Teaching them

Posted: 1/06/06

TEACHING THEM:
Educators seek to blend
something old, something new

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

Religious education in most Baptist churches used to be a closed shop–one preferred publishing house, one standard approach to age-graded Bible study and one time and place for classes.

Not any more. Churches face choices, from small-group, weeknight home Bible studies for seekers to affinity-group classes built around the perceived needs of potential participants.

Dennis Parrott, a consultant with the Baptist General Convention of Texas and former minister of education at Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler, estimates 90 percent of Texas Baptist churches follow a traditional approach of Sunday morning Bible study at the church facility.

“About 10 percent experiment with other formats, either in addition to Sunday morning Bible study at the church or–in a few cases–doing it alone. I do think it will increase. For instance, some are offering home Bible studies rather than building additional educational space at the church facility. It's not a large number, but it's increasing,” he said.

“Some churches are trying to remodel traditional Sunday school into something similar to the small-group concept, and it's working–change the name, change curriculum, make it more topical and issues-related.”

The challenge is to blend the best of old and new approaches, religious educators insist, particularly in areas such as choice of curriculum.

“There's no loyalty to one publisher. It's a big open market,” Parrott said. “Some churches want seeker-friendly material that's not as much Bible-intensive as it is needs-intensive. The idea is that they go to have their needs met.”

But many ministers of education fear an exclusively needs-centered approach can lead to an unbalanced diet in Bible study.

“The problem with offering options is that people may choose only to study their favorite topics and never get exposed to other biblical content,” said David Adams, minister of education at Williams Trace Baptist Church in Sugar Land. “It's important for there to be a curriculum track of some kind. … People need to be exposed to all of the Bible and not just their favorite parts.”

Even so, Williams Trace is considering classes built around special interests–not as a substitute for ongoing curriculum, but as a supplemental option.

“We're looking at some non-age-graded, hot-topic classes. But as long as I'm here, we'll never get away from focusing on the Bible as the basic text,” Adams said. “That's non-negotiable for me.”

Tallowood Baptist Church in Houston allows Sunday school departments to select ongoing Bible study from among three curriculum lines produced by LifeWay–the Southern Baptist Convention publishing house–as well as the BaptistWay material published by the Baptist General Convention of Texas. But departments can select a different study for up to one quarter each year.

“That helps satisfy interests,” said Minister of Education Larry Heslip, who noted the studies may focus on a topic or a book by a popular Christian author such as Rick Warren, as long as it is biblically based. “As long as it has doctrinal integrity, I'm OK with it.”

But for at least three quarters of every year, Heslip believes it's important for church members to be involved in an ongoing program of comprehensive Bible study.

“My fear is that otherwise it will become too attractive to stay in popular books and never get back into systematic Bible study,” he said.

Allowing options, rather than insisting on a standardized curriculum for every adult Sunday school class in a church, presents its own set of challenges, ministers of education noted.

“In our teacher-and-workers preparation time, those who use a different curriculum miss some of its benefits because I can't do a preview lesson for them,” said David Strawn, minister of education at First Baptist Church in College Station.

“It's a little bit of a challenge when we offer any kind of leadership training. It has to be more generic. Whoever is leading the training has to understand it's not geared to a particular line of curriculum.”

A growing number of churches are choosing to produce their own curriculum or use Bible study materials created by other congregations rather than a publishing house. More than 250 churches use the Internet-based curriculum produced by Carter Shotwell, minister of education and executive pastor for ministries at Lake Pointe Church in Rockwall.

“It all started because some other churches saw what we produced in-house and asked, 'Is that available for us?'” Shotwell said.

For a subscription fee, churches can download resources from www.ministrypoint.org, including teachers' materials, study helps, visual aids such as PowerPoint presentations and a videotaped lesson preview by Timothy Warren, a Dallas Theological Seminary professor who develops the biblical background portion of each week's lesson.

“I like to say it's current, creative and cost-effective,” Shotwell said. Illustrations in the teaching material are drawn from current events and popular culture.

The online curriculum is organized into three semesters each year. Two semesters offer a verse-by-verse Bible study, providing a balance between Old and New Testament texts.

“The summer semester is more a straight topical approach because people are in and out so much,” Shotwell said. “But it's all Bible-based. Next summer, we're looking at a study in (the Old Testament book of) Nehemiah, but it will be organized around themes rather than going verse-by-verse.”

Online resources–particularly the aids for visual learners–make the approach attractive to churches like Williams Trace in Sugar Land, Adams noted.

“We're looking at Carter's model because of what it offers in terms of PowerPoint and other things we don't have the time to produce,” he said.

Regardless of the curriculum congregations select, religious educators believe small-group Bible study remains an essential element for a vibrant church.

“Involvement in small groups is critical in order for a church to be healthy,” Adams said. “That's where relationships and friendships are built. Take it away, and you've lost a lot of what church is all about. There are things offered in small groups that you don't get in worship alone.”

Systematic Bible study, spiritual edification and a sense of community develop in small Bible study groups in ways they never can in large worship experiences, Strawn added.

Apart from involvement in a small-group Bible study, “people are not likely to plug into the life of a church,” he said. “In times of crisis, people in the church minister to each other, and that's not as likely to happen if they're not in a small group. People who are not plugged in to a small group usually are not receiving or giving ministry.”

Ongoing Bible study in a Sunday school provides a venue for creating caring fellowships in a way short-term small-group studies cannot, Parrott observed. As churches seek to wed the best of old and new approaches to religious education, the traditional Sunday school organization is hard to beat when it comes to establishing meaningful relationships, he noted.

“The problem with many small groups is that they are not designed to continue beyond six months or a year,” he said. “You lose accountability when you start over every time with a new group. There's a more permanent situation with Sunday school. You don't want a closed clique, but you do want a caring fellowship.”