A Plug for an INtentional Approach to Christian Education in the Life of a Church

In their excellent book Teaching the Faith, Forming the Faithful: A Biblical Vision for Education in the Church, authors Gary A. Parrett and S. Steve Kang include an important plug for approaching Christian education and equipping in the church with an appropriate intentionality. Check out what they have to say:

There are very few spheres in which an approach to education is an random and haphazard as that practiced in many of our churches today. If someone wanted to study towards a degree in economics, for example, it would be most unlikely that the college would let her choose all her own courses or choose simply not to take classes at all. If we wish our child to learn to play an instrument, we would certainly hope to find an instructor who has some idea and plan about what particular things really must be learned and when and how. When we look at the medical school diploma on the walls of our doctors' offices, we probably assume - and gratefully so - that our doctors actually attended (in the full sense of the term) all the required classes classes in the curriculum and not only those that suited their fancies at the time. How strange it is that, in this matter of Christian education and formation, we have come to adopt a very different scheme" (p. 77, bold emphasis added).

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This is a large reason why I'm so passionate about what the Brookside Institute is trying to do for adults, and why - more broadly - content strategy and Christian education are so important in the life of a local church.  And all of this is why I'm so grateful for everything Brookside Church does to support these same values through the Institute and other ministries!