Education in the Christian Community 2

An area in which the class piqued my interest was in the busting of myths pertaining to what Education in the Christian Community entails in its content. It is not just about facts and information but about life transformation, that it is about a set of curricular, that it is all about the bible and that it is none of my concern. I would like to emphasize on the part of facts and information as it applies to me most. I always had the idea that teaching was all about transmission of facts and knowledge, the know-that and know-how. But I came to realize that it is more than that! It is ultimately to bring about life-transformation. It is about enabling the recipients to think and derive at questions such as “why I need this life-transformation?” or “why do I need to come to Church?”, instead of just telling them that those are important. It is from thinking and asking these that, leads ultimately down to a personal conviction of why I am doing what I am doing and how can I change what I am doing and what this change will bring about? . . . This form of thinking requires the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing about that conviction.

Another thing which I caught from this is the need of our content to have cultural relevancy. It occurred to me with the movie I watched, ‘The 3 Idiots’ that in India, more young people die of suicide than of sickness because of the ‘shame’ culture they are living in, they rather die than bringing shame to their families by failing their exams. It is for the similar reason that many Indians will not convert to Christianity, lest they bring shame to their family. To this I thought, can I use the context wherein it says: If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Luke 14 v. 26 if I were to preach in India.

To which the lesson where continuity and decisional personalities comes to play. Will those who tend to need continuity be afraid to make a commitment and make a decision? But for those decisional ones, will they fall away on this account? Or will their faith be even more sure. This part helps me to consider people with different personalities and thinking patterns when I teach.