"Real World" Christian Challenges
By Holly Hemmer Yeuell
Holly is a Christian Educator who has worked with United Methodist, Presbyterian (USA), and Episcopal congregations. She is on staff at the Episcopal Church of St. Francis of Assisi in Birmingham, Alabama.

Christian nurture, to be worthwhile, ought to be about helping people of all ages to live as Christians in meaningful ways. Since this living takes place in the context of our present culture, churches need to look hard at the relevance of what they are offering as nurture. How does what we do in church relate to the reality we live out in the world? Christian nurture, particularly the large and vital piece we call Christian education, must focus with intention on our call to live the Gospel each minute of our individual and corporate lives.

Three challenges for living today continue to surface:

The first is the need for silence.
The second is the reality of diversity.
The third is the destruction of our environment.

In theological terms, we are separated first from God, secondly from each other, and thirdly from creation. That's also known as sin! So, what can we do about it in terms of Christian education?

Silence is almost lost to our culture now. Can you find a physical space in your own surroundings that is silent, except for the sounds of nature? It's hard; in fact, Amtrak has recently started providing "silent cars" on their commuter trains, as the number one complaint of commuters is cell phone use by others. A new cellular phone company displays a huge billboard telling us "silence is weird." Silence is frightening to many in our culture, a foreign experience. Yet silence is essential to the experience of God. We must declare the need for spiritual nurture, teach skills of spiritual disciplines, and model the seeking of God in quiet and simplicity.

The issue of diversity will always challenge Americans. How will we as Christians provide leadership, or will we at all, in our time? Besides the growing diversity of our American populace, we now have to see ourselves as global citizens. We can choose to teach appreciation of the diversity of God's people and learn skills of communication and cooperation, or we can abet the violence and hatred we hear about every day.

We need energy and leadership in serious theological consideration of the two issues of diversity: acceptance and and appreciation of other races, ethnicities, genders, ages, and cultures and the challenge of valuing different faith traditions. We teach the children in our churches to love their neighbors. What if the neighbor is from a different ethnic group? What if the neighbor is of a different faith?

The environment is a hot topic in politics and science, but it should be a blazing topic in our churches. We are called to be stewards, and what more fundamental stewardship is there than our responsibility toward that which God created? Our insistence on destroying, polluting, and converting the environment, when performed from a value system of greed, is basically saying that we know more than God. Using the environment for our needs, from a value system of respect for the environment and others, leads to spiritual health.

Along with the issue of greed, there are peace and justice issues that tie to our thoughts of diversity. Who in our world is privileged to have access to the environment and its resources? How does the ownership of land, or water, or Antarctic ice affect our world? In another vein, what is the role of creation as a revelation of God? This returns us to our discussion of silence; how in our world can we encounter God if there is no silence and no natural environment.

So what am I saying? I am calling for clearness and purpose in our Christian education and all that we do in Christian nurture. I am calling for recognition of the challenges of living as Christians in our time, which can be summed up by saying that we need to teach and learn about our needs for silence, for ecumenical and interfaith sensitivity, appreciation, and dialogue, and for environmental respect. I am challenging churches to look at what's really being taught in the classrooms and activities of their congregations. It's nice to teach Bible stories. It's essential to nurture Christians who can live real-world lives of faith.

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