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THE INTERDENOMINATIONAL THEOLOGICAL CENTER

CHRISTIAN EDUCATION AND MINISTRY

SUBMITTED TO DR. MAISHA I. HANDY

IN PARTIAL COMPLETION OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR
CAM 801: FOUNDATIONS OF CHRISTIAN EDUCATION

BY
ANTHONY D. CLINKSCALES

ATLANTA, GEORGIA

OCTOBER 14, 2009

Longtime educator at the Interdenominational Theological Center, the late Dr.

Jonathon Jackson affirmed that Christian education is that ministry that undergirds and
supports all of the other ministries in the church. The churchs mission, essentially,
giving God glory, is supported and undergirded by Christian education. The early
church knew Christian education was important as evidenced by their insistence on
catechisms that lasted up to three years prior to baptismal and acceptance into the
Christian faith. The First and Second Great Awakenings of the 18 th and 19th centuries
embraced the importance of educating slaves on Christian faith and biblical principles
prior to their being converted and baptized into the Christian faith. Moreover, in our
contemporary setting, there is an ongoing concern for the most effective means for
Christian educators to do Christian education.
Certainly we have made some strides since the first-century church and the
Great Awakenings up to the present time. However, we are still met with the
predicament of keeping up with an ever-growing global and technological age, and the
weltanschauung, that is, the always changing ideas, beliefs, interpretations and
interactions of people in the world. Just when we think weve figured it all out, we are
faced with another unique case which exposes the ignorance and naivet of Christian
educators. In essence, I define Christian education as a sober and systematic attempt
at supporting and perpetuating the churchs mission of giving God glory. Spiritually- and
theologically-grounded, it is holistic in nature responding to the health, financial, human,
social, polity, personal, institutional and pedagogical issues of persons individually and
collectively. Much like the instructions on doing ministry that Jesus gave to his

disciples, Christian ministry, including Christian education requires educators to be

practical, persistent and prophetic in their approach at educating believers.

Parker Palmer affirms that, Its not about fragmenting our reality to either-ors
we need an educational model that reveals how the paradox of thinking and feeling are
joined, whether we are comfortable with paradox or not. 2 Only a pedagogy that
conducts ongoing dialogue between theory and experience, concept and emotion, and
is open to new insights about people in relation to the Supreme and one another is
sufficient as a foundation for Christian education. Christian education requires being
open to ones feelings and emotions, and to the emotions of those to whom one
teaches, and seeking the meaning of those emotions and their relationship to
pedagogical concepts.
Christian education is no easy task. The ideal model is very resourceful as it is
designed to respond to the wide range of issues of the faith community. Furthermore,
any successful Christian ministry must have Christian education as a priority next to
preaching and music ministry. Truthfully, preaching and music ministry are much
informed by Christian education. You really cannot separate the three. All three are the
substratum of Christian faith. Christian educators have to embrace their calling
wholeheartedly because the educators lay the foundation for the churchs ministry to the
individual and collective mind, body and spirit.

Bibliography
1

Matt 10:5-15, The New Revised Standard Version

Parker J. Palmer, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teachers Life (San Francisco:
Jon Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2007), 64-66.
2

Palmer, Parker J. The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a

Teachers Life. San Francisco: Jon Wiley and Sons, 2007.
Tye, Karen B. Basics of Christian Education. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2000.