Oct 24, 2019
Rev. Nicholas J. Kersten
Director of Education and History
Over the past several years in my work in Christian Education, I have become impressed with two core truths about our work as Seventh Day Baptists in this area. The first truth is that our people and congregations uniformly care deeply about producing mature believers in Jesus Christ. The second truth is that no two of our churches undertake this work the same way (nor should they!). These two truths create something of a challenge, however, for the person attempting to coordinate our efforts as a confederation of churches because there is (1) incredible passion for this work and (2) many of us are committed to the way we are doing it!
As we at the Christian Education Council have considered how we might encourage our local churches in this core work of the Christian life, we have therefore tried to take our cue from local churches. So many of our local churches have dedicated people who are working in discipleship, education, mentoring (either formally or informally), leadership development, and spiritual formation who are working alone, apart from the fellowship of others with similar callings and passions, that the situation cries out for a network of SDBs who can regularly connect and discuss these sorts of issues.
It is, no doubt, that reality which drove the Christian Education Interest Committee at Conference in 2017 to suggest the creation of an online forum which could be used to facilitate these conversations. As we explored options to create the forum, we were persuaded that rather than a forum, we might be better off creating a community of educators and disciplers using the online chat program Slack. We started an online community before Conference 2018 in response to the Interest Committee’s recommendation, but that community has not seen enrollment and engagement as we hoped—perhaps in part because it was not promoted successfully.
This month, I would like you to consider joining the community of folks having conversations about Christian Education among SDBs on Slack, so that we can all benefit from one another’s experience in these things! Are you a Sabbath School teacher or Bible study leader in an SDB church? Do you work in the children’s or youth ministry in your local SDB church? Are you trying to reach people with the Gospel? Do you care about spiritual formation and spiritual disciplines? Do you have a passion to minister to SDB young adults? If the answer is “yes” to one or more of these questions, please send me an email, and I will add you to one or more of the communities having these discussions on Slack!
If you think there is room for a conversation that we aren’t having yet, we can always add additional conversations, so please email me with your suggestion for the conversation you’d like to participate in! It is important for us to share our experiences with one another as Seventh Day Baptists, as what God is doing in one place may help what God wants to do in another place! The relationships we have with one another are exceedingly important, and the availability of this online conversation community is just another way for you to be equipped to serve our Lord!
Channels Currently Operational:
• Children’s Ministry
• Youth Ministry
• Young Adult Ministry
• Evangelism
• Sabbath School/Bible Study
• Spiritual Disciplines
To participate in the online Slack discussions among SDBs or to see a list of the channels that are currently available, please contact Nick Kersten by email: nkersten@seventhdaybaptist.org.
