Education Dialogue Looks Toward Detroit
Episcopal News Service. March 31, 1988 [88058]
NEW YORK (DPS, Mar. 31) -- As General Convention grows closer, the dialogue within the Church in response to the Presiding Bishop's strong call for a renewed and revitalized commitment to Christian education continues. The call is especially significant because the education process has been lifted up by the Presiding Bishop and Executive Council as the bedrock on which their whole vision for the Triennium will be built -- a vision of the people of God in mission. In Bishop Browning's own words, "we must provide adequate resources to recruit, nourish, and support the laborers in the mission field...I envision an educational process...to nourish, expand, and support the faithful of all ages through a lifetime program of action, reflection, study, prayers, meditation, and common worship. Total education for total ministry."
According to the Rev. David W. Perry, executive for Education for Mission and Ministry at the Episcopal Church Center, the dialogue within the Church about Christian education will take many forms before final decisions are made at General Convention. On April 6-10 a conference for diocesan educational teams will be held at Shrine Mont Conference Center in Orkney Springs, Va. Sponsored by the Education for Mission and Ministry unit, the conference will help educators think through a number of issues including identifying the foundations of educational ministry, examining the nature of the Church system and ways of making an impact upon it, and lifting up the roles to be played by educational ministry in the total mission of the Church.
The educational dialogue in the Church has already begun to lift up concerns from many quarters -- from clergy and laity, from professional educators and members of congregations of all ages who just want to be better equipped to serve God in mission. David Perry feels the Church has begun to understand some basic truths about education as it has talked and prayed. "Education," Perry says, "is not baby sitting and it is not a rigid process of indoctrination; its integrity lies in the very fact that it is education for ministry; all of us in the Church need to ask ourselves, 'are we building people for mission and ministry?"'
Perry went on to describe the final stages of the work of the Presiding Bishop's Task Force on Christian Education. The Task Force, whose work over many months helped the Presiding Bishop and Executive Council formulate their educational proposals to General Convention, has sponsored "listening posts" in diverse congregations across the country -- from California to Massachusetts, from Indiana to Oregon -- to chart reactions to the proposals contained in the Executive Council's report to Convention. These reactions as well as planning for Convention will be on the agenda of the Task Force when it holds its final meeting in New York on April 19.
Perry and the other members of the Task Force have been able to determine that there is an educational process -- and a teaching process, too -- at work in the Church. The new educational initiative will try to lift up and further enable many vital teaching and learning situations that are already underway. And it will help people in mission to connect, to learn about what others are doing. The Task Force is in agreement with the Presiding Bishop in identifying the linkage of mission and education and in the certainty that true mission is a response to an awareness of the Incarnation.
The Blue Book report of the Task Force sums up the strong Biblical and theological undergirding of all of the educational recommendations they are bringing to Convention: "The calling of the teaching ministry is to draw each person into the communion that is the Body of Christ: through sacrament, through the ministry and witness of the congregation, throughout the process of helping persons reflect and learn from the common experience of life, and through engagement in the social issues of the day. The context of the educational endeavor is the congregation, the family, the community, and the wider community that comprises all the nations of the world. The standard for response is the Biblical Word. The call to mission is the Baptismal Covenant. The ultimate goal of Christian education is to help us change those things in ourselves and in the world that are not part of God's plan; those things that are oppressive and that are not faithful to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Out of this conviction we submit our recommendations; we offer our vision for Christian education into the twenty-first century."
The Task Force has also dealt in a specific way with the resources, human and written, needed to enable a truly comprehensive program of Christian education for the Church. Training of leadership in seminaries, in dioceses, and in congregations to help Episcopalians realize their various missions as Christians is seen as a vital way of releasing the potential which is always present when Christian people join in mission. The Task Force has also recommended the preparation of a manual, tentatively entitled Called to Teach and Learn in the Episcopal Church which will "...have the purpose of lifting up a vision of Christian education in Episcopal congregations...and, also, provide clear, practical guidelines for planning and implementing Christian education in different contexts; set forth norms for the selection and/or production of curriculum and other resources; describe specific teaching/learning needs and characteristics for all age groups; identifying specifically Anglican theological, liturgical, and historical content for study; and outline alternative models for teacher training...."
There is an air of excitement among Task Force members and others involved seriously with Christian education. They look to General Convention as a time of sharing of concerns and discoveries and interests which will surely lead to a new era of education in and for the Episcopal Church. They "buy", in the best sense, the mission imperatives for the Triennium, and share with the Presiding Bishop and Executive Council the firm belief that mission and education -- and learning -- are inseparable partners.