Grace and Peace from Our Lord Jesus Christ!
I wrote to you last month about the way that worship on Sunday is not just about learning knowledge for our minds, it is also about ‘exercising’ our imaginations as we sing and speak and pass the peace. During the Sunday morning worship service we are practicing for our week. In fact, I would encourage you to continue to practice on Sunday afternoon imagining what the message from that morning will look like in your life in the coming week. In the process of imagining, you are being formed to live it.
Now I would like to make a larger point – beyond just what happens during the worship service. And that point is that Christian education is not just about learning more information but actually is about Christian formation. It is rather obvious that knowing Christian truths is not the same thing as having a relationship with God (a.k.a. ”knowing God”). For example, when Jesus confronts demons in the Gospels they often show that they know who He is – yet those demons are not true believers in Jesus Christ. And so as important as information is to the Christian faith (which it is important, because we believe in a God who has acted and spoken in history) more important still to the Christian faith is being transformed from death to life and shaped more and more in the image of Jesus Christ.
James K.A. Smith, says, “A Christian education shapes us, forms us, molds us to be a certain kind of people whose hearts and passions and desires are aimed at the kingdom of God.” We are being shaped even when we read the Bible just to be able to say that I read Scripture today. We are being shaped even when we read the Bible just for information. But a truly Christian education is more than reading in order to check off a list or reading to add to our memory bank. We want God to change our hearts, to point our hearts and our passions and desires at Him, to read His word because we want to hear Jesus speaking. We want to be shaped to love
God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength.
What I am suggesting is a similar idea to the one my youth leader told me at the end of my own confirmation classes – knowing that I had all the right information in my head, she challenged me to see that it wasinternalized in my heart. As someone who excels at education when it is just information, it is helpful to be reminded that Christian education is more about formation in Jesus Christ.
In Christ,
Pastor Justin
Take a look at this article for more insights by James K.A. Smith.
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