Now, Scouting ministry is just a sub-field of Christian Education/Discipleship/Spiritual Formation. The basic concepts and techniques are mostly the same. Bringing people to Christ, teaching them the faith, and preparing them for a life of discipleship is pretty much the same in or out of uniform. And I could do you as good a training course on Christian Education as I can on Scouting ministry. (In fact, my original idea of pursuing a PhD in education was in order to teach Christian Education in seminary). But surprisingly, I find as little interest in this area as in the other. Even when our District puts together training days to help people learn how to be effective in ministry, we don’t do Christian Education sessions any more. The curricula for CLM and COS don’t include much on it, either. It’s not on anybody’s radar.
Maybe it’s time I took the mass of notes I’ve been working on for years and wrote that Christian Education book I keep outlining in my head. But then, given the current state of affairs in the church, who would buy it?