# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1953_S202
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

202 PARISH EDUCATION

with specific objectives for the various subject-matter fields,
course content and resource units outlined for the various
school subjects. All of these materials will be in harmony withg
Lutheran philosophy of education. This should be a definite
forward in effective Christian education in our secondary schg

G. Adult Education

The Church must help people answer two questions, nam
(1) “What must we do to be saved?” and (2) “What must w
now that we are saved?” Christian adult education is boun
with the answers to both of these questions. Education preceg
accompanies, and follows the conversion of every adult rec
into the Church. So also education is the forerunner of, and?
companion to, all Christian action.

A Church in which most of the people are spectators is doom
The Church exists not to exploit its adults, but to enrich: th
spiritually, to further indoctrinate them, and to further equi
to fulfill their mission for Christ. It must give them such to
(1) skill in the personal use of the Bible, (2) good habits of pra
(3) ability to witness to the Christian faith, (4) readiness to te
their own children and participate in the teaching task o
Church, (5) understanding of, and participation in, the world n
sion of the Church, including witness in one’s vocation and ci
ship, and (6) skills for becoming a spiritual force against
rialism and the carnal life.

This requires more than mere churchgoing or a “pocketbe
type of Christianity. Adult learning and doing is exactl
God expects of the Church in His educational directives in
sians and Colossians. Every parish and every Christian minisig
should accept as their sacred obligation the preparation of: ¢
parishioner for his God-given mission. This demands adul
-ucation.

Adult education is a promising field. It helps the -Ch
make fuller use of its investment in the education of children, s!
it builds on foundations laid in childhood. It deals with me
women who as adults are the teachers and examples to their
_dren. All the committees and boards of the Church are comp¢
of adults who carry out the whole program of the parish. ’Si
1900 twenty years have been added to the life span of the ave
man in America. God asks, What will My Church do with:
extra twenty years? The growing number of older adults ;
new challenge to the Church. But a still larger challenge ar
people in their twenties and thirties. Our young adults as
are the most educated group the Church has ever had. The