If you were to approach teaching faith like you would teaching a foreign language, what new methods might you consider? After teaching languages and living in a number of foreign countries, I have come to see a direct parallel between learning foreign languages and learning the language of faith.
Learning a Foreign Language
Learning English as a Second Language (ESL) is a struggle for most adults who didn’t grow up with the language spoken in their homes. Likewise, many adults in our congregations also struggle learning the language of faith. It's like learning a second language. If they didn’t grow up with it spoken in their home, it seems foreign. It’s not that they don’t want to learn. It simply isn’t their native language, and learning it can make them feel uncomfortable.
Expectations
Families coming through the church doors may feel like they are entering an unknown culture. Immigrant parents often count on schools to teach English to their children. Similarly, parents drop their children at our church doors, counting on us to teach faith to their kids. Immigrant parents do not feel qualified or equipped to teach the strange new language. The same is true for many parents and the language of faith.
Fluency Sets a Standard
For immigrants, standard of living and income levels improve dramatically as they become fluent in English. Becoming fluent in the language of faith can also improve the “standard of living” in homes. Although you can’t measure the “income” in a checkbook, the resulting benefits to the family in terms of grace, forgiveness, communication and sharing can be immeasurable.
Those who become articulate in English can eventually work and assimilate to a life in the community. They begin to speak English with their children in the home. Those who become articulate in the language of faith will eventually live out their faith every day in the home, at work, and in the world.
Effective Ways to Teach
The most effective ways to introduce English are to teach the way the brain learns. That means a heavy reliance on active learning and whole-brain techniques with lots of visuals, games, songs, hands-on practice, motivation and fun.
The most effective ways to teach faith are the same: visuals, games, songs, hands-on practice and fun. Involvement of parents and other adults as role models is key.
The Importance of Immersion
Those who become fluent in a foreign language know that the best way to learn is to be immersed and surrounded in a home where the language is spoken. After living in a culture and being “loved into” the language, you become fluent. It is not forgotten. Wherever you are in the world and hear it spoken, you gravitate towards it and thirst to be with others who speak the same language.
It’s hard to argue educationally that a language can be taught in a one-hour-a-week session. It’s also hard to argue Biblically that faith can or should be taught in a one-hour-a-week session. The key to bringing parents and others on-board to become fluent in faith-talk, is to create an immersion experience that includes the home. Teach a theme at church. Invite parents and ask them to return to the same theme every night in their homes.
Our Instructions
When the Children of Israel were preparing to enter the Promised Land, God gave them a clear set of instructions on how to teach their children:
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. — Deuteronomy 6:5-9
Questions for Leadership:
Take this language metaphor to your next leadership team meeting and ask:
- How is faith taught in our church?
- Are we aware there may be parents in our congregation learning the language of faith for the first time?
- Do we see one of our roles to be teaching Faith as a Second Language (FSL)?
Debbie Streicher is National Director of Children and Family Ministry. She is located in Northern Virginia and happy to address any questions you may have regarding Faith Inkubators’ resources. Please contact her at dstreicher@faithink.com. Read her blog at www.faithink.blogs.com/gift/.
