A Study on Ecclesiological Meanings for Establishing Children-Youth Church

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to investigate some ecclesiological meanings for establishing children-youth church in terms of biblical and theological perspectives. In fact, since 1780 in England, Sunday school has been changed the name from Sunday school into church school and Sunday church school in terms of changing educational environments. In details, recently Sunday school is significantly changing from “schooling paradigm” into “ecclesia paradigm” on the basis of theory of teaching ministry. Thus, that is why this article looks for some ecclesiological meanings for establishing “children-youth church.” First of all, this paper tries to show biblical meanings of children-youth church followings, that is, “God’s people,” “body of Christ,” “koinonia of faith, hope and love,” and “creature of Holy Spirit.” Second, children-youth church have to establish orthodoxically theological architecture on the basis of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed(381), which is called by “church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.” Third, in order to overcome current problems facing Korean churches, children-youth church in Korea also needs to be considered theological directions in future, that is, ‘liberating church’ by theologies of liberation, ‘ecumenical church’ by ecumenical dialogue among churches including infer-faith dialogue, ‘spiritual church’ by theology of spirituality, and ‘sacramental church’ by restoring sacramental worship at church as well as sacramental life in daily life.