Religion and Theology

Jesus himself devoted to a small number of people and not the ample. In the beginning he has decide to choose small group for his ministry. This group had contained only 12 uneducated and normal men. He had chosen only few men to build a stronger foundation in order to change the world. He had spent most of the time with them ministering to the people daily. He trained these 12 men to love and each other and serve people and to go ahead and pass good news to the world. The way Jesus live and spent time with his disciple clearly indicates that he is a true man and true incarnation of God. He talked, ate, fished, sailed and spent time in prayer with them. He had to spend a good amount of time with them as he found the need for human support and fellowship. Luke 2228 says, You are those who have stood by me in my trials

Status of Early Church
The knowledge of the disciples led them to establish the small churches. The early church was just a small group where the people had gathered to share the good news and support one another. The other people are attracted toward the Church, looking at their love and concern for each. This initial group gathered to gather daily in their homes and praised the God together and ate together and the other people had come and join them Acts 246. The initial church gathered together in a common place probably a home which would limit the quantity of people.

Most of the churches have followed the footsteps of the deciles and early church. St. Francis of Assisi had used only small groups for the service, training and prayer. Hutterites, Anabaptists, Lutherans and Religious Society of Friend used small group for religious activities.

John Wesley, who led the Methodist revival, had started it with the small groups for common confession to each other in order to give support and encouragement to overcome the temptation in improving a Christian life style. The Methodist church used classes and bands which led by the lay people who used to give report on the spiritual progress, problems and needs and to receive prayer and support.

Bible Studies, Groups Discussion, Sermons, Lectures, Topical Studies, to an assembled people attending worship, comes under the example of education in the Church. If biblical examples are taken Jesus taught the Beatitudes to multitude of people and he too had included the parables in his teachings.

Service expectations for Christian Education workers
Leadership in Church
To fulfill the vision, Good Leaders will motivate, mobilize, resource and direct people. Very often the options must be provided for the personal growth to comprise the possibilities and the benefits.  Failing to climb aboard it can be considered as their lack of commitment with out realizing that they are committed to those things which fit with in their vision of a meaningful life. Failure to appoint a leader in the process of disciple making of the church will enables the people to misunderstand the opportunity given to them.

Christians who have responsibility and who are  in specific positions in the church needed to be examples in persona faith, and in business affairs in order to maintain a higher standard in favor of workers is one of the better ways to present Jesus Christ to the community. Thus, the following directions will be necessary of any person who is working in the Christian Education Ministry
1) The person must be a member of the church
2) Must be regular to the church
3) Need regular presence of the trainer in development in training workshop meetings
4) Must be faithful and loyal to leadership and pastor.
5) Need to give information before enough days in case of absence.
6) Should be very neat in appearance.
7) Must be there in church at least 15 minutes before at the designated position or a post.
8) Home life must be kept in the order
9) Need to give a specific time of notice before resigning the job.

Educator role
Also when a course is offered as a package, the educators expect everyone to take the same journey without considering the individual differences in reaching the maturity.

Challenge
George Barna says that Most of the Christian education is offered to the believers without specific content and is offered randomly. As a result of this after some time the information value is getting diminished due to the non applicability of the information to the user circumstances. So a purposeful and systematic manner of course offer is required in the area of Christian education.

Mission and vision statements for Christian Education
The procedure to develop vision unites prayer and reflection to understand the foot steps of Jesus. This process may take few days or months to implement fully. This can be either used by the leader or perhaps by means of small leadership team. This team either be selected by the church or be formed by the appropriate people who have particular skills and talents which reflect the aims of the church. By all the means the end of the procedure is to be taken to an understanding of the will of God.    

Thinking Through Vision Statement
Clear and accurate thinking is a precondition of a clear and accurate communication. Till the time the vision in the mind is clear regarding the priority of the church, it can not be hoped to be logical to explain to others.   Ones one is in agreement then it is the proper time to share and improve the vision with the large community of faith. Provoke people to consider and reflect and call upon through the vision. Sometimes it is required to be changed, depending on the time when the entire community comes together in the purpose of vision. If a vision can not lead to a specific kind of achievement is improbably to be much of aid to the God or to the church. Initially a group is needed to take time and begin to work toward the small visions and goals according to the proper planning which might turned to be positive in giving good results in the end, and this will give a good foundations to the small groups before they archive the greater visions of the church.

Models of Church
Competencies Model
This model is an exceedingly integrated approach towards discipleship which stands out in its personal evaluation and the integration with all characteristics of the ministry. It consist of 30 specific foci in which 10 are the fundamental beliefs in which the church based on, 10 are the fundamental practices which the church follows and another 10 are the fundamental virtues which describes the qualities of the church.  It also consists of Celebrationcell congregation and the profile of the Christian life and the Classes for Topical adults.

Missional Model
To be a missional church is to study about all of the life of the church around Gods mission. To be a member of missional church means to discern.This model comprises the Worldview models along with a blend of competencies, the six foundation competenciesqualities, and the Introduction class it also consists of Small group and specialty classes.

The neighborhood Model
In Neighborhood Church, the Small Groups discipleship has been a prominence and the Discipleship is the supreme work of God to convert our minds and hearts to become faithful followers of Jesus Christ and all His preaching. The neighborhood model includes the combination of all the Worldview, Missional and the Competencies models, class of inquirer, Discipleship team which includes 5 to 9 people, the Neighborhood congregation which consists of 15 to 20 people, Modeling evangelism and it also includes the curriculum of Church authored discipleship.

The World View Model
The World view model deals with the impartation of biblical wisdom which directs to the transformation of individual, the Goals such as service, participation, decision making and understanding. It deals with the small group process of two years, the Discovery series from four Topical books, the issue oriented, and the peer mentors who deal with one-one basis and finally the Dissonance based which deals with the dissension.

Lecture  Lab Model
In the Lecture Lab model the Delivery of the content will be through the lectures and lab sessions with small groups, it also provides the Biblical knowledge with faith based relationships which directs towards godly character and the Christian service, the outlines of the sermons and it also consists of small groups as the major forum for learning.

Barnas Best Model
The Barnas Best model follows these principlesnot to reinvent the wheel, only look for the principles but not for templates, the senior Pastor is champion, the membership of the church is related to the discipleship, every program of the ministry is coupled with the outcomes of the discipleship, they minimized programs to concentrate on discipleship, there will be synchronization of all the teachings, the discipleship is coupled with the mission statement of the church, utilizing PDPs, Disciples in small group, Disciples in mid size, Disciples in worship services, Disciples with mentors, Disciples in the community services, yearly evaluations and revised PDPs, Coordinated sermon content.

In this regard, Robert Choun  and Jr. Michael Lawson, Suggests that Christian education specialist must understand the necessities of the modern church requirements before starting the education. He suggests that, there are two answers one must evaluate in considering the education, 1- Nature of the task or challenges before the church must be addressed through the course 2- Does the church need specialized help in achieving the task.

Adaptability to Local Church
The name of my church is Church of South India. My church is the outcome of the combination of varying traditions Methodist, Anglican, Presbyterian, Congregational, and it is renewed in that region my church was inaugurated in September 1947, after prolonged negotiations and compromise among the concerned churches. It is organized into 16 dioceses every church is under the spiritual direction of the bishop. The whole church is overseen by a church council, which elects a presiding bishop once in 2 years. Therefore Episcopacy is combined with government synodical (church counsel), and the church clearly recognizes the Presbyterian, congregational and Episcopal elements are all essential for the life of our church. The practice of Scriptures is the definitive standard of faith.

The Church of South India has got its own communion service and service book, both draw from quite a few denominational resources. It is in limited spiritual union with the Episcopal Church of the United States and the Anglican Church. The union, particularly in its understanding of the doctrine of apostolic succession of Anglican with the vision of other denominations, is frequently cited as a familiar sight in the movement of ecumenism.

My church  has almost 3.8 million people and over 14 000 congregations within 21 dioceses .The Church of South India runs over 2000 schools, almost 130 colleges and more than104 hospitals. In the year1960 the Church had become aware of its social duties along with responsibilities and began organizing rural progressing projects.