Adult Christian Education: 12 Essentials for Effective Church Ministry to Adults and Their Families

This book will be a fresh and comprehensive resource of twelve essential for providing quality Christian education for adults in the church. It also grow out of a concern that pastor, staff, and lay leaders grasp the potential this age group has for continuing their spiritual developing and updating their understanding of God, the Bible, the church and its mission, and their role in the church family. This book will be used for training ministry students at the undergraduate and graduate levels. It will be a resource for students anticipate serving on the paid vocational church staff. In addition, it is designed to be used by church leaders to train volunteer teachers and workers to conduct Bible teaching and learning for this all ages of adults. Also, it provides guidelines for reaching and ministering to adults and their families. While it is written from the perspective of persons of the Baptist faith tradition, it will be useful for training ministers and lay volunteers teachers in other Evangelical traditions. The book will be used as a supplementary textbook and will be instructive. The content will provide guidelines for developing and conducting teaching and learning for this age group. Also, guideline will be provided for all aspects of ministry for this age group. This book is composed of 12 Essentials for doing quality Christian education for the adult age groups. It begins with a biblical and theological foundation, gives information about the context for ministry to all ages of adults and their families, and helps persons understand what these age group are like and how spiritual formation takes place. Guidelines are also given for helping vocational age group minister and volunteer leaders in gaining support from the pastor, other staff, and the congregation. A key chapter relates to quality teaching -- the often overlooked aspect of ministry in emerging churches today – much more that fellowship and “just hanging out.” Ideas are also given for creatively conducting activities to attract adults and their families. Guidelines are also given for providing state of the art facilities and equipment needed for a good learning environment. Also addressed are the all-important skills for securing, developing, motivating, and ministering to a group of caring leaders and teachers. To round out the skills needed for effective adult ministry, is that of developing a viable system for communicating to adults, volunteer workers, and the congregation. Finally, a chapter is provided on using wholesome motivation and servant leadership as a means of guiding and inspiring teachers and leaders and parents. As mentioned above the target audiences will be ministry students in universities and seminaries, pastors and staff leaders in local congregations, and persons who lead small groups in Sunday School Bible teaching will be in the focus of writers.