread of Heaven,
Thou on earth our food and stay;
Alleluia! Here the sinful
Flee to Thee from day to day;
Intercessor, friend of sinners,
Earth’s Redeemer, plead for me,
Where the songs of all the sinless
Sweep across the crystal sea.
William C. Dix 1866
><> ><> ><>
For Ascension Thursday
Hail the day that sees Him rise, Alleluia!
To His throne above the skies; Alleluia!
Christ the Lamb for sinners given, Alleluia!
Enters now the highest heaven. Alleluia!
There for Him high triumph waits; Alleluia!
Lift your heads, eternal gates, Alleluia!
He hath conquered death and sin, Alleluia!
Take the King of glory in! Alleluia!
See, He lifts His hands above! Alleluia!
See, He shows the prints of love. Alleluia!
Hark, His gracious lips bestow, Alleluia!
Blessings on His church below. Alleluia!
Lord, beyond our mortal sight, Alleluia!
Raise our hearts to reach Thy height, Alleluia!
There Thy face unclouded see, Alleluia!
Find our heaven of heavens in Thee! Alleluia!
Charles Wesley 1739
><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><> ><>
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
When Revival Comes . . .
What will it be like when revival comes? We find a picture of revival in the book of Jeremiah.
1• When revival comes it will not be because we are begging for revival, but it will come because we are hearing God’s pleading to come back to Him. We don’t have to bribe God with all-night prayer meetings and fasting to receive His spiritual refreshing. God is more anxious to bless than we are to receive His blessing (Jeremiah 3:12,13, 19).
2• When revival comes there will be great confession of sin. Current teaching on inner healing puts a needed emphasis on forgiving people, but Jeremiah puts the emphasis on confessing our own ugly and embarrassing sins (Jeremiah 3: 13).
3• When revival comes there will be a radical obedience to the word of God. We will see a difference in daily ordinary living. Revival will be much more than an emotional meeting on Sunday which has little impact on the daily grind of the week. Weeping with signs and wonders isn’t enough if it doesn’t result in holy living (Jeremiah 4:1-2).
4• When revival comes we will have powerful missionary effectiveness. God promises that when His people come back to Him “then, you will be a blessing to the nations of the world, and all people will come and praise my name.” (Jeremiah 4: 2).
Why is it that as we move into the third millennium, our world is still so lost? Seventy percent of the world’s people do not even pretend to follow Jesus, and two billion have never clearly heard the Gospel. What is preventing the earth from being filled with the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea?
The greatest problem is not lack of funds, a dearth of willing missionaries, poor cultural understanding, inadequate church planting theory, a deficiency of sophisticated technology or a scarcity of satellite equipment. I’m convinced that the only serious obstacle to the worldwide spread of the gospel is that we are spiritually lukewarm and desperately need revival.
Christians who have lost their first love may still be active in church, may pray for missionaries, may give large amounts of money to support missions and may even volunteer themselves. But the world will not be changed by half-hearted Christians needing revival, no matter how active they are in the missionary enterprise.
How can we change the world?
• Listen to the pleading of the Lord in our own heart.
• Confess our sins, no matter how embarrassing they may be.
• Radically obey the word of God, no matter what the consequences.
Then get ready for an explosion of the Good News to all nations. By faith I see hundreds of millions of people from the most resistant cultures flocking to Jesus, when revival comes.
Do you have a passion for world missions? Pray for revival to begin in your own life. Then watch out, because God wants nothing more than to pour out his blessing on all nations through you.
1• When revival comes it will not be because we are begging for revival, but it will come because we are hearing God’s pleading to come back to Him. We don’t have to bribe God with all-night prayer meetings and fasting to receive His spiritual refreshing. God is more anxious to bless than we are to receive His blessing (Jeremiah 3:12,13, 19).
2• When revival comes there will be great confession of sin. Current teaching on inner healing puts a needed emphasis on forgiving people, but Jeremiah puts the emphasis on confessing our own ugly and embarrassing sins (Jeremiah 3: 13).
3• When revival comes there will be a radical obedience to the word of God. We will see a difference in daily ordinary living. Revival will be much more than an emotional meeting on Sunday which has little impact on the daily grind of the week. Weeping with signs and wonders isn’t enough if it doesn’t result in holy living (Jeremiah 4:1-2).
4• When revival comes we will have powerful missionary effectiveness. God promises that when His people come back to Him “then, you will be a blessing to the nations of the world, and all people will come and praise my name.” (Jeremiah 4: 2).
Why is it that as we move into the third millennium, our world is still so lost? Seventy percent of the world’s people do not even pretend to follow Jesus, and two billion have never clearly heard the Gospel. What is preventing the earth from being filled with the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea?
The greatest problem is not lack of funds, a dearth of willing missionaries, poor cultural understanding, inadequate church planting theory, a deficiency of sophisticated technology or a scarcity of satellite equipment. I’m convinced that the only serious obstacle to the worldwide spread of the gospel is that we are spiritually lukewarm and desperately need revival.
Christians who have lost their first love may still be active in church, may pray for missionaries, may give large amounts of money to support missions and may even volunteer themselves. But the world will not be changed by half-hearted Christians needing revival, no matter how active they are in the missionary enterprise.
How can we change the world?
• Listen to the pleading of the Lord in our own heart.
• Confess our sins, no matter how embarrassing they may be.
• Radically obey the word of God, no matter what the consequences.
Then get ready for an explosion of the Good News to all nations. By faith I see hundreds of millions of people from the most resistant cultures flocking to Jesus, when revival comes.
Do you have a passion for world missions? Pray for revival to begin in your own life. Then watch out, because God wants nothing more than to pour out his blessing on all nations through you.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
The Great Omission
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them
in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
and teaching them
to obey everything I have commanded you.
And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
baptizing them
in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
and teaching them
to obey everything I have commanded you.
And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Matthew 28:18-20
The Problem
If about two billion people call themselves Christian, why are so many Christians making so little difference? One would think that believers acting as salt and light in the world would stimulate global revival. How can meat become rotten with so much salt? Why is corruption often prevalent in countries where the church is so large? I wonder if a part of the reason is that Christ’s commission in Matthew 28: 19-20 has become the great omission. Christ commanded us to make the kind of disciples in every nation who will actually obey everything Jesus commanded. In spite of the growth of the worldwide church, we have barely begun to fulfill the real Great Commission.
Evangelism
The last hundred years have been marvelous for world evangelization! The Lord has worked miracles in the hearts of hundreds of millions of people. Hundreds of thousands of churches have been formed in almost every country of the world. Patrick Johnstone, the author of Operation World, challenged us with the great unfinished task of world evangelism, but he also encouraged us with news of how the Gospel has spread in the last hundred years. He estimates that only 30 million people in a world of over 6 billion people are totally without any kind of Christian witness. This means that over 99% of the people of the world live with a potential Christian witness. There are at least four billion people in the world who are not “born from above,” and we must not slow down in our efforts to bring the wonderful good news to every single person in the whole world.
Evangelism is an important and absolutely necessary task. We thank the Lord for the recent emphasis on un-reached peoples, hidden peoples, the 10/40 window and people groups. But the great commission is not primarily about evangelism and church planting, or about completing some measurable task before the year 2010. The great commission commands us to make disciples in every nation who obey everything Jesus commanded! The great commission is about helping people to be like Jesus. Just as a baby must be born before it can grow, so baby Christians must be born again before they can grow into Christlikeness.
Our Task
The purpose world missions is to glorify God by making obedient disciples of all nations. World evangelism and church planting are necessary but not sufficient for obeying Christ’s commission. Maybe our most strategic task right now is to stimulate the development of leaders, theologians and missionaries from emerging churches who are able to make the kind of disciples who obey everything Jesus commanded.
Are We Becoming Like Jesus?
It is one thing to realize that the great commission is a command to teach others to be like Jesus, but it is another thing to become like Christ ourselves. How can we claim to have a passion for missions when we ourselves are not evidencing a Christlike life? We will not be able to teach people to obey everything Jesus commanded if we ourselves are not obeying everything He commanded. It is difficult to teach others to be like Jesus if we are not ourselves growing in Christ.
God has used national evangelists and expatriate missionaries agencies to plant millions of churches with about two billion people who call themselves Christians. Our hearts overflow with praise to the Lord for such blessing. But what are we doing to help new Christians become like Jesus? Today the priority task of world missions is to equip the church make disciples at home and in all nations. Let us not be satisfied when we have a church that is merely self-governing, self-supporting and self-propagating. Our goal is a church that is growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
If the worldwide church will catch a fresh vision of what it means to be disciples of Jesus, a great awakening will break out, the foundations of hell will be shattered, and Christ’s commission will be obeyed throughout the whole earth. Let us work and pray with every ounce of energy in us to fulfill Christ’s commission. Lord Jesus, send a revival in our own lives and in the established churches around the world, so that an awakened church may be used of You to make obedient disciples and truly fulfill Your command.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Byang Kato & Biblical Christianity in Africa
Review of a book by Byang Kato Biblical Christianity in Africa, published by Africa Christian Press, 1985. Reviewed by Jim Plueddemann.
"The spiritual battle for Africa during this decade will be fought...on theological grounds." Though Kato tragically died 30 years ago, his reprinted articles are as timely today as they were at his death. Kato had a vision for the church in the whole continent of Africa, a vision that stimulated mission and African leaders to see the continent in a new light.
First Kato saw that the struggle for biblical Christianity was not isolated to one tribe or country-his vision covered the whole of Africa.
Second, Kato's vision for biblical Christianity included the whole of the spiritual maturation process.
At a time when most were debating the relationships between evangelism and social action, Kato was warning of a more subtle and dangerous threat-the threat of theological anemia in Africa. He warned of syncretism, universalism, black theology, African theology, and ecumenical theology, while at the same time crying out for biblical, contextualized Christianity in Africa. He argued that Christianity was historically and theologically a truly African religion. While rejecting a moratorium for missionaries, he advocated more self-reliance for the national church. He pleaded that the church "evangelize or perish." He urged prayer for revival.
In reading through the five reprinted articles, one gets the impression of a modern day prophet crying our to God for Africa. His vision was for the church to be truly Christian and at the same time truly African. He loved Africa and the rapidly growing struggling church. He was troubled by theological indifference and lukewarmness.
Kato shared his vision in the first chapter, "Theological Anemia in Africa." Some of his vision is being fulfilled. Top priorities on his agenda were for more seminary-level theological schools, for graduate training, for scholarship programs for theological education, for theological publications, and for an evangelical theological society. The Lord has blessed this vision.
In the second chapter, "The Theology of Eternal Salvation," Kato expressed fear that biblical Christianity was being sacrificed on the altar of syncretism and universalism in the name of contextualization. He warned that a wrong theology of sin blinds us to the true human condition. If human problems are defined merely as physical suffering, material deprivation, and political domination, then there will be a shallow understanding of salvation. "Every inch of the African continent may be liberated from foreign domination, every family may have two cars in the garage, but that still will not save the African from his fundamental dilemma" (p. 16). He saw the fundamental dilemma as alienation from God, and that general revelation was not sufficient to bring salvation. "If Biblical Christianity is to survive and flourish in Africa, we must hold fast the truth that the fundamental problem of the human race is sin against God, and that salvation is only through Jesus Christ" (p. 22). Such a plea is urgently needed in Africa today.
In chapter three, Kato discusses the importance of contextualizing the gospel for Africa, but warns of religious syncretism and relativism. "The African loves to get along with everybody. He is, therefore, not inclined to offend his neighbor by letting him know what the Bible says about non-Christian religions. That is why liberal ecumenism is thriving in Africa." (p. 26). Kato saw syncretism as a growing influence in the Third World, and believed that Christians may have to face persecution for their Bible-based Christianity. But, "The final challenge for the African Christian is to make Christianity culturally relevant while holding fast to its ever-abiding message" (p. 31).
In the fourth chapter Kato makes a strong argument that Christianity is truly an African religion. Historically, Christianity has closer ties with Africa than with Europe. He urges his readers to "live up to the claims we make as Christians in Africa, and promote the Christian message for Africa in all areas of life and everywhere possible as true ambassadors of Christ" (p. 37).
Finally, Kato warns of syncretism, relativism, and humanism in African theology, ecumenical theology, and black theology. While affirming the dignity of the individual and condemning injustice, he pleads that we find answers in the absolute Word of God, not merely in human experience.
In the last 30 years since Kato's death there have been healthy trends in overcoming theological anemia in African church life, but in many ways the message is more urgently needed today than it was 30 years ago. The book should be required reading for every pastor and Bible school student in Africa, as well as for every foreign missionary in Africa. But the problem of theological anemia is not isolated to Africa. Perhaps anyone interested in growing healthy churches anywhere in the world should read the book.
On a personal note. As a new SIM missionary in Africa in 1967, Byang Kato was my first boss. I was proud to report to a Nigerian who became one of my best friends. Kato's vision for the development of theological education in Africa has profoundly influenced my vision. I thank the Lord that much of his specific vision has been fuflilled. Yet the vision to overcome theological anemia must be rekindled in each generation.
"The spiritual battle for Africa during this decade will be fought...on theological grounds." Though Kato tragically died 30 years ago, his reprinted articles are as timely today as they were at his death. Kato had a vision for the church in the whole continent of Africa, a vision that stimulated mission and African leaders to see the continent in a new light.
First Kato saw that the struggle for biblical Christianity was not isolated to one tribe or country-his vision covered the whole of Africa.
Second, Kato's vision for biblical Christianity included the whole of the spiritual maturation process.
At a time when most were debating the relationships between evangelism and social action, Kato was warning of a more subtle and dangerous threat-the threat of theological anemia in Africa. He warned of syncretism, universalism, black theology, African theology, and ecumenical theology, while at the same time crying out for biblical, contextualized Christianity in Africa. He argued that Christianity was historically and theologically a truly African religion. While rejecting a moratorium for missionaries, he advocated more self-reliance for the national church. He pleaded that the church "evangelize or perish." He urged prayer for revival.
In reading through the five reprinted articles, one gets the impression of a modern day prophet crying our to God for Africa. His vision was for the church to be truly Christian and at the same time truly African. He loved Africa and the rapidly growing struggling church. He was troubled by theological indifference and lukewarmness.
Kato shared his vision in the first chapter, "Theological Anemia in Africa." Some of his vision is being fulfilled. Top priorities on his agenda were for more seminary-level theological schools, for graduate training, for scholarship programs for theological education, for theological publications, and for an evangelical theological society. The Lord has blessed this vision.
In the second chapter, "The Theology of Eternal Salvation," Kato expressed fear that biblical Christianity was being sacrificed on the altar of syncretism and universalism in the name of contextualization. He warned that a wrong theology of sin blinds us to the true human condition. If human problems are defined merely as physical suffering, material deprivation, and political domination, then there will be a shallow understanding of salvation. "Every inch of the African continent may be liberated from foreign domination, every family may have two cars in the garage, but that still will not save the African from his fundamental dilemma" (p. 16). He saw the fundamental dilemma as alienation from God, and that general revelation was not sufficient to bring salvation. "If Biblical Christianity is to survive and flourish in Africa, we must hold fast the truth that the fundamental problem of the human race is sin against God, and that salvation is only through Jesus Christ" (p. 22). Such a plea is urgently needed in Africa today.
In chapter three, Kato discusses the importance of contextualizing the gospel for Africa, but warns of religious syncretism and relativism. "The African loves to get along with everybody. He is, therefore, not inclined to offend his neighbor by letting him know what the Bible says about non-Christian religions. That is why liberal ecumenism is thriving in Africa." (p. 26). Kato saw syncretism as a growing influence in the Third World, and believed that Christians may have to face persecution for their Bible-based Christianity. But, "The final challenge for the African Christian is to make Christianity culturally relevant while holding fast to its ever-abiding message" (p. 31).
In the fourth chapter Kato makes a strong argument that Christianity is truly an African religion. Historically, Christianity has closer ties with Africa than with Europe. He urges his readers to "live up to the claims we make as Christians in Africa, and promote the Christian message for Africa in all areas of life and everywhere possible as true ambassadors of Christ" (p. 37).
Finally, Kato warns of syncretism, relativism, and humanism in African theology, ecumenical theology, and black theology. While affirming the dignity of the individual and condemning injustice, he pleads that we find answers in the absolute Word of God, not merely in human experience.
In the last 30 years since Kato's death there have been healthy trends in overcoming theological anemia in African church life, but in many ways the message is more urgently needed today than it was 30 years ago. The book should be required reading for every pastor and Bible school student in Africa, as well as for every foreign missionary in Africa. But the problem of theological anemia is not isolated to Africa. Perhaps anyone interested in growing healthy churches anywhere in the world should read the book.
On a personal note. As a new SIM missionary in Africa in 1967, Byang Kato was my first boss. I was proud to report to a Nigerian who became one of my best friends. Kato's vision for the development of theological education in Africa has profoundly influenced my vision. I thank the Lord that much of his specific vision has been fuflilled. Yet the vision to overcome theological anemia must be rekindled in each generation.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Revival & John Wesley
We often think of revival as an emotional experience in church, at a youth camp or a religious retreat. While I praise the Lord and pray for church-related revivals the ideal revival is the daily searching our souls for anything that would hinder our daily fellowship and apprenticeship with Jesus.
We can fool each other and we often fool ourselves about the state of our souls. But God is constantly searching our hearts and knows our thoughts. Our loving Father urges us to test our hearts and examine our motives.
More than 200 years ago members of the John Wesley’s Holy Club asked themselves these questions every day in their private devotions. Picture the potential world-wide impact if we missionaries would daily re-attune our hearts to the living and loving Father? This is not a threatening activity, but a soothing exercise of the soul. I invite you to join me in daily prayer for the refreshing of our souls as we pray through these 21 questions.
Twenty One Questions
By John Wesley
1. Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I really am? In other words, am I a hypocrite?
2. Am I honest in all my acts and words, or do I exaggerate?
3. Do I confidentially pass on to another what was told to me in confidence?
4. Can I be trusted?
5. Am I a slave to dress, friends, work or habits?
6. Am I self-conscious, self-pitying, or self-justifying?
7. Did the Bible live in me today?
8. Do I give it time to speak to me every day?
9. Am I enjoying prayer?
10. When did I last speak to someone else of my faith?
11. Do I pray about the money I spend?
12. Do I get to bed on time and get up on time?
13. Do I disobey God in anything?
14. Do I insist upon doing something about which my conscience is uneasy?
15. Am I defeated in any part of my life?
16. How do I spend my spare time?
17. Am I proud?
18. Do I thank God that I am not as other people?
19. Is there anyone I fear, dislike, disown, criticize, hold a resentment toward or disregard? If so what am I doing about it?
20. Do I grumble or complain constantly?
21. Is Christ real to me?
We can fool each other and we often fool ourselves about the state of our souls. But God is constantly searching our hearts and knows our thoughts. Our loving Father urges us to test our hearts and examine our motives.
More than 200 years ago members of the John Wesley’s Holy Club asked themselves these questions every day in their private devotions. Picture the potential world-wide impact if we missionaries would daily re-attune our hearts to the living and loving Father? This is not a threatening activity, but a soothing exercise of the soul. I invite you to join me in daily prayer for the refreshing of our souls as we pray through these 21 questions.
Twenty One Questions
By John Wesley
1. Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I really am? In other words, am I a hypocrite?
2. Am I honest in all my acts and words, or do I exaggerate?
3. Do I confidentially pass on to another what was told to me in confidence?
4. Can I be trusted?
5. Am I a slave to dress, friends, work or habits?
6. Am I self-conscious, self-pitying, or self-justifying?
7. Did the Bible live in me today?
8. Do I give it time to speak to me every day?
9. Am I enjoying prayer?
10. When did I last speak to someone else of my faith?
11. Do I pray about the money I spend?
12. Do I get to bed on time and get up on time?
13. Do I disobey God in anything?
14. Do I insist upon doing something about which my conscience is uneasy?
15. Am I defeated in any part of my life?
16. How do I spend my spare time?
17. Am I proud?
18. Do I thank God that I am not as other people?
19. Is there anyone I fear, dislike, disown, criticize, hold a resentment toward or disregard? If so what am I doing about it?
20. Do I grumble or complain constantly?
21. Is Christ real to me?
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Blanchard Hall At Wheaton College
Adapted from Homecoming Chapel At the rededication of Blanchard Hall at Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL
Alumni coming back for the rededication of Blanchard Hall hope that the new Blanchard will continue some of the old traditions. We are concerned that Wheaton College not lose the vision for developing students. The trend in many famous liberal arts colleges is to downplay interactions between teachers and students. Recently Harvard was judged to be the best liberal arts college in the country. Harvard was chosen because of its world-class faculty, cutting-edge research and stringent admission standards. None of these criteria “of excellence” include the need for caring teacher/student relationships or a vision for the Kingdom of God. Most faculty at Harvard and other liberal arts colleges have a single-minded obsession with research. Students pay the price with large classes, inaccessible professors, and a heavy use of teaching assistants. Students are sacrificed on the altar of academic excellence. We pray that Wheaton College will never try to be a miniature Harvard or University of Chicago. The standards of excellence for these schools provide dangerous models.
Blanchard Hall as a Factory
• Last night I had a bad dream, a nightmare. I dreamed that there had been a mix-up of architectural plans and that Blanchard Hall had been remodeled by mistake into a factory. But nobody seemed to notice the difference.
The primary interests of a factory are efficiency, predictability and measurability. Numbers are the best indicators of success. In my dream, students were recruited primarily by their SAT or ACT scores. Depending on their SAT and CLEP scores, students were placed on a conveyor belt at the lower east end of Blanchard, and came out from the top west end four years later. Students entered as passive raw material and left as passive finished products. (Remember this was only a dream.)
• The mission of this new Blanchard Hall was to fill empty minds of students with important bodies of knowledge in the most effective, cost-effective way.
• In my dream faculty members sat in offices on the first or second floor with huge funnels on their desks. Each funnel was connected to hoses going into the ears of each student in the class. When the bell rang, professors would pour pearls of wisdom into the funnel. From time to time they would peer into the head of each student and count how many pearls actually got inside. It was the “tell-um-and-test-um” method of education.
• Since the motto was “Excellence Through Efficiency,” students were treated as children by faculty and staff. The staff had to get mean with students because they never filled out forms properly or on time. (Factories would collapse without lots of forms.) Teachers complained that students were always asking dumb questions. Since teachers knew it was inefficient to get sidetracked by trivial questions they learned they could pour in more pearls if they didn’t waste time by asking students what they thought.
• I dreamed that all the staff followed procedures of management by objectives. Staff from student accounts, the work order department, student development, financial aid, the counseling center, and the health center, could save time and money by being impersonal with students. Quality was defined solely by the numbers. Secretaries received wage increases if they consistently answered the phone before two rings. After all, the most efficient way for trustees, administrators, staff, and faculty to run a school is to treat students and each other as impersonal objects.
• In my dream, the conveyor belt propelled students past remedial funnels and divided into two directions. The scholarly students took the conveyor belt up to the second floor where they studied great books, great music, great art, and great ideas from the past. Anything as long as it was old. The less scholarly students stayed on the ground floor and studied the more professional subjects like education, business, computers, and social work.
• The debate in many faculty meetings was over the “canon” of knowledge to be injected into passive students. The second-floor faculty argued for a canon of the classics, the Great Books of the Western World. The first-floor faculty accused the “Great Books Cult” of being racist, bigoted, and sexist. They objected to limiting the curriculum to the writings of dead, European, white, upper-class, males. The first-floor faculty poured practical pearls through field trips and internship funnels.
• The “canonites” on the second floor accused the “vocationalists” of being relativists, positivists, and post-structuralists.
• In this factory there was very little dialogue. Second-floor faculty accused the first-floor faculty of being unscholarly and not true to the factory’s historic liberal arts position. The first-floor faculty accused the second-floor faculty of being like artificial intelligence computers -- highly rational but lacking a passion for the needs of people.
• Occasionally speakers would come to the factory challenging people to evaluate their ultimate purpose. One speaker said we had two tasks. The first task was evangelism, and all the bottom-floor faculty said “amen” (bottom-floor faculty talk like that). Then he said the second task was to redeem the academic disciplines, and the second-floor faculty nodded their heads in wise, condescending agreement. But the speaker didn’t stimulate much dialogue. A second speaker argued that factories have two kinds of purposes. Some are oriented toward service and others toward scholarship. He said our factory should emphasize scholarship and Bible Colleges should emphasize service. The second-floor faculty loved the lecture. Faculty in my dream would argue and talk behind backs, but seldom listen to each other.
• Chapel speakers called the factory students the “cream of the crop” and challenged them to excel. “Be a success! Be rich and famous! Anything done with excellence is Christian!” In the back corner of the chapel a few rebellious students could be heard mumbling, “We don’t need no education, we don’t need no thought control.” And then something about “another brick in the wall.”
• The thing that woke me up was a factory meeting where teachers, students and administrators were shouting at each other over questions about general education requirements about the pledge. (Or maybe I just had to go to the bathroom.)
Blanchard Hall as Interpreter’s House
The nightmare wore me out so much that I got back to sleep right away. In my sleep this time I dreamed that the revitalized Blanchard Hall was Interpreter’s House from Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress.
• All the people, from the president, to the most senior professor, to the most junior janitor, were pilgrims. The pilgrims treated each other with love as wounded but maturing people, not as cogs in a machine. They came to a safe retreat at Wheaton College for a short while to reflect on where they had been, where they were going, and move on better equipped to face the next leg of the journey.
What would Wheaton College look like if my second dream were true?
• The admissions criteria would still consider the SAT, but the primary criteria for admissions would not be test scores but leadership potential in helping other pilgrims.
• The schizophrenic dilemma of the two conveyor belts would be solved. The course titles would not be much different from those of the factory model. But the teaching methods would be radically different. Instead of students getting writer’s cramp in every class, the teacher would present a few important ideas and students would be compelled to wrestle with these ideas. Real knowledge is never poured into the heads of students. The kind of knowledge that leads to wisdom must be “owned” and accepted by active, thinking, students who are struggling for themselves. Teachers in this school would know that real learning only takes place when students are changed on the inside. Test scores have very little to do with measuring real learning.
• Pilgrims in Interpreter’s House would catch a vision for being scholars of the Map -- the Map of God’s truth. But they would also realize that knowledge of the Map is a means and never an end. They would know that there is nothing as practical as a deep understanding of God’s truth. Ideas without action make an idol out of scholarship. But action without scholarship often leads to faddish heresy. Practical skills would never be taught without philosophical and biblical foundations. Theoretical ideas would never be presented without challenging students to wrestle with implications for the problems of the present and future. Students would be more serious about scholarship. In the factory, learning was a game of trivial pursuit. At Interpreter’s House pilgrims would have a passion to understand God’s truth because they love God and are anxious to know and serve him. Pilgrims would be motivated to study because they know they all will face the Slough of Despond and the Hill of Difficulty. Pilgrims would not be ridiculed while struggling in Doubting Castle.
• In a community of pilgrim scholars people would be anxious to help each other. Cooperation rather than competition for grades would be the mode. (They wouldn’t hide key books in the library on order to “excel” over other students.) Pilgrim scholars would help each other with assignments, be more relaxed, more joyful, more hopeful.
• The purpose of Interpreter’s House would be to equip students for full-time Pilgrim service. Pilgrim missionaries, evangelists, pastors. Pilgrim lawyers, teachers, business persons, parents and professors. But also pilgrim truck drivers, pilgrim factory workers and pilgrim carpenters. However pilgrims make a living, their orientation is to be full-time pilgrims.
• In my factory dream, professors argued about integrating faith and learning. At Interpreter’s House, faculty and students think and weep with each other about how to integrate faith and living.
• The community of pilgrim scholars looks forward eagerly to the return of the King. Pilgrims know they are marching through Immanuel’s land, but they also know that this world is not their real home. They know they have a responsibility as servants to influence political and social structures. They fight for justice and care for the poor. They have a passion for the 3 billion people who live in the City of Destruction and have never heard the Good News. But they also realize that the only hope for utopia is the return of the King.
• As the class of 1965, we come back home as weary pilgrims needing to be reminded of our roots. Few of us match the mythical “Wheaton image” of success. Many of us have struggled in the prison of Doubting Castle. We are pilgrims in progress. We need to come back to our Interpreter’s House and compare notes about the journey and renew friendships. Pilgrims desperately need other pilgrims. But we also come back to remember good times and good friends. Even though the road the last 25 years has been rough, and the road ahead is unpredictable, we continue on with deeper joy and stronger hope because of our time at Wheaton College.
• As pilgrim alumni we are concerned that the remodeled Blanchard not become a factory. We plead for a renewed sense of direction guided by eternal values -- a vision that will permeate our attitudes toward people, programs and our ultimate purpose. May God build the new Blanchard Hall into a loving community of scholars who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
Alumni coming back for the rededication of Blanchard Hall hope that the new Blanchard will continue some of the old traditions. We are concerned that Wheaton College not lose the vision for developing students. The trend in many famous liberal arts colleges is to downplay interactions between teachers and students. Recently Harvard was judged to be the best liberal arts college in the country. Harvard was chosen because of its world-class faculty, cutting-edge research and stringent admission standards. None of these criteria “of excellence” include the need for caring teacher/student relationships or a vision for the Kingdom of God. Most faculty at Harvard and other liberal arts colleges have a single-minded obsession with research. Students pay the price with large classes, inaccessible professors, and a heavy use of teaching assistants. Students are sacrificed on the altar of academic excellence. We pray that Wheaton College will never try to be a miniature Harvard or University of Chicago. The standards of excellence for these schools provide dangerous models.
Blanchard Hall as a Factory
• Last night I had a bad dream, a nightmare. I dreamed that there had been a mix-up of architectural plans and that Blanchard Hall had been remodeled by mistake into a factory. But nobody seemed to notice the difference.
The primary interests of a factory are efficiency, predictability and measurability. Numbers are the best indicators of success. In my dream, students were recruited primarily by their SAT or ACT scores. Depending on their SAT and CLEP scores, students were placed on a conveyor belt at the lower east end of Blanchard, and came out from the top west end four years later. Students entered as passive raw material and left as passive finished products. (Remember this was only a dream.)
• The mission of this new Blanchard Hall was to fill empty minds of students with important bodies of knowledge in the most effective, cost-effective way.
• In my dream faculty members sat in offices on the first or second floor with huge funnels on their desks. Each funnel was connected to hoses going into the ears of each student in the class. When the bell rang, professors would pour pearls of wisdom into the funnel. From time to time they would peer into the head of each student and count how many pearls actually got inside. It was the “tell-um-and-test-um” method of education.
• Since the motto was “Excellence Through Efficiency,” students were treated as children by faculty and staff. The staff had to get mean with students because they never filled out forms properly or on time. (Factories would collapse without lots of forms.) Teachers complained that students were always asking dumb questions. Since teachers knew it was inefficient to get sidetracked by trivial questions they learned they could pour in more pearls if they didn’t waste time by asking students what they thought.
• I dreamed that all the staff followed procedures of management by objectives. Staff from student accounts, the work order department, student development, financial aid, the counseling center, and the health center, could save time and money by being impersonal with students. Quality was defined solely by the numbers. Secretaries received wage increases if they consistently answered the phone before two rings. After all, the most efficient way for trustees, administrators, staff, and faculty to run a school is to treat students and each other as impersonal objects.
• In my dream, the conveyor belt propelled students past remedial funnels and divided into two directions. The scholarly students took the conveyor belt up to the second floor where they studied great books, great music, great art, and great ideas from the past. Anything as long as it was old. The less scholarly students stayed on the ground floor and studied the more professional subjects like education, business, computers, and social work.
• The debate in many faculty meetings was over the “canon” of knowledge to be injected into passive students. The second-floor faculty argued for a canon of the classics, the Great Books of the Western World. The first-floor faculty accused the “Great Books Cult” of being racist, bigoted, and sexist. They objected to limiting the curriculum to the writings of dead, European, white, upper-class, males. The first-floor faculty poured practical pearls through field trips and internship funnels.
• The “canonites” on the second floor accused the “vocationalists” of being relativists, positivists, and post-structuralists.
• In this factory there was very little dialogue. Second-floor faculty accused the first-floor faculty of being unscholarly and not true to the factory’s historic liberal arts position. The first-floor faculty accused the second-floor faculty of being like artificial intelligence computers -- highly rational but lacking a passion for the needs of people.
• Occasionally speakers would come to the factory challenging people to evaluate their ultimate purpose. One speaker said we had two tasks. The first task was evangelism, and all the bottom-floor faculty said “amen” (bottom-floor faculty talk like that). Then he said the second task was to redeem the academic disciplines, and the second-floor faculty nodded their heads in wise, condescending agreement. But the speaker didn’t stimulate much dialogue. A second speaker argued that factories have two kinds of purposes. Some are oriented toward service and others toward scholarship. He said our factory should emphasize scholarship and Bible Colleges should emphasize service. The second-floor faculty loved the lecture. Faculty in my dream would argue and talk behind backs, but seldom listen to each other.
• Chapel speakers called the factory students the “cream of the crop” and challenged them to excel. “Be a success! Be rich and famous! Anything done with excellence is Christian!” In the back corner of the chapel a few rebellious students could be heard mumbling, “We don’t need no education, we don’t need no thought control.” And then something about “another brick in the wall.”
• The thing that woke me up was a factory meeting where teachers, students and administrators were shouting at each other over questions about general education requirements about the pledge. (Or maybe I just had to go to the bathroom.)
Blanchard Hall as Interpreter’s House
The nightmare wore me out so much that I got back to sleep right away. In my sleep this time I dreamed that the revitalized Blanchard Hall was Interpreter’s House from Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress.
• All the people, from the president, to the most senior professor, to the most junior janitor, were pilgrims. The pilgrims treated each other with love as wounded but maturing people, not as cogs in a machine. They came to a safe retreat at Wheaton College for a short while to reflect on where they had been, where they were going, and move on better equipped to face the next leg of the journey.
What would Wheaton College look like if my second dream were true?
• The admissions criteria would still consider the SAT, but the primary criteria for admissions would not be test scores but leadership potential in helping other pilgrims.
• The schizophrenic dilemma of the two conveyor belts would be solved. The course titles would not be much different from those of the factory model. But the teaching methods would be radically different. Instead of students getting writer’s cramp in every class, the teacher would present a few important ideas and students would be compelled to wrestle with these ideas. Real knowledge is never poured into the heads of students. The kind of knowledge that leads to wisdom must be “owned” and accepted by active, thinking, students who are struggling for themselves. Teachers in this school would know that real learning only takes place when students are changed on the inside. Test scores have very little to do with measuring real learning.
• Pilgrims in Interpreter’s House would catch a vision for being scholars of the Map -- the Map of God’s truth. But they would also realize that knowledge of the Map is a means and never an end. They would know that there is nothing as practical as a deep understanding of God’s truth. Ideas without action make an idol out of scholarship. But action without scholarship often leads to faddish heresy. Practical skills would never be taught without philosophical and biblical foundations. Theoretical ideas would never be presented without challenging students to wrestle with implications for the problems of the present and future. Students would be more serious about scholarship. In the factory, learning was a game of trivial pursuit. At Interpreter’s House pilgrims would have a passion to understand God’s truth because they love God and are anxious to know and serve him. Pilgrims would be motivated to study because they know they all will face the Slough of Despond and the Hill of Difficulty. Pilgrims would not be ridiculed while struggling in Doubting Castle.
• In a community of pilgrim scholars people would be anxious to help each other. Cooperation rather than competition for grades would be the mode. (They wouldn’t hide key books in the library on order to “excel” over other students.) Pilgrim scholars would help each other with assignments, be more relaxed, more joyful, more hopeful.
• The purpose of Interpreter’s House would be to equip students for full-time Pilgrim service. Pilgrim missionaries, evangelists, pastors. Pilgrim lawyers, teachers, business persons, parents and professors. But also pilgrim truck drivers, pilgrim factory workers and pilgrim carpenters. However pilgrims make a living, their orientation is to be full-time pilgrims.
• In my factory dream, professors argued about integrating faith and learning. At Interpreter’s House, faculty and students think and weep with each other about how to integrate faith and living.
• The community of pilgrim scholars looks forward eagerly to the return of the King. Pilgrims know they are marching through Immanuel’s land, but they also know that this world is not their real home. They know they have a responsibility as servants to influence political and social structures. They fight for justice and care for the poor. They have a passion for the 3 billion people who live in the City of Destruction and have never heard the Good News. But they also realize that the only hope for utopia is the return of the King.
• As the class of 1965, we come back home as weary pilgrims needing to be reminded of our roots. Few of us match the mythical “Wheaton image” of success. Many of us have struggled in the prison of Doubting Castle. We are pilgrims in progress. We need to come back to our Interpreter’s House and compare notes about the journey and renew friendships. Pilgrims desperately need other pilgrims. But we also come back to remember good times and good friends. Even though the road the last 25 years has been rough, and the road ahead is unpredictable, we continue on with deeper joy and stronger hope because of our time at Wheaton College.
• As pilgrim alumni we are concerned that the remodeled Blanchard not become a factory. We plead for a renewed sense of direction guided by eternal values -- a vision that will permeate our attitudes toward people, programs and our ultimate purpose. May God build the new Blanchard Hall into a loving community of scholars who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)