The essential questions this course takes up:

What does it mean to be a learning community of faith? How do we shape and nurture learners in/of faith?

Ideas and concepts central to understanding:

Christian leaders and communities are called and shaped by a living God who initiates relationships with people of all ages in a world of many cultures. Christian education is not about “giving” faith to people, but rather about helping people to explore their relationship with this God.

Educational leaders are transformers! We help communities move from passive information transfer, to the development of active Christian competence in a community.

Ideas and concepts that are important to know and to do:

1. know what a Christian learning community is
2. articulate a clear statement of your own faith and how it shapes your teaching/learning
3. articulate a clear vision for providing leadership in nurturing faith
4. know how to draw on biblical texts to shape learning towards specific goals, and how to be challenged by biblical texts in that process
5. know how ritual/narrative shapes learning, and identify key opportunities in a community’s rituals for learning
6. know how to begin to figure out how history has shaped a specific community (congregation, organization, etc.), and how to work with and from and beyond that
7. listen carefully to a community and assess, at least in basic terms, learning challenges
8. based on that assessment, prepare and implement appropriate learning designs

Ideas and concepts that are worth being familiar with:

1. five elements of Christian curriculum (kerygma, diakonia, leiturgia, didache, koinonia)
2. basic information about brain function, psychological and social development
3. basic information about forms of pedagogy and curriculum design
4. basic information about the history of religious education more generally, and the student’s tradition more specifically
5. basic information about boundary leadership and how to lead from the edges