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Education Ministry

Posted on October 5, 2006 ...

The sub-title above is there as a point of focus to remind me that there are only two real goals in Christian Education. In Matthew 22:36, Jesus is asked, Which is the great commandment in the Law? In the verses that follow, He responded, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.

It would seem, from these words of Christ, that if we can address these two things everything else will take care of itself. It is the latter of these that I would like to address here since it seems essential to the first. We find in 1 John 4:20, If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. It would seem that the litmus test of our Christian maturity is not our fervor in worship, grasp of difficult theological concepts, nor our oratorical excellence. It is, instead, our ability to truly love (desire the best for) those that we cross paths with everyday. It is only in doing this that we can mature our love for God beyond infancy, since failure to do so is disobedience.

Individually and corporately, as a church body, it is hard to love those that we know little about. There is a buzz-word in Baptist education circles today and that word is "connect." Connecting means that we are able to dialogue and, in the process, discover their needs, challenges, abilities, and fears. Connecting can also help us realize how we can help them and where God has equipped them.

Connecting, however, requires effort. Exchanging pleasantries is customary and polite but simply ineffective in developing a relationship. In order to "connect" as a congregation and extend the love of God, we need to invest time and ourselves in the lives of those who visit our church. To this end, Sunday School classes are being asked to be proactive in visitation and phone contacts. If you are asked to be a care-group leader or to accept a visitation card, please consider the importance of that task in the light of my comments here. Scripture says we can't espouse love toward God and fail to love those that He sends our way. Verlin