Christian Education Journal: Research on Educational Ministry

This article continues a conversation, begun in a previous article (Nelson, 2020), between theological education and Transformative Learning (TL) theory. Although most studies have appropriated Jack Mezirow’s pioneering theory, the author instead proposes using the work of the Christian educational philosopher, James Loder, in redemptive transformation. The author reviews the corpus of Loder’s work and then offers a series of implications for the practice of Redemptive Transformational Learning in theological education and church-based educational ministries.

This article seeks to present a faith-based constructive approach to curriculum design for Christian formation. It explores the essential components of a curriculum that encourages the transference of knowledge and understanding to promote Christ-like transformation. Based on this information, an inquiry-based curriculum design method based on the Inquiry Design Model (IDM) is developed that balances biblically cohesive constructive principles with the established vision for Christian education.

The psychological study of spiritual development continues to grow in popularity, but definitions, theories, and frameworks related to this field often focus on a narrow range of qualities associated with spirituality. In the present article, the importance of integrating intuitive cognition—particularly moral intuitions—into models of spiritual development is considered, the implications of such cognition for spiritual development and Christian education are examined, and various limitations are noted.

The problems related to Sunday school students not making the connection between Scripture and daily life and a superficial teaching of the Bible compelled the author to create a novel approach to teaching Sunday school called the “Good Sower.” The imagery of a “Good Sower” is used to teach volunteers how to teach the Bible. Based on solid research regarding how the brain learns, it serves as an overlay in conjunction with published curriculum.

John Bunyan’s Book for Boys and Girls reflects a pre-Piagetian attempt to connect the temporal and spiritual in the life of the child. It is argued that this work functions as mediated symbolism in a form similar to Solomonic wisdom with its regulated natural theology. Bunyan’s work challenges some contemporary assumptions of formation and child theology. The article concludes with a call to reclaim a holistic vision of life and faith within child pedagogies.

Leadership is a popular area of study but appears to be locked within a never-ending loop of retroactive behavioral analysis. Field theory offers modern leadership study an opportunity to break this cycle, potentially unlocking previously undiscovered relationships within the leadership phenomenon. The authors evaluate field theory for Christian application via Trentham’s principle of inverse consistency. After reorientation toward a Christian worldview, field theory is demonstrated as a valid theoretical construct to inform Christian leadership praxis.

This article analyzes the ways in which Jesus’ questions in Matthew’s gospel align with the categories of Bloom’s taxonomy, and how Jesus’ audience influenced the questions he asked. Results indicate Jesus asked the religious leaders higher-level questions more often than the disciples, who received a greater number of lower-level questions. These differences inform how teachers construct questions that help students learn. Recommendations are made for educators who construct questions that account for students’ preparation, students’ motivation, the value of silence, and the difficulty of questions.

Empirical data was gathered from parents, grandparents, and practitioners, which revealed the impact of Covid-19 on UK children and family ministry. Prevailing restrictions and associated needs caused significant change in the nature of this ministry, and may not be temporary. Key observations were reduction in engagement of families with the church, shift in the volunteer structure for church-based children’s activities, increased focus on family faith formation activities, and diversified individual faith journeys of children.

Small groups are an essential aspect of contemporary churches, playing an important role in community building, support, spiritual formation, and accountability. However, their number and impact are often limited due to a lack of people willing to lead a small group, a problem faced by each new generation. This exploratory study of 217 young adults in church small groups (median age = 24.0 years), including both leaders and non-leaders of small groups, examines potential barriers to small group leadership. An exploratory factor analysis found six barriers: Desire to lead a small group, Skills in group dynamics, Desire to positively influence others, Social support, Biblical foundations, and Stability. The hypothesis that some barriers would be greater than others was supported: Stability and Desire to lead a small group were the greatest barriers whereas Desire to positively influence others was the lowest. The hypothesis that these barriers would be greater for non-leaders of small groups than for leaders of small groups was supported for all six barriers. The difference between leaders and non-leaders was largest for Desire to lead a small group, Skills in group dynamics, Social support, and especially Biblical foundations. These results lead to important insights for recruiting and training Generation Z and younger Millennials to be small group leaders.