More on… Age Appropriate Christian Education Material

(Note: If you haven't read last weeks entry on 'Age Appropriate Education Material', you may want to scroll down and read that entry first.)

Our study group (meets on Sunday Mornings) recently had a discussion on the subject of ‘age appropriate Christian education material’ and came up with some interesting observations.

One of our members, a retired United Church of Christ minister, mentioned that the UCC had introduced a version of age appropriate material for children, over thirty years ago. He presented it to his Sunday School teachers and it lasted three weeks. They (the teachers) didn’t like teaching it and the parents were beginning to get upset about some of the content.

This prompted a discussion about how such age appropriate material might ever make its way into the church curriculum. Our conclusion seemed to be; that it would never work if introduced to children whose parents were not first introduced to and educated on a more intellectual and honest understanding of religion and the Church.

This of course would require a complete reversal of our normal education process, i.e. educating the oldest members first and then moving down (rather than up) the age ladder.

Could this work? Well, one might observe that the attendees of lectures given by Spong, Borg, Crossan, Geering, and others, are predominately the older age group. Therefore, it might be said that the process has already started.

The questions then become; Who writes the material that allows for a wider broadcast of the Progressive message? What does the material contain? How does the message get out that it is available?

I would appreciate your input, either by comment to this blog or by email…… barry e