The Parents and the Preacher and the Pulpit

63 cities done and I'm taking a break.

Since the kids weren't home, I spent Saturday alone at my cabin near Mankato clearing brush, clearing my head, and chain-sawing a half-dozen downed trees. Then I wrecked the driving lawn mower and had to mow 3/4 of an acre of too-thick grass by hand.

Plenty of time to think while sawing limbs, sweating to the oldies and swatting mosquitos.

Here's the largest insight from 63 cities and a whole lot of miles:

You can't fix a broken system by ignoring the most important pieces of the system.

When it comes to Christian education, the two most important pieces of the system that we've been neglecting, ignoring - or at least under-utilizing - are the parents and the pulpit.

While meeting leaders from 375 churches from Orlando to Anchorage to Boston to Hawaii since Easter, I've become even more convinced that a new "Three Legged Stool" for faith incubation has got to connect and integrate the pulpit to the education to the home. The fastest and easiest and most effective way to get this going quickly is to center all three thematically around one Bible story and text - taking the main theme verse/story of the week directly into worship and then to the home huddles in a MINIMUM of four ways:

    A. CHILDREN AS WORSHIP LEADERS - You are never more ready to learn than when you know you'll be teaching in an hour. Adrenaline, nor-adrenaline, vassopressin, epinephrine, dopamine, and a host of other neurotransmitters will tell you that the most effective way to learn is to teach. The future of the Christian education/worship blur will see the theme verse dragged into worship and sung/signed by all the kids - AND ALL PARENTS - each week. The children's choir won't be six girls and the one boy who doesn't want to be ther. The entire Sunday School will be worship leaders EVERY week. They'll learn the key verse in Song and Sign and Story that morning, then go directly into worship to LEAD it during the opening of the next service. This is the post-television era for our kids. Unless they are directly engaged in LEADING, they'll not be around to watch your show.

    B. CHILDREN'S SERMON - Speaking of making kids the worhsip leaders, why not redefine the children's sermon as the children DOING the sermon? During educaiton hour, they learn the key story and theme verse, then create art to tell the old, old story in a new, new way. Transform the children's sermon into an interview, with them sharing their art on the Bible Song theme and telling the Bible Story to the congregation.

   C. TEXT OF THE WEEK - The Lectionary we're using assumes three things that aint necessarily so any more:
    1. Biblical Literacy
    2. Regular Worship Attendance
    3. A Culture of Christendom

People are no longer Biblically literate, so they don't know the ebb and flow of the texts one week to  the next. Regular worshipers today come a couple times a month, so they don't hear the ebb and flow of the text. The culture is no longer Christian, so the very language and foundational Christian memes can't be assumed as a frame of reference (frame of reverence?) any more. With that being the case, I propose it is even MORE important to build on the Bible story from week to week, with one week leading logically and chronologically into the next. I think we need to teach the Bible the same way they paint the Golden Gate Bridge - from one end to the other. If you use our Bible Song stories/songs for education, that means you either scrap the prescribed lectionary texts completely and opt for a new lectionary that teaches the Bible from one end to the other, or you substitute the Bible Song theme verse for one of the four texts each Sunday. (If you're doing an Old Testament Bible Song lesson this week, drop the prescribed OT text and substitute the BSS text for the lesson each week.)

Which brings me to the final and most important home/education/worship connection:

    D. PULPIT - Why aren't we connecting the pulpit to the home to Christian education? Since the preacher is usually the most gifted (or one of the most gifted) teachers in the church, and since the pulpit is perhaps the ONLY truly cross-generational teaching tool the church has to offer, it would be a SIN not to have the preaching/teaching/and reaching all integrate together around a common theme. The preacher will be asked to preach on the Bible Song theme or at a minimum teach part of it as a part of the sermon.

You don't fix a broken system by ignoring the most important parts.

The preacher and the pulpit and the parents have got to all get on the same page and work together.

Get your calendar out and start planning.

Comments

[Rich Melheim]

I'd like to learn more about "Whole community Catechesis."

Coffee?

[Mary Hess]

Great ideas! In the Catholic context, in a very FEW places, we're doing this through what some people call "whole community catechesis."