Building the Spirit of Community: Rethinking Sunday Bible School
I understand the educational task of the Church as a process that focuses on presenting Jesus as the model of excellence that directs our life processes and helps us move towards the mission: the expansion of His Kingdom. This is why one of the healthiest ways to strengthen this experience is through Christian education. We could define Christian education as the interactive process of creating, sharing, and transforming the experience of the gospel of Jesus applied to people's lives. Therefore, within the educational task of the Church, Christian education must be translated into an active project of forming people, discussing material with a biblical-theological foundation, and above all, articulating an idea that affirms and recognizes the dignity of every human being. This is why one of the most important tasks is to form and foster community spirit within churches and religious spaces. It is crucial to understand that the intention of Christian education must appeal to the whole group of the Church living in the constant formation of its spirit, vision, and mission.
The Sunday Bible school has traditionally been a space where knowledge is dictated for the conviction of the truth of the Gospel. From the educational tradition of the Church, this space mostly takes place on Sundays, divided by age groups, with a specific curriculum and objectives, with the purpose of approaching the faith. The concept of "school" can be distracting for some people, according to Dr. Pablo Jiménez. In his essay What is the school that is not a school? Jiménez affirms that the space for educational formation in the Church must point towards Christian discipleship, understanding that discipleship is "an experience of faith... where the Lordship of Christ over life is recognized." Proposing Christian discipleship as a goal of formation in the Church broadens educational management by focusing it on the design of an experience that transforms the spirit of the ecclesial community.
The design of the educational experience
Every class should be prepared with a particular intention. This intention can arise from some question, dynamic, or biblical text. Once the intention is established clearly and understandably, we can begin to think about its various applications by age. It is important that each teacher can relate directly to the group in charge to be able to contextualize the intention of the group that is addressed. Once the group dynamics are known, the technical elements are very useful to facilitate the educational process. Using various versions of the Bible always helps to provide various points of view.
It is vital that, before consulting academic sources, the lesson serves as learning first for those who teach it. This personal experience with the material allows us to support our arguments, questions, and applications with biblical commentaries and theologies that affirm and validate our confessions. It is also necessary to create dynamic spaces since the scope of attention of each group is changing. The dynamics will help the content memorization process and its future application since everyone learns uniquely. Usually, the most effective dynamic in all age groups is dialogue. As relational beings, dialogue about our theologies and faith strengthens testimony, creates liberating spaces, and makes the message understandable for life in general.
Finally, the closing of a class should provide a statement about the material. I do not recommend that we end Bible class with a warning or a prayer. Rather, let us turn the end of each class into a memorable event where the lesson transcends words and becomes a life experience.
Forming the spirit of community: Some advice and guidelines.
Interact with life: The spirit of the Church community must be consistently formed in three aspects: context, content, and people. Dr. Juan Mejías, in his presentation Jesus and the Educational Ministry proposes these three aspects as the educational model of Jesus to be able to appeal to people. Therefore, our education must train people who can interact with the experience of faith in their lives and then interact from faith for the blessing of others. Educators must be clear with their positions and arguments without losing flexibility in the dialogue. It is important, above all, to be efficient in time. I recommend that the structure of a class is not built from a time expectation but a content expectation.
Read to understand: I think it is important to develop the ability to discern the spiritual, tangible, and community intention of the text, anchored in its historical-social framework, with the realities of our audience in mind. We must rethink the reading of Scripture with the mindset of making the Gospel accessible and inclusive.
Explain for application: The explanation of the Scriptures should not be understood as a labyrinth; this is an obstacle to reaching those who attend our classes directly. Our explanation must recreate memories and happiness in people. Therefore, I recommend rethinking the educational experience from an idea that transcends the exhibition and focuses on promoting discussion for future applications in our daily lives.
Facilitate faith: Using songs, images, stories, and questions can help strengthen the spiritual experience of the class. I usually recommend the constructivism of Piaget and Vygotsky, who propose to rethink the role of the teacher as a facilitator of educational dialogue and the role of the student as the one who builds their ideas. In the Bible, we can find examples of this: Nicodemus, the Syrophoenician woman, Paul, Nehemiah, etc.
Create experiences: Ultimately, our role as educators is to make Christian community formation memorable. Probably, we all remember some specific class that we took at some point, probably because it was so good or because it was so bad. Why will students remember our classes? We must rethink the creation of experiences from five main awareness: generational awareness, remembering that the audience evolves and grows; physical awareness to capture the attention of participants; mental awareness to exercise critical and diverse thinking; awareness of pauses because it is healthy to rest and process the density of the material; and finally, with spiritual awareness, since we have the task of forming the spirit of the Church community to be sent on the mission.
