Adult Christian Education Offerings by Deacon Nancy Lanman
Last month, after our summer respite, First United Methodist Church – West Allis highlighted the energetic return of Sunday School and Christian education programs with its vibrant fall foliage at the entrance to our sanctuary! Brilliant fall colors also emphasized new learning opportunities and resources designed to deepen our faith journeys and enhance ministry participation within the community. Many of us may not be aware that our teachers have been working to discover new ways of offering resources to our community, and that this summer we provided a foretaste of what we have learned and additional sources of materials we have discovered. Tom Bolton invited us to share an exciting journey to the Holy Land and its sacred places through a series of engaging and moving videos. Sue Klescewski and I put together and distributed a collection of current articles from respected faith-oriented journals and magazines that challenged us to exercise our moral muscles to alleviate critical social justice issues. Articles chosen related to our current study of the Climate Change Crisis that our UMC Social Principles enumerate. The entire congregation was also invited, after worship one Sunday, to view and reflect upon an episode of the new PBS series, the Human Footprint, that dealt with the ecological costs of hydroelectric dams. These resources are being offered, not solely in the context of regular classes, but in new ways to give our people a greater opportunity to experience a wider and deeper understanding of engaged discipleship, one that helps us to become better equipped to share our gifts in ministries underway here in our neighborhood and city.
Sunday School, worship, engaging in ministry all help us “to know not what to think, but how to think,” as disciples of Jesus Christ and as how he would have us do as his followers. We must become more aware of how we are his presence, gifted in the Holy Spirit’s presence, to then engage in our lives as Jesus did, when he lived among us.