ADULT CHRISTIAN EDUCATION MESSAGE FROM DEACON NANCY LANMAN & SUE KLESCEWSKI
Sue and I have always considered all members of our classes to be teachers, along with those assigned to lead. We all have lifetimes of learning and experiencing our faith to share, both spiritually and missionally. What surprised and delighted participants this time, however, was being treated to a learning experience that drew on and originated in the rich curiosity and exuberance of our church youth, who followed our study along with us, using a companion curriculum that leaders developed together!
This fall, a dozen or more adults enjoyed a lively and thought-provoking five-week study of the deeply concerning moral issues raised by the crisis of global climate change. During our last class, our youth joined us to share posters they had created expressing their concerns for the environment’s repair and well-being. Probably not many of us adults realize that we are a part of the geological epoch that has created this crisis (Holocene), but it is our youth who will inherit the consequences and be held most responsible for creating policies and scientific and other responses to meet the effects being experienced in the next epoch (Anthropocene).
Sunday School is a sacred time for everyone attending to learn and be inspired by those around us, past and present, and for the future that is yet to come. If we do not learn to study and to focus more deeply and steadily upon weaving our faith and actions together, we may not be able to enjoy the benefits of life, the fruits of well-being much longer. Rev. Dr. Larry Rasmussen, well-known and respected environmental ethicist and Reinhold Neibuhr Professor of Socia Ethics, Emeritus, at Union Theological Seminary, has written an outstanding book to his grandchildren who, to paraphrase, will “inherit” a planet at a time when “uncertainty is a sure thing.” Written in the form of letters lovingly addressed to his and our grandchildren who will inherit a fundamentally different earth, this is a must-read for us all, whether you have had an opportunity to take a class yet or not! (The Planet You Inherit: Letters to My Grandchildren when Uncertainty’s a Sure Thing, Broadleaf Books, 2022) Fortunate to be people of faith, as well as of love and goodwill, we have God’s eternally reliable accompaniment and our divinely ordained marching orders as God’s people to carry on the good of Creation divinely called into being. Therefore, we have hope, and we have work we must and can do before our time is complete. It is then that we can turn this ministry over to the next generation…