family faith | Rows of Sharon

Whether you frequent your local bookstore, library, or Amazon for your reading pleasure bookmark this page for titles to look for in the first six months of 2020. This time of year (autumn) I am steeped deep into projects that will publish in the spring (January through June) as an editor. Spring 2020 will bring some (I believe) great titles for children, youth, and the adults who love them. It has been inspiring to work with authors with a passion for sharing the Good News with others beyond their own ministry settings. Hopefully you will find some that will fill a need in your home or ministry.

The Way of Love has been an initiative of Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and the Episcopal Church since its launch at General Convention in 2018. Resources have been created from across the church, but these have mostly been created for adults and church events. The Very Best Day: The Way of Love for Children by Roger Hutchison fills the void by bringing the Way of Love in word and image to children. Through rhyming prose and the artwork we have come to love from Roger we now have a book designed specifically for children. Coming in January.

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This is the third part of a series of posts stemming from a presentation I did at the 3rd Annual “Spring Training for God’s Mission” Day 2015 for the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, March 21, 2015. Read Part 1: How Did We Get Here? and Part 2: Today’s Context

Part Three: A New Ecosystem

We know things are broken in how we are doing Christian education in our churches today (for the most part). It is often difficult to determine how they got broken, what the cause was (which is usually not just one thing), and how we can make corrections for the better. John Roberto, of Lifelong Faith Associates and Vibrant Faith Ministries suggests we need a new ecosystem for faith formation:

One of the most important tasks for 21^st century faith formation is to create a new faith formation ecosystem for the continuing mission of making disciples and forming faith across the whole life span. What is an ecosystem? An ecosystem is a system formed by the interaction of a community of living organisms with each other and their environment. It is any system or network of interconnecting and interacting parts.

For well over 100 years in the US, Christian churches had a highly integrated religious ecosystem. It was comprised of multigenerational family faith practice and religious transmission at home; strong congregational community relationships; church life, especially participation in Sunday workshop; weekly Sunday School for children and youth (and in many cases, adults); and separate church groups for youth, men, and women. All of this was surrounded by an American culture that explicity or implicity supported the Christian value system and Christian practices.

This ecosystem has eroded and changed over the past several decades because of all the changes in the culture and society, the family, technology and communication and more. The environment has changed, and the relationship between congregational faith formation and its environment has changed. We need a new faith formation ecosystem that must be faithful to our mission of making disciples and lifelong faith growth, and at the same time be responsive to the challenges of the 21^st century and the religious needs of people today.

Continue reading Christian Formation in a Changing Church: Part 3 →