EC Students Benefit From Local Pastors’ Guidance

Recently, the Eastern Christian High School Biblical Theology 3 class met with a group of local pastors to help guide them in their projects. The idea was birthed out of a desire to see more “life on life” discipleship happening between churches and our school.  The project was designed around 5 key Bible passages from Paul’s letters that encapsulate big theological themes.  Learning to do exegesis is one of the goals for our Bible program but it can be a difficult skill to learn, especially since online resources can be inconsistent and not always theologically sound. It seemed a natural fit to reach out to some local pastors to invite them to coach EC students through the early stages of the process as “guest teachers”. 

Parents were informed and groups were spread out to ensure that safety protocols could be maintained.  Students began the exegesis process independently by reading their passage, looking at context and writing down any questions the passage raised for them.  The pastors fielded those questions and also introduced the students to some basic word study and a walk through of the key theological concepts in each passage. The time was structured as a dialogue so the students could talk through the passages and take the discussion in the direction that would most help them to write their papers. The pastors who participated today were Mary Stegink (Ridgewood CRC), Rob Parker (The Plant), Jim Bushoven (Rockpoint Community), Richard Jones (Bridgeway CRC) and Michael Johnson (Cedar Hill CRC). 

The response from EC students was very positive!  They feel much more confident in understanding the passage they are writing about.  The students very much enjoyed their time, and we know the pastors did too.  We hope to expand this idea next year to include all the upper level Bible classes and more local pastors.

By: Carrie Johnson

Carrie is a Bible teacher at Eastern Christian School.

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