Sudden Clarification

I thought, when I started writing and thinking about the Sunday school class that my husband and I are teaching, that I was upset that children didn't understand that the Old Testament was one long story, and that Jesus was its completion.

Then, I had lunch with Rob Bland. Rob is a brilliant guy, once a Vice President of my company, and now a student at Stanford Business School. I wanted to talk with him because I've been interviewing people about their religious education. I thought that I wanted to know what people had been told about the Old Testament when they were children, and that I wanted to know at what age they reached the point where they understood a connection between the parts of the Bible.

When I was talking with Rob, though, I realized this project was much bigger. I want to change the way children are educated about their religion. I want to argue against "children's church" and for involving kids directly in the services. I want children to use their Bibles, not have the verses handed to them on preprinted sheets. I want people to be asking kids deep, difficult questions, so that they have time to think about them. I want kids to feel like church is a place where their spirits are fed and nurtured, not a place where they must sit still and wait for their parents to be done.

I want religious education to be cohesive--once the kids are (as Rob put it) "old enough to think," they need to get, not just one colorful cartoon-ready Bible story after another, but a cohesive understanding of the Bible.

I've ordered a book through ILL called The Last Christian Generation. I'll post after I read it. I read a review of it somewhere, and just the title bothers me. I do not want to be part of the last Christian generation. I'm not so much scared of being in a world without Christians (although that would be scary) as I am scared of being in a world where people don't believe anything that's demanding or complicated or sometimes inconvenient.