Christian Education: Building or Built?

Are you satisfied with your Christian education ministry?

You could potentially get to the point where you’re happy with the facilities.

When I was a Director of Christian Education, my pastor gave me a privilege few ministry leaders get. He encouraged me to evaluate the facilities and make changes. We broke down walls to make some rooms bigger. We divided a larger room into an area for sleeping babies and active babies with the top portion of the wall a big plexiglass window so workers could keep an eye on the sleeping ones. We painted walls, put murals on some, made a couple doors so the top half could open by itself and others with windows, installed new carpet in a few rooms, put in child size toilets for the toddler room, etc. Was everything ideal? No, but I was very happy with it because it certainly was better than what we started with and it was the best we could do with what we had to work with. It was re-built and had the potential of making a big difference in our Christian Education ministry.

You could potentially get to the point where you feel good about the programs you offer.

Along with a facilities makeover, I was also able to make changes to our programming. I turned the nursery and toddler programs from primarily about babysitting to actual teaching on their age level. I revamped the structure of classes. In coordination with the pastor, I even instituted a Sunday School ministry that focused on one theme taught to all ages and continued by the pastor in his sermon so people left with one big idea and had a platform for discussion as a family. I developed Sermon Grabbers for children who were old enough to stay in the worship service that were based on that day’s sermon and enabled kids to listen for key truths in the sermon and interact with the content on their level. Many other ideas were implemented that hadn’t been done prior. Was everything perfect? No, but there was a higher level of excellence and focus than previously. It was built in such a way that it had the potential of making a bigger difference.

Once built to satisfaction, is your the educational ministry of your church making a difference?

You might have heard the statement, “If you build it, they will come.” We built it and they did come. Attendance grew to higher numbers than previously. Was all that enough? No. Why? — Because while you can get your facilities and programs to a state in which you consider them “built” … at least for a time … it all needs to be making a difference in people’s lives.

What needs to be our primary objectives?

People’s Continued Spiritual Growth

Unlike facilities and programming, people never arrive. Christian Education must be about constantly building into people’s lives no matter how spiritually mature they become. Consider the words of the Apostle Paul in Philippians 3:10-12 —

I want to know Christ — yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

If your Christian Education ministry is about your facilities and programs, you could potentially get to the point where you feel like you have it built. If Christian Education ministry is about people, you will constantly be in the building process. From physical birth to physical death, from new birth in Christ to glory with Him, it’s about helping people at all ages and stages to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3:18).

In reality, because we keep building into people’s lives and they continue to grow, the dynamic changes and new needs arise, so we find that our facilities and programs must sometimes be adjusted even when we feel like they had already been built to our satisfaction. That’s what happens when Christian Education is about building people and not just programs.