The Church as a school; a textbook and guidebook to be used in connection with a church school standard or program of work in making a first-hand study of church school administration, dealing particularly with the Sunday church school.

Front matter

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Contents

CHAPTER

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XII

Chapter I How To Study Church School Leadership

How Is Leapersuip SKILL ACQUIRED ?—

You are interested in becoming a skillful and effective leader in the educational program of your church. Perhaps you already carry heavy responsibilities in your church school. You expect the study of this text and accompanying class work or written assignments to give you understanding and skill, particularly with regard to the administrative phases of your work. In order to avoid later disillusionment, let us face squarely at the outset this question, “Just how may one acquire understanding and skill in church school work?” The answer to this question will necessarily prescribe the method which we must follow in this course.

Church school leadership cannot be learned from textbooks. Neither can it be learned from lectures, be they ever so carefully prepared and skillfully delivered. The give and take of vital class discussion under a stimulating and intelligent leader is a valuable supplement to textbook study, but even the keen- _ est discussion is no guarantee of resulting skill in leadership. In fact we learn leadership in just the Same manner as we learn any other process which requires insight and skill. We learn it only by engaging, under guidance, in the actual process itself. The only method which assures us of the desired result is the method of guided practice.

It is unprofitable, therefore, to deal with church school administration or any other phase of Christian leadership in a merely theoretical manner. Until this course begins to deal with the actual situation in which you are working, or can find opportunity to work, it must fall short of its proper objective. The real problems which you are facing from week to week, the difficult adjustments which must be made, the necessary changes in method or organization or leadership: these are the proper “content” of this course. It is essential, therefore, that you have your own church school situation very definitely in mind throughout the course. In fact, it is your own church school primarily, rather than this textbook that you are, or ought to be, studying. It is necessary, then, that we discover a method for conducting this course which will make your own leadership situation, rather than the textbook, the actual object. of your study.

Of course mere practice in leadership is not enough. Many church school workers have back of them years of “practical experience” and yet their work from week to week grows actually less skillful and effective. Practice is worse than useless unless it tends in the right direction. Only practice which is under intelligent guidance promises fruitful insight and skill. While your own church school will furnish the situation in which you may acquire skill through practice, it is the function of this course to introduce into that practice such guidance as will insure that the practice tends in the right direction. The method of the course will be one, therefore, of guided practice in church school administration. Your own leadership activities will furnish the practice, but this will take on educational significance as it is modified, extended, or perhaps entirely reconstructed in the light of the clearer insight derived from textbook and class study. Unless you are willing to face the disturbing and even humiliating results of such a critical study of your own leadership practice, there is little profit in your further pursuit of the course.

The introduction of educational guidance into your practice of leadership by means of this course will necessarily affect the leadership activities of many of your co-laborers. Your own leadership activities cannot undergo changes without affecting your whole church school situation. Since this total situation is determined by a number of leaders, officers and teachers, it is highly important that the practice of the whole staff come under such guidance as is provided by these leadership training courses. In other words, this course contemplates not only the introduction of guidance into the practice of the administrative officer, but a general reconstruction of the church school in so far as that may be required to secure the full fruitage of Christian education. You must contemplate at the outset, therefore, enlisting the co-operation and study of many others before the proper results of your own study are realized.

This course requires a means of shifting the study from a mere textbook to the actual church school in which the student is working or expects to work. It calls for a method of studying that entire church school in all its phases of work. It demands a means or an instrument by which reliable guidance may be introduced into the processes of leadership which are actually under way there. It should give some inspiring vision of the ideal church school toward which this guided practice tends, and of the spiritual fruitage of this whole Christian educational process.

These requirements are best met by organizing the course around the use of a church school standard or program of work. The International Standard in its various adaptations to departments and types of school is in wide use, and, unless there is reason for using some other, this standard, or one of the simplified. adaptations of it, is recommended as the instrument to be used as the basis for the activities suggested in the following pages.

Some of the denominations have their own standards or programs of work. These may be adaptations of the International Council Standard. Such adaptations have been made in the interests of greater simplicity or of meeting the particular needs of various types of schools. Generally speaking, the point of view of the International Council Standard prevails in them. Therefore, the general method of the course will be the same whichever of the various instruments is used.

Such a church school standard is not a mere arbitrary set of requirements or specifications. It is an instrument developed out of experimentation for the purpose of giving reliable and scientific guidance to church school practice. It embodies in a condensed and convenient form the best current consensus of opinion as to what constitutes effective church school work. It is an attempt at a scientific approach to church school administration.

Way Is a Screntiric INSTRUMENT NEEDED?—

The startling achievements of modern science enrich our lives and lighten our loads until none of us can afford to scoff at scientific precision or to be ignorant of the scientific method. These achievements are chiefly the result, not of brilliant flights of imagination but of orderly, tireless research into the relationship between cause and effect in every aspect of the universe. The gathering and interpretation of data enable the scientist to predict the outcome of given conditions and factors. Knowing this possible outcome he is able to change it by changing or manipulating the conditions determining it. In so far as conditions are subject to control, his ability to predict their outcome, enables the scientist to control that outcome. Therefore, the scientific method has become a powerful means of control in all phases of life to which it has been applied. Measurement both of processes and of results becomes necessarily its basic procedure.

But is the scientific Gaethed with its precise instruments of measurement, its reliable prediction of outcomes, and its ability to control those outcomes by controlling their causes, as valid in the realm of mind and spirit as in the realm of matter? Certainly if it is, the load of responsibility for bringing in the Kingdom of God which rests upon the modern church school program makes it imperative that we use this method. In fact, it is a question whether church school processes which are bungling and unscientific should be permitted to persist in a day when the scientific method prevails so generally elsewhere,—that is, provided religious education can be made scientific.

The scientific method in the degree that it prevails, is able to guarantee results. In the physical realm where conditions and factors can be carefully controlled these results may be predicted and actually produced with great precision. Every day we enjoy speed with security and comfort because science has been able so accurately to produce controlled power by intricate mechanisms brought into the most precise relationships with explosive gases and electricity. We cross a great suspension bridge without a tremor, not because it looks safe, but because we know the engineer has calculated to a nicety the amount of strain which each piece in it will and must bear. So commonplace have these guarantees of the scientific method become, that we marvel only when some unforeseen or neglected factor causes an unexpected result. We do not show any amazement that hundreds of dams hold back year after year the leaden weight of pent up rivers. We are amazed when one such dam in California gives way and devastates a verdant valley. In the physical realm where accurate measurement is possible and conditions may be brought under control, science guarantees results.

When we begin dealing with living things the process is more complicated and the results less certain. A tree or a flower will respond to changed conditions of sunlight, warmth, fertility, and moisture, but its response will be less easily measured, and less precisely predictable than is the case with a simple chemical or mechanical reaction. It is likely that the relationship between cause and effect in the one case is as close and as definite as in the other. But where the factors and results are less easily measured, the scientist is necessarily more reserved in his guarantee of outcomes. In a general way, however, the scientific horticulturist or stock-breeder is able to guarantee results in any considerable number of cases with much the same assurance as the chemist or engineer. This has led to the thoroughgoing application of the scientific method in agriculture, stock-raising, and other industries dealing with living things.

When it comes to such a complex matter as seeking to control and direct mental development and bring about desirable changes in personalities, obviously the application of the scientific method is still more involved and complicated. Conditions and factors are less easily controlled and measurement is far more difficult.

The engineer or chemist can measure the forces and factors with which he deals and can control most of them. He will even adjust the controllable factors to those beyond his control'so as to get the desired result with certainty and precision. The horticulturist or stock-breeder can determine most of the conditions under which the processes of development in which he is interested will take place. He will thereby be fairly certain of his results. But the school-teacher must work with only a limited segment of the life which he seeks to modify and determine. In the home and in the community at large will be decisive factors beyond his control and beyond any but very limited knowledge on his part.

In spite of these difficulties, public education is busily engaged in developing and applying the scientific method in its work. Instruments of measurement are emerging from painstaking experimentation. Curriculum, method, and the whole pattern of the school are undergoing reconstruction in order to guarantee a more satisfactory result. Educators agree that many of the desired results of education, perhaps the most important ones, so far elude measurement. They agree also that many of the factors and conditions governing these results lie beyond their complete control. This does not deter them from seeking to make their work increasingly scientific. They are lured on in tireless research and experimentation by the confident hope that instruments of measurement may yet become so refined, and the errant factors so subject to control that education may become a far more scientific process, able at least to promise results far beyond those yet attained.

Obviously if the scientific method guarantees results, and the objective of the modern program of religious education is to rear such a generation as will usher in the Kingdom of God, the resources of the scientific method in religious education are worth investigating. Furthermore, in a world in which the scientific method increasingly prevails in every other aspect of life, can religious education continue to exist at all unless it can likewise become scientific in its method and approach?

The first question is, Can the processes and results of religious education be measured? Obviously we are dealing here with factors and processes which are more elusive and intangible than even those with which the public educator is concerned. Can a prayer experience be measured or scaled? Can an attitude of reverence be reduced to a percentage basis? Can a unit of Christian service be graded, even though it be defined as an educational project? How would one measure a stewardship attitude, or one of co-operation or racial good-will? How can Christian vocational ideals or those of honesty, fair play, and tolerance be reduced to mathematical terms? It is easy to point out difficulties which make it apparent that here is one realm into which the scientific attitude and spirit will penetrate only to fail or even to make themselves ridiculous.

On the other hand, one need not even be a trained observer readily to detect the difference between a prayer of genuine communion with the Unseen and a prayer which is mere verbiage and cant. Even a child may discriminate between such extremes. Any one can distinguish between a group at reverent worship and one noisily going through “jazzy opening exercises.” ‘The casual visitor can single out the well taught from the poorly taught classes in a department by observing the faces of the children. It is clear that any one engaged in church school work is constantly making such evaluations of processes and results. Some sort of measurement is as widespread and as indispensable here as in any other type of activity.

The proposal to introduce more accurate and scientific means of measurement and evaluation into our work involves no radical innovation. It means simply to substitute for the guess work and crude unreasoned opinions by which we already estimate and seek to improve our practice, an accurate and well tested instrument of measurement and improvement.

Let us not assume too much, however, at this point. The actual results which we are after in church school work still largely elude accurate measurement. Many of the processes involved are far too complex to be brought as yet under any fair degree of control. We can test a student for Bible knowledge but this will not reveal the degree to which biblical ideals have actually entered his life and conduct. We can test the ethical response of a pupil to a hypothetical situation, but this will carry no guarantee that he will make the same response in a similar situation in real life. The pupil who assumes the most pious role in the young people’s meeting may be the most unsocial and ill dispositioned in the group.

By and large, however, there are certain factors of knowledge, of achievement, and of activity which bear a fairly constant relationship to the “real” spiritual process and result which we are after. If we cannot measure or evaluate these more elusive spiritual qualities themselves, we can with fair accuracy detect certain concomitant or accompanying factors which will serve as a fairly accurate guide. In the meantime we will be continually engaged in the adventure of seeking to improve the means which we use to make our procedure still more accurate and scientific. It is highly important that we avail ourselves at once of the best means which experimentation has so far given us. Hence the need for the serious and constant use of such an instrument as the church school standard or denominational program of work.

WHat ARE THE FUNCTIONS OF A STANDARD?—

Whatever may be the limitations of equipment, training, and administrative conditions under which a church school leader works, it is of primary importance that he have the inspiration and guidance which comes from a vision of the ideal or goal toward which he should be striving. The first function of a standard is to define such an ideal or goal with the processes by which it may be achieved.

A second function is that of measurement. For this reason the usual standard is in the form of a score card. It is the purpose of this score card to enable the student to estimate the quality of the processes now under way in the school being studied. This is provided by a brief description of the ideal— a process or situation in which, other things being equal, the absolute maximum of learning is under way. Suppose the item under consideration be the worship of a Primary Department. The standard would describe a situation in which the worship process is under way so successfully that it could not in any way be improved. This process would be yielding the maximum of results in the lives of the participants. They would be learning fully to enter into the worship experience so as to make it an enriching and controlling factor in the whole life. A worship program or process, so described, becomes a measuring rod upon the basis of which the worship of a given Primary Department may be evaluated.

For convenience in using the score card, its various items are “weighted.” The whole score card is given arbitrarily a total numerical value, such as one thousand points, three hundred points, etc. Whatever this total numerical value, it is divided up among the various items in a manner proportionate to their respective importance in the whole process of religious education. Thus the total numerical value of the International Standard A is 1,000 points. Of these, 325 points are assigned to the general topic ‘“curriculum.” Under this topic the item on “worship” in turn is valued at 70 points, “Service” at 65 points, etc. This numerical device makes it possible to “score” a given church school on each item and arrive at a numerical estimate of the quality of the school as a religious educational institution.

It is not assumed that any school in existence will measure up to the maximum score. There are some items on which some schools will rate as perfect. Perhaps a more exacting measuring instrument would detect imperfections even in these cases. There are probably other items on which no school in existence should be rated as measuring up to the ideal. It is not the function of the score card to describe the average school, or any particular school in existence, but rather to set goals toward which all schools may strive. The moment these goals are attained the standard has exhausted its usefulness.

This brings us to the third function of a standard. It is a guide to improvement. “Measurement, will reveal the most serious weaknesses of the school. Attack should be made immediately upon these “low places.” <A definite program of improvement in the direction of the goals defined in the standard should be planned. As these processes of improvement get under way, the score card will still serve for periodic measurement, indicating the progress being made. Thus the use of a standard is a continuous process of measurement and improvement.

Wuat Dancers ARE INVOLVED IN A STANDARD ?—

An instrument such as a church school standard, no matter how scientific and valuable it may be, is of little use in the hands of a person who lacks the sincere attitude and honest desire to know the facts, however damaging they may seem to be. This text, and the standard which should accompany it, will fall into the hands of at least five types of people. Perhaps all five types will be represented in the training class of which you are a member. It will be profitable to classify yourself at once with one of these types. If you do it now, sincerely and frankly, it may save you much later study and inconvenience.

The first group is composed of those who are always looking for compliments. They turn away from the mirror with a sigh of satisfaction and self-complacency, even though a good deal of “primping” has been required to induce this state of mind. They will take up the score card eagerly to find that there is really very little wrong with what they are doing. They are glad to be reassured that little improvement is needed, if indeed possible. They may call in a specialist to check over the school and make recommendations for improvement. What they really want of him is the assurance that they already have about the best school in the state. They will try to get a compliment rather than a criticism out of the church school standard. Those who belong to this group are indeed beyond the possibility of improvement by such a course as this, but it is no compliment to them that such is the case.

The second group is at the opposite extreme. With a well-cultivated “inferiority complex,” they glory in their inefficiency and failure as proof-that_ they are laboring under hopeless handicaps. At any suggestion for improvement they throw up their hands in despair, saying, “That’s all right for other schools but we have peculiar problems here. That won’t work with us. Our school is too small. We have no leaders. We have no equipment. We can’t afford added expense. We tried that once, etc.” If you belong to this group you will look the standard over, hastily heave a sigh of resignation, and lay it aside as not for you.

Then there is the supercritical group whose sole purpose in studying anything new is to show how faulty and impractical it is.. They may be ‘ ‘experts”’ who always seek to find wherein their own theories are violated. They may be “practical people’ who suspect everything new or scientific of being mere “swivel-chair” conceit. They will get a “real kick” out of a church school standard but it will be directed against the standard not against their own inefficiency or mal-practice.

We might call the fourth group the Athenians, for their whole concern seems to be “either to tell or to hear some new thing.” As soon as they discover the standard it will be the occasion with them to throw all the past overboard and immediately to overhaul their work so as to measure up to the standard fully in about six months. There is no need to get excited, however, for within six months they will have forgotten all about the standard in their eager chase after some newer fad.

The largest group of all, we trust, will be those who accept | the standard as their practical working basis for improvemiél T >~Conscious ‘ot their partial failure but confident of potential success they will welcome this accurate means both of measuring their work and guiding them to increased efficiency. It will help them as they apply it, thoroughly and relentlessly. Combining the courage of self-criticism with the poise of self-confidence they will settle down to steady, consistent effort over a period of years. They are the ones for whom real improvement is possible through practice under such guidance as this course affords.

How ORGANIZE FOR WorRK?—

If this study is being made by a group of workers ‘and prospective leaders all of one church school, they should organize by committees for their work. The main topics of the standard should each be assigned to a committee and the process of measurement should be gotten under way. It will be best for the committees to make careful preliminary estimates of the score which the school merits on each item. By further inquiry, observation, and investigation, this estimate should be verified or corrected. When the scoring is complete the proposed improvements both for the immediate and the more distant future should -be indicated and drawn up in the form of recommendations to the educational committee or other governing body. In cases where this course is used in

“intensive” or one week leadership schools the process can be little more than launched. Where convenient the class organization should be continued some weeks or months beyond the school to make possible accurate and carefully drawn recommendations. Such “practice work” is highly desirable as a part of any leadership course, particularly of the intensive type.

Where several church schools are represented in a class, those from each school should be organized to study their own school. Every worker should be studying his own real situation, not a theoretical one.

The work of all committees should be brought before the entire group for review, criticism, and further recommendation. In cases where the co-operation of an educational commiteee, a workers’ council, or any other official body must be secured in order to make the recommendations effective, this may well be also an integral part of the course. In other words, this course ought to remain incomplete until the actual process of improvement in the church school being studied is well under way. Whatever temporary or permanent organization of the study group is demanded by the task of improvement should be set up.

The International Standards in Religious Education, prepared by the International Council of Religious Education and adopted by many of its constituent bodies. The full set of standards and scoring manuals should be available. These include department standards and those for vacation and week day church schools.

Denominational standards and programs of work to be secured from denominational headquarters or publishing houses.

THE CHURCH AS A SCHOOL 3l

Athearn, Walter S.: Indiana Survey, Volume II, Doran, 1924, Parts I and V.

Bower, William Clayton: A Survey of Religious Education in the Local Church, University of Chicago Press, 1919, chap. i, il, ili and iv.

Watson, Goodwin B.: Experimentation and Measurement in Religious Education, Association Press, 1927, chap. 1.

See also the tables of contents and indices of books listed on pages 269, 270.

1. Be sure that the committees for_using the standard have been organized and are ready with a first report. This should include a statement of aim and an evaluation of courses of study and class room method in use.

2. Request each student to evaluate the ten statements of aim at the beginning of chapter I and be prepared to defend his evaluation.

3. Ask one student to present a paper or talk on “The Relationship Between Christian Evangelism and Education.”

4, Ask each student to make a list in the order of their importance of the elements which should enter into the complete curriculum of religious education. These lists should be compared in class, discussed, and used as a basis for a list made out by the class as a whole.

Chapter II Learning To Live The Chris- Tian Life

Let us face the question as to just what this process which goes on in the church school really is. What is its most essential outcome? Ponder the following definitions and then mark the one which you consider, as a general definition, the most satisfactory, number 1. Mark your second choice, 2, etc.; the poorest being numbered 10. Formulate one which is better than any of these if you can.

Preparation for church membership.

Christian service.

Developing Christian character.

Learning to know God’s will.

The experience of churchmanship.

Learning to live the Christian life.

Preparation for eternal life.

Achievement of Christian personality.

Bible study.

Self-commitment to Christ and His Way.

Now consult the standard which you are using in connection with this text to find how the aim of religious education is there defined. Review the activities which are carried on in your own church school.

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Judging, not by what your church school leaders say is their aim, but rather by what they actually do, which of the above aims is most in control of your church school program?

The process of Christian religious education is so complex that any brief definition of its aims must necessarily require much analysis before it is sufficiently definite to act .as a guide. Of the above ten statements, “learning to live the Christian life,” will probably be considered most satisfactory by the majority of religious educators chiefly because it includes all the others. Certainly this comprehensive objective should be the starting-point from which we define more specifically just what complete Christian living includes, and what phases should be emphasized at each stage of the process.

With the understanding that the definition must be much more explicit for each age-group and each phase of the program, we may safely accept this broad statement as indicative of the general viewpoint and method which should prevail throughout the church school. If Christian religious education is learning to live the Christian life, it is at once apparent that it includes the entire Christian constituency, young and old, all church members, either actual or potential. Every one who is either a Christian disciple or a candidate for such discipleship, teachers and students alike, are learners in this process, the only difference being the greater wealth of the teachers’ experience. “Graduation” from this process would be spiritually _ fatal. Achievement in it, rather than marking the approach to its completion, seems always to open up still greater unachieved possibilities. -The whole church, therefore, is concerned with, and engaged in religious education. The church itself, minister, officers, teachers, members, and even those who have not yet been recognized as “church members,”—this whole constituency is nothing more or less than a learning-teaching enterprise in Christian living.

Even in the case of Jesus himself, his matchless life and Godlike character seem to have been more an achievement than an endowment. The description of his growth in Luke 2:52 and his experience of temptation both indicate that he likewise was a learner of noble living through engaging in the process under much the same disciplines as operate effectively in our lives. He depended upon the learning-teaching process in effecting his purposes in the lives of his disciples as well.