Ripe for Harvest

388 • R IPE FOR H ARVEST

3. Class Sessions *: The seminar classes serve three primary purposes: first, to introduce new content and allow learners to interact with a professor or mentor who can help clarify that content. Second, to allow learners to raise questions and dialogue about the implications and applications of the content in their ministry situation. (Professors or mentors should consider the peer learning that takes place through dialogue among the learning group to be a key part of the educational process.) Third, to monitor the learner’s progress and evaluate their understanding of the material. 1. Make Contact: Captures students’ attention, focuses it on the lesson content, and/or helps the student discover why the topic is important for their life. 2. Communicate Content: Help students discover what the Bible says and means in light of reason, tradition, and experience (interpretation), and how that truth relates to God’s overall plan (doctrine). 3. Establish Connection: Helps students form new associations between truth and their lives (implications) and commit to specific changes in their beliefs, attitudes, or actions. C. How do we organize our lessons for effective Christian education?

* Although weekly seminar classes are the norm, student needs may require more flexible scheduling (either a more compact or a more extended meeting schedule). The key is that there are regular classes held to present and discuss the materials for each lesson.

VI. A Model for Effective Biblical Communication: Contact, Content, and Connection

This framework is effective for any forms of biblical communication, including preaching, teaching, counseling, dialogue, discussion, and formal argumentation. Rather than being perceived as steps, they represent phases of the learning experience, from making contact based on shared experience and felt need, to the actual communication of biblical truth, to our shared reflection of that meaning of that truth on particular areas in our life together.

Context Values/Vision

A. Contact: make specific association and point of contact with the life experience and present concerns of your listeners.

Prepare Launch Assemble Nurture Transition Schedule/Charter

1. Begin with the questions and life concerns of your listeners.