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            Doctrine means teaching. They taught. People were spiritually formed in the way of faith. I fear we have often assumed a level of Christian formation and education that is in error. We need to return to the core practice of teaching as an avenue to spiritual formation, to faithfulness and fruitfulness living the way of Christ. (In previous Wilderness Ways I have dealt extensively with the core theological content of biblically grounded teaching.)

            One of the troubles we deal with today is a lot of adults who have what I call a third grade Sunday School education. A third grade Sunday School education is really good if you’re in third grade. The problem with that kind of education is that it is deeply inadequate for the challenges and storms of real adult living. We need a faith that’s deeper and more mature then the 3^rd grade. I need a faith that will help me when a friend calls and tells me that a young father who I confirmed as 6^th grader was wounded in Iraqi. I need a faith that helps me handle the ethical struggles of my life. I need a faith that guides into the uncertain future that our nation and world face. I need a faith that shares grace deep enough and wide enough to transcend and transform the injustices of life. I need a faith that offers a grace broad enough and tall enough to rescue my failing and set me back on my feet again. My hunch, no my conviction, is that so do you.

I am convinced that we need to get serious about adult education that challenges us to move beyond our own foibles and pleasures, likes and dislikes. We need the kind of spiritual formation that sends us out past our comfort zone and convenience. Once we Methodists were known for such a faith. We were methodical about the pursuit of holiness of heart and life (sanctification). This is core. 

I confess that I do not understand pastors who aren’t regularly engaged in spiritual formation (both teaching and learning!) and Bible study. I struggle comprehending lay leadership (as well as clergy) that is not engaged in some kind of small group for discipleship development. “They continued in the apostle’s doctrine and fellowship, and the breaking of bread and of prayers.”[2] This is biblical. This is core.

Discipleship development, continuing in the Apostles doctrine and teaching, is at the heart of Methodism’s DNA. It is rooted in the Acts 2 vision of the Christian church. We have a passion for children and youth. The Sunday School movement came out of the Methodist Church reaching kids nobody else wanted to mess with. They were poor, many were homeless. They couldn’t get to school during the week because they were working in the mines or factories. This is our history. We ought to be a people who say, “Look, in the United Methodist Church children’s ministry is just a core ministry that we are going to do well.”  

The United Methodist Church through Cokesbury has superb Sunday School Children’s curriculum. Excellent resources are readily available.

 The first church I went to as a pastor on my own they were talking about whether it was going to be closed or not. My wife and I were in our 20s, and it was before we had either of our children. The nursery hadn’t been used in 11 years. A sainted, retired teacher named Jocelyn Stevens believed God had put it in her heart in her own devotional time that we ought to have Sunday School. We didn’t have any kids. The first Sunday morning I got there we had one adult class that was mostly older women with a few men. (What had happened was they had started with men, but the men kept dying and the women kept living.) There was an adult daughter, a divorced single mother of one of the older women who also went to the class. She had a 6^th grade girl named Kathy. Kathy would wander the building by herself during the Sunday School hour. 

Jocelyn decided we’re going something about raising children in the faith.  She recruited people and set up three Sunday School classes. The deal was you came and stayed in your class for about 15 minutes just in case a kid showed up. Within a year we had a going Sunday School, three different classes, a confirmation class that year, and all kinds of other things. Why? Because some really faithful lay leadership that said, “We’re going to sacrifice to do this. And I’ll sit in this empty classroom waiting for children to come, even though the people I would be teaching will be my grandchildren’s age.” Now that’s faithfulness and fruitfulness. Discipleship development through spiritual formation and education is core to transformation.

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By: Bishop Mike Lowry On 7/28/2010

Energizing and Equipping Local Churches in Making Disciples of Jesus Christ for the Transformation of the World