Protestant and Christian Education for Children: Focused on Children Worship and Studying Textbook in Methodist Church

ABSTRACT

The fabric of the protestant christian education needs to undergo a transformation by the church. Recent survey of public opinion on protestant christian education in church reflects the general sentiment of teachers about crisis of decrease in church education. This study, on survey of protestant christian education in church, suggests that christian education for children should be critically examined in three areas in the present context of Christian education. The first is the change from the battleground of substantialistic of understanding of worship for children and studying bible to the potential consensus of a theological view. Especially From the perspective theology of children, Children should be taken part and make a contribution to the holistic worship. The second is the movement from a split between religious identity and social identity to a growing unity of secular life and worship as modes through which persons experience and extend God’s grace and righteousness in all life. In other words, the symbolic meaning of worship, rites and ceremony should be reinterpreted from a unitarian perspective, which accept both the inside and outside of the church as a place for God’s action, instead of proposing the dualistic concept of the world. The third is rediscovering the power of the play from the perspective of religious education. The participation in the play leads children to redefine Children identity and provide a great opportunity to relate them to the profound resources of the Christian faith at each of the states of children development and to the major culture of our time.