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YOUTH MINISTRY
Sunday School: an Oxymoron
Connecting Church and Classroom
by Jerry Cappel
I had asked the group to take a few moments to reflect upon the times in their lives when their faith had made a significant advance toward maturity. After they mulled this over for a bit, I asked them some questions: What were the places you associate with times of faith advance? What types of activities surround those times? What significant people were involved?
We came up with a varied list of life and church activity:
• Summer, youth camp, mission trips, retreats
• Crises when the congregation pulled together
• Times of sacrifice and service
• Individuals who impacted the lives of others
What was conspicuously absent from their list was anything related to the classroom. Not one person mentioned a Bible study, Sunday school teacher, or a study series.
Which raises some more questions: Where does faith education happen? Who are the real teachers? What do we include in the “education program?” Whey do we focus on class experience when the other church activities seem more significant for faith?
When you ask people about great moments of advance in faith, you hear about capacities, not information. Great moments are times when people feel an increase in the capacity of their souls. Faith is ultimately about the personal capacity for peace, joy, compassion, and strength and clarity of purpose. There can be a gap between words and learning in education as well. When our education becomes focused on information separated from congregational life, or our life together becomes void of the words of Christ, we lost the ability to educate for soul capacity.
To keep a focus on the soul, we must be intentional about bringing together the real life experience of believers (including church experience) and the words of our faith (spoken in the classroom and elsewhere). Otherwise we risk becoming lifeless or finding ourselves without purpose. Consider the following directions which may move us toward a stronger connection between the classroom and congregation life.
Bring words and experience together into the same space
Often in congregation, much of the formative experience of life goes un-interpreted and many of our words go unsupported. To interpret our activity means that we make clear how what we do is done in the name of Christ. To support our words means that we make sure our congregational life reflects our verbal commitments. As a congregation we must learn to make experience shared experience; interpretation shared interpretation.
Bringing the Classroom into Congregational Life
Look for opportunities in congregational life where meaningful words of instruction may be spoken:
• Interpreted Ritual – What common rituals need reinterpretation?
• Interpreted Activity – What church activity needs a clearer interpretation about how you act in the name of Christ?
• Interpreted Community – How can the way your congregation lives and works together be named and celebrated, or grieved?
Bringing Congregational Life into the Classroom
Look for ways to bring church life experience into classroom time.
• Hospitality – How warm, safe, and friendly are the spaces where you meet?
• Celebration – What is the mood of your meetings?
• Classroom arrangement – What do your meeting rooms say about people, priorities, beauty, and the social contract of teaching?
• Trust – What is the experience of trust or distrust, acceptance or suspicion in the classroom?
• Congregational Life – How much connection is there to present, specific, congregational events and activity?
• Conversation – How much do class members hear each other speak about the meaning of life and the presence of God?
As educators concerned about the formation of faith in people, we must be intentional about infusing our classrooms with congregational life, and congregational life with the words of faith. Otherwise, we may be left to wonder what is lacking in our Christian land.
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