Jesus made claims about redemptive community throughout his ministry when he called people to extravagant grace. Even in the midst of the oppression of his day, Jesus preached and taught that redemptive community was possible if his followers would simply stop hoarding, hiding, and excluding. What a prophetic word for today in the midst of modern day oppression and fears of scarcity! In this edited volume, in honor of religious education scholars Jack Seymour and Margaret Ann Crain, eight of their PhD advisees--each scholars in their own right--join Seymour and Crain to lay out their vision of redemptive community. Rooted in their own scholarship, each contributor proposes ways in which Jesus' vision of redemptive community can become reality in churches and congregations, and in our larger world. In addition to essays by Jack Seymour and Margaret Ann Crain, scholars contributing to this volume include Dori Grinenko Baker, Reginald Blount, Evelyn L. Parker, Mai-Anh Le Tran, Leah Gunning Francis, Carmichael Crutchfield, Debora B.A. Junker, and Denise Janssen. The foreword by Mary Elizabeth Moore and afterword by Seymour and Crain set the volume in the larger context of the church and academy.

Jesus made claims about redemptive community throughout his ministry when he called people to extravagant grace. Even in the midst of the oppression of his day, Jesus preached and taught that redemptive community was possible if his followers would simply stop hoarding, hiding, and excluding. What a prophetic word for today in the midst of modern day oppression and fears of scarcity! In this edited volume, in honor of religious education scholars Jack Seymour and Margaret Ann Crain, eight of their PhD advisees--each scholars in their own right--join Seymour and Crain to lay out their vision of redemptive community. Rooted in their own scholarship, each contributor proposes ways in which Jesus' vision of redemptive community can become reality in churches and congregations, and in our larger world. In addition to essays by Jack Seymour and Margaret Ann Crain, scholars contributing to this volume include Dori Grinenko Baker, Reginald Blount, Evelyn L. Parker, Mai-Anh Le Tran, Leah Gunning Francis, Carmichael Crutchfield, Debora B.A. Junker, and Denise Janssen. The foreword by Mary Elizabeth Moore and afterword by Seymour and Crain set the volume in the larger context of the church and academy.

"Towards a contextual transformational practical theology for leadership education in South Africa is a courageous effort by a prominent South African practical theologian to develop a framework for the theory and practice of leadership education in an African context. Taking the harsh realities of South Africa as point of departure, the author demonstrates how an indigenous South African practical theology can be developed through a critical interaction between `Western' and African ideas." (Prof. Jaco S. Dreyer, Professor of Practical Theology, University of South Africa)

Christian educators have begun to benefit from developmental psychology and to understand spiritual growth physically, intellectually, emotionally, socially, and morally. In this book, noted educators offer a clear Christian perspective on developmental theory.

Christian religious education provides the content, processes, and settings to empower the church’s mission in the world—a mission that includes health care, peace with justice, and disciple-making ministries. Today, the field Christian Education is clear about its tasks of helping form and nurture faith that is then embodied in faithful practices. Research studies on Christian faith practices show how participating in Christian community undergirds and complements thoughtful living through one’s life. With an emphasis on practices and mission, this book offers readers concrete ways to empower vital faith formation in congregations as it describes current trends, which include richer diversity, entrepreneurial spirit, and interfaith dialog. This book will also help prepare students for leadership in the Church universal and in the field of Christian Education.

How might a church infused with missional theology change the way it approaches Christian practices? Interacting both with the missional theology of George Hunsberger and Darrell Guder and with the theology of Christian practices laid out by Craig Dykstra and Dorothy Bass, Benjamin T. Conner argues that allowing these two disciplines to inform one another can enhance the nature of the church s witness, its congregational discipleship, and its theological education. Framing his work with real-world narratives and applications inspired by his work as a minister to adolescents with special needs, Conner shows how a practical missional mindset can redefine and reinvigorate the spirit and purpose of a congregation.

When the #BlackLivesMatter protest movement burst into dynamic action following the shooting death of young Michael Brown in the fall of 2014 in Ferguson, MO, a good number of clergy and lay leaders in greater St. Louis sprang to action and learned anew what it took to “put some feet to their prayers.” However, as improvisational efforts continued to rally and organize churches toward the enduring work of confronting the insidious violence of systemic social injustices in their own backyard, these religious leaders ran head-on into a familiar yet perplexing wall: the incapacity and unwillingness of their faith communities to respond. In many cases, the resistance was (and still is) fierce, eerily reminiscent of the stand-offs that divided religious communities and leadership in the 1960s Civil Rights era. If the Church’s teaching, learning, and practice of faith is purportedly transformative, then where was/is that faith when it was/is needed most? If good religious formation had been happening - or had it? - then why the enduring signs of indifference, paralysis, apathy, exasperation, resistance, symptoms of anesthetized moral consciousness and debilitated hope in the face of pervasive social-cultural violence? The answer may come in a searing indictment: that in an emerging cultural-religious era in which religious identity, expression, and experience are increasingly pluralistic, yet also politicized, polarizing, and racialized, Christian faith communities—even those of progressive theological persuasions—are still held under dominant cultural captivity, and fashioned by colonizing teaching strategies of “disimagination” – such that the stories (theologies) and rituals (practices) of the faith have effectively become obstacles that anesthetize moral agency and debilitate courageous action for hope and change. This book addresses the above practical concerns with three paradigmatic questions: 1. What does it mean to educate for faith in a world marked by violence? 2. How are Christian faith communities complicit in the teaching and learning of violence? 3. What renewed practices of faith and educational leadership yield potential for the unlearning and unmaking of violence? An organizing thesis drives the inquiry: Thinking and teaching for violence-resisting action as Christians requires an on-purpose setting of our hearts in a world that violates and harms with impunity. Against violent “disimagination”and its conscience-numbing instruments, Christian religious communities are being challenged to regenerate radical forms of prophetic, protested faith, the skills and instincts of which must be honed deliberately. This occurs through intentional and strategic forms of public consciousness raising for the sake of participation and action - an action that moves toward and is fueled by critical, insurrectional, resurrectional, hope.