Today I will be interviewing Dr.’s Gary Parrett and S. Steven Kang about their new book Teaching the Faith, Forming the Faithful: A Biblical Vision for Education in the Church. Dr. Parrett and Dr. Kang both teach at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts. I met Gary and Steve at a local coffee shop in Beverly, MA for an extended
and spirited conversation between friends about their book, the church, and Christian education.
The following, although not a transcript, contains the heart of that conversation, and the major points that both authors emphasized. The interview 
will be posted in two parts, part one today (1/18), and part two on 1/20 (Wed.) I hope that the interview will benefit your ministry as you read through their book.
Grace,
The Academia Nut
AN: Gary, can you tell me a few things about yourself?
AN: What is your hometown?
Gary: Tacoma, WA
AN: Where did you receive your Ph.D. from?
Gary: Ed. D. from Columbia University
AN: Church Affiliation?
Gary: Evangelical Covenant (ordained non-denominational)
AN: Sports Team?
Gary: Seattle Mariners
AN: What’s your favorite hobby?
Gary: Following Baseball, Playing Basketball
AN: Steve? Same Questions.
AN: What is your hometown?
Steve: Wheaton, IL./Seoul, South Korea
AN: Where did you receive your Ph.D. from?
Steve: A joint program between Northwestern University and Garrett-Evagelical Theological Seminary
AN: Church Affiliation?
Steve: Evangelical Presbyterian Church
AN: Sports Team?
Steve: English Premier League Soccer-Manchester United
AN: What’s your favorite Hobby?
Steve: I enjoy hanging out with my children and their friends.
AN: Can you each give me the top 5 books that have been instrumental in your own Christian and intellectual formations?
Steve:
- Lesslie Newbigin, Proper Confidence
- John Owen, Communion with the Triune God
- Walter Wangerin, Reliving the Passion
- John Webster, Holy Scripture
- Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart
- John Zizioulas, Being as Communion
Gary:
1) J.I. Packer’s Introductory Essay to Owen’s The Death of Death in
the Death of Christ, and that volume by Owen.
2) Henri Nouwen’s In the Name of Jesus (small but very potent for me)
3) Bo Giertz’ The Hammer of God
4) Dostoevsky’s The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov.
5) J.C. Ryle’s Holiness
AN: How did Teaching the Faith, Forming the Faithful come about?
Gary: This book came about through interactions with colleagues at NAPCE (North American Professors of Christian Education), and what I believed to be troubling pedagogical approaches.
Christian education for some time has accepted and “baptized” secular approaches to education, even when they are in conflict with Scripture. We wanted to produce a book with a unique perspective on education that was firmly rooted in biblical ideas concerning learning. We began with a solid exegetical biblical theology of learning and teaching, and then brought in pedagogical theory to support it.
Steve: Many of our peers do this in reverse. They seek to shape their content under the structure of secular pedagogical theory and then seek to fill it with Christian content.
By contrast, we emphasize the biblical teaching on education and establish 
both our structure and our content on it, and then apply external pedagogical theory where it is appropriate and conducive to the biblical message. We think this is the most responsible approach.
Gary: Yes, Steve has it right. But there is more. We also believe that education must have a goal in mind; a “telos” or something we educate towards.
AN: So it was pretty intense undertaking, essentially a philosophy, or theology of education?
Gary: Yes, and this is where our roles really came into play in the book. The impetus and vision for the concepts laid out in the book came from me, while Steve filled in the remaining gaps especially in regard to pedagogical theory while, following my lead. The content and concepts in the book grew out of our Educational Ministry course at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
AN: Is it difficult to co-author a book?
Gary: Co-authorship certainly has its challenges. Steve and I have worked together before (Many Colored Kingdom) but that book consisted of a simple format wherein we each wrote 3 chapters with little interaction. This book was much different.
Steve’s role was more supportive. He gave depth to the work locating it within the larger academic discipline of pedagogy. The book required about a year to complete, with both of us using sabbaticals at different times to complete our respective parts. The differing sabbaticals provided their own challenges of communication.
Steve: Being in a supporting role has many challenges. The biggest is trying to get inside of, understand, follow, and explain Gary’s theory in light of the discipline of pedagogy. My job was to support and give aid where it was needed and to integrate Gary’s ideas into abstract theory. That really means I have to think Gary’s thoughts after him, and then apply them to my respective areas.
AN: What do you hope the book achieves?
Gary: There are two parts to this question. One has to do with my field and my colleagues, and the second addresses the church.
For my field, I really hope to raise the level of conversation in regards to education. I believe it is a critical component, and too often Christian educators accept what is given to us by secular theorists without really putting to the biblical test. I want to raise questions not only about content, but hope that people really use this book to focus on the structure of their pedagogical approaches.
I really believe that our pedagogical structure must be as Christian as our content. I believe this book is a sort of resistance movement that really challenges many of the assumptions and structures that are taken for granted today; I believe it is very important that we do so.
For the church, I truly hope that ministers of every sort will not see this book and think “it’s for education pastors, not for me”. Too often, in our culture, churches are fragmenting their ministries—especially educational ministries–to the point where the senior minister is merely a CEO, or motivational leader. In order to be faithful to Scripture, pastors need to be more directly involved in and/or, perhaps, take the lead in the education of their congregation.
I want this book to convict churches to reorient their priorities. Scripture, in both the Old Testament and New Testament places great emphasis on education and our churches are not following this example. So, again, the book resists the growing tendency for churches to de-emphasize education.
This book is written especially for lead ministers, and also for anyone involved in ecclesiastical education whether it is in the seminary, the Sunday school classroom, or the pulpit. It calls for a unified approach to education, not a fragmented programmatic approach.
AN: This is also true for parents, is it not?
Gary: Yes, we spend a lot of time speaking to the roles of parents in education and also point out the role of the church in working with parents.
AN: So, we need to make sure we have the right wine in the proper wine skins, so to speak?
Gary: Yes, definitely.
AN: I feel the your book, in providing both a biblical theology that we should teach and guidelines for how that pedagogy is to be carried out, makes great strides towards answering an important question.
Will you take a moment to explain what you believe is the theological connection between education and worship?
Gary: I would point you to chapter 11, especially page 338. There you will find a diagram that illustrates the 3 spheres that the church engages in; worship, formation, and outreach. These are legitimate features of the churches responsibility, and are well established by 1 Corinthians 11-14.
Unfortunately, the modern church emphasizes outreach and worship to the detriment of education. In fact, education is an afterthought in many churches. Most of the “seeker movement” has geared their churches around getting people “in” and not toward creating an environment where new Christians can be formed well.
We need to realize, as the books states, that each of these tasks (worship, formation, and outreach) “overlaps” and “impinges” on the other. But they do not do so equally. Despite the seeming equality in the book diagram, we
need to keep in mind that the overlap between formation (education) and worship is larger than the overlap between outreach and worship.
While worship is primary in the church service, those elements which are to make up the service, as they are explained in 1 Corinthians 11-14, also point towards the ongoing education of the church during that service.
Although secondary to worship, we believe that formation is still a critical concern. If our services are so ordered—with primary emphasis on worship and secondary emphasis on education—we will by necessity also address the evangelistic concern. Thus, our worship services should form our believers through worship itself, and through the educational elements that naturally go with it. When this happens we will be giving the Gospel to our congregation as well as believers while also teaching them.
Steve: Part of the problem is the hyper-specialization that has come into our churches. Pastors are often detached from the personal encounters that are required for spiritual formation (education). What needs to occur is the establishment of a more integrated approach instead of the radical fragmentation that dominates our churches and often passes for “community”. We often point to our programs when what we really need to be doing is trying to understand the task of education holistically.
We focus on worship as entertainment and often see our pastors as images, rather than as personal discipleship partners who are helping us grow relationally. We go one fragmenting putting children here, or youth pastors there, and then we hope and expect that one day after having been separated from each other so long, our church families will put all the communal pieces together. Why do we not practice our worship together, instead of in programmatic fragmentation? It just makes no sense. The same is true for education, at all levels.
AN: Rather than Augustine’s triad in the Enchiridion of faith, hope, and love, you opt, in chapter 4, for a different pedagogical paradigm by expressing a mixed version of the triad found in John 14.6, “the truth, the way, and the life”.
Why do you prefer this language?
Gary: We do recognize the value of Augustine’s approach, there is much to commend it. But we have chosen this language over Augustine because we believe his language is better used as a goal (telos), rather than to determine content. To quote our book, “we teach unto faith, unto hope, and unto love” (118). In specifying content, we prefer Jesus’ words in John 14 because they relate to knowing Jesus himself. If we know “the way, the truth, and the life” then we know Christ.
We believe that teaching “the truth” means teaching people about God himself, how he has revealed himself and what we are to believe in light of such revelation. We believe that teaching “the life” means teaching our students what it means to have a “vital and eternal” relationship with God through Jesus. Finally “the way”, something found in both testaments means instructing our congregation in the manner of living that God requires and desires for us to live.
I believe teaching our people these three elements we will be teaching in accord with the pedagogical approach of Scripture, and pointing them (telos) to “faith, hope, and love”.
AN: In chapter 5 (Core Curriculum) you use the example of a teacher attempting to teach her students the Sermon on the Mount and the 10 Commandments. You note that among other problems, her curriculum only addresses an “obvious instance” of stealing while leaving out other more subtle forms.
How do stories, or narratives, help us wrestle with the “implications” of ethics (or any teaching for that matter) in the way propositional teaching does not?
Gary: I think they are subversive. All stories are subversive in some way, and especially the way Jesus told them. They undermine our assumptions about reality and force us to see events from different angles that our outside of ourselves. When you read a story, if it is a good story, you will find yourself inside of it relating to its characters. They do this by surprising us and appealing to our emotions.
When this happens the story-teller will inevitably speak to the heart and help us gain an experiential understanding of whatever lesson is in the story. It has the potential to speak to the whole person, and that 
at the end of the day is the goal of Christian education and worship, the formation of the entire person.
Steve: One of the biggest elements that secular pedagogy clings to is the necessity of identity formation of the individual. I believe this is overrated. Our identity is not something that we are to find and then act on; it is something that we are being molded into. We are to find our story within the context of God communicating his own story. We don’t find ourselves and then jump into God’s story.
We become a part of God’s story and then we find our identity within it. That is what it means to be transformed. The use of stories therefore makes total sense, for it affirms who we are, but it also makes understand God’s story in his relation to us, and to others. It points us to being formed into the image of Christ.
AN: How does your curriculum framework address our cultural tendencies towards learning? What does it point towards, and what does it call us back to?
Gary: Well, to begin the book is not giving an outline or a concrete “instruction guide” for teaching in the church. What it is doing is calling us to recognize that education is critical and how the assumptions we make in our 
pedagogical structure affect the content of what we teach. We are not saying teach “a, b, c”, but we want people to realize that education in the church is a serious issue that needs to be addressed in a more responsible fashion. It’s an appeal for a life-long commitment to the formation of believer’s.
AN: In chapter 6 (Teachers Among Us), you spend a great deal of time outlining just how crucial the educational ministry of the church is, and note at length how the modern church is struggling to meet this need.
It is clear that our culture—even our Christian sub-culture—has abandoned a faith shaped by instruction and contemplation and that as a result the church, on a large scale, is failing to “teach” and “form”.
How does your approach solve this problem?
Steve: Well, I think the approach Gary and I take makes room for it; it makes it possible because it calls for an intensely relational ministry rooted in worship and instruction in the Bible and in overall formation.
We want to challenge the programmatic trend in our churches, which as we noted before, emphasizes specialization, segmentation, and in the end fragmentation. The structures we are working with are wreaking havoc on the
communal nature of the church. What good is it to bring everyone together in community only to pull them apart for the “community worship service”?
We have set up pragmatism as an ideal, and we should be reducing programs and specializations in churches and taking more of a holistic approach to our services that keep the body unified throughout the service. Do we really believe that sending children and youth out of the Sunday morning service for convenience sake is ok?
We do not realize that even though some of those in the service may not be benefiting from it now, overtime they will come to benefit from it as they learn to participate and grow within the community worship service. Their presence, whether immediately recognized as such or not, is formative. Otherwise, we push them out of the service and just hope that someday they will figure out how to be a member of the whole community.
AN: Wow.
AN: Do you believe the programmatic form of the majority of modern churches helps or amplifies this problem?
Steve: Without question, it amplifies the problem.
AN: Gary, in the book you state, “The Notion of a pastor who is not fundamentally concerned with teaching would be unthinkable to many generations of pastors that have gone before us” (158). You name, Luther, Calvin, Owen, Baxter as examples of great teacher-pastors.
Do pastors have an obligation to make church education, or perhaps better said, catechism an obvious priority?
Gary: (emphatically) Yes!
Steve: Agreed.
To read part two of the interview click here.
Tags: Forming the Faithful, Gary A. Parrett, S. Steve Kang, Teaching the Faith
a world of difference. Tim Morey’s has made such an observation. He states, “in many ways it is more helpful to talk about postmodernism as a cultural phenomenon with certain characteristics than it is to talk about it as a philosophy” (31).
are very serious about their children’s education. Yet, it seems that biblical, theological and moral understandings are astonishingly similar—or worse—than those who profess no Christian faith.
in with good content in order that we can go out and engage our culture with relevancy.Our philosophical commitment is to emphasizing things in the proper order. Before we can send our students and parishioners out to engage their world we must form them properly and with sound structure and content. This reflects not only God’s pedagogy in the revelation of Christ, but how Christ formed his disciples.
Evangelical culture in recent years has tended towards the devaluation of education, and increasingly emphasizing only experience (entertainment) driven ministries, and outreach.
