In This Edition:
An Introduction to Avenue for Faith
A Conversation with Josh Kingcade, Education Minister @ Memorial Road Church of Christ (Oklahoma City).
Top Picks: This Week’s Recommended Resources
An Introduction To Avenue For Faith
“I am Lady Wisdom, and I live next to Sanity; Knowledge and Discretion live just down the street. The Fear-of-God means hating Evil, whose ways I hate with a passion— pride and arrogance and crooked talk. Good counsel and common sense are my characteristics; I am both Insight and the Virtue to live it out. With my help, leaders rule, and lawmakers legislate fairly; With my help, governors govern, along with all in legitimate authority. I love those who love me; those who look for me find me. Wealth and Glory accompany me— also substantial Honor and a Good Name. My benefits are worth more than a big salary, even a very big salary; the returns on me exceed any imaginable bonus. You can find me on Righteous Road—that’s where I walk— at the intersection of Justice Avenue, Handing out life to those who love me, filling their arms with life—armloads of life!”
-- Proverbs 8:12-21 MSG
3 Avenues
Hi! Welcome to Avenue for Faith. My name is Nathan Guy, and I lead the Adult Education Ministry Team at the Sherrod Avenue Church of Christ in Florence, Alabama. Each week, I will share encouraging notes and tips for teaching and leading adult education, provide exciting “first looks” at our own upcoming classes and events, and recommend resources to help enhance and grow a thriving ministry rooted in faith formation for adults. You can enjoy the fruit of this labor of love in 3 ways.
Avenue 1—Substack: Weekly E-Mail & Blog
The first way is right here on Substack. Subscribe to get full access to the weekly e-mail and collected archive. Never miss an update. You won’t have to worry about missing anything. Every new edition goes directly to your inbox. Sign up now so you don’t miss the next issue.
Avenue 2—Website: Avenueforfaith.org
The second way is on our ministry website avenueforfaith.org. Find out what classes we are offering, help yourself to free curriculum, and learn more about the adult education ministry at Sherrod Avenue.
Avenue 3—Podcast: Avenue For Faith
The third way is by listening to our podcast “Avenue For Faith.” Enjoy exciting interviews, sample classes from Sherrod, and go more in depth on topics briefly discussed here in my blog posts. Listen on iTunes, Google podcast, Spotify, or any major platform. You can access the RSS feed here.
The 7 Core Principles for AF
The Sherrod Avenue Adult Education Ministry—Avenue for Faith—aims to provide a comprehensive program that is intentionally focused on 7 core principles. These principles are incorporated into our Intentionality Checklist, which you can download from our website. These principles are as follows:
Biblical: rooted in the Word
Theological: grounded in healthy Christian doctrine
Spiritual: directed toward the abundant life
Missional: devoted to discipleship
Attractive: creating a welcoming atmosphere
Relational: building relationships
Relevant: connecting real life with real faith
A Conversation with Josh Kingcade
Josh Kingcade is the Education Minister at Memorial Road Church of Christ in Oklahoma City. This 2000-member church has a long history of providing a stellar adult education program, and an already-powerful ministry reached new heights when Josh brought his unique talents to the table. I sat down with Josh for the premiere Avenue for Faith podcast. Here are some highlights.
Q: “What are the essential ingredients?”
I think what I’ve learned about essential ingredients in adult education ministry is it has to be the right combination of connection and content. Some of us think solely in terms of content. If we get the right teacher and the right material, everyone is gonna show up. It’s sort of a “Field of Dreams” mentality; you know, “the right content will get people.” And other people really focus on the fellowship aspect: “whose gonna be in the room with me?” “If my class is doing coffee and donuts, who do I get to visit with before class?” And what I’ve learned here is alot of times ministry leaders will focus so much on the content and forget about the connection. So what I tell my Bible class teachers is “listen, I hope you do really well. I’m rooting for you. But if you have a bad class, or even a bad couple weeks, it’s really not the end of the world, because our people are there to see each other as well. They are there to connect. So, I think those two things have to be together: it’s “who’s leading,” but also “who is in the room with me?” You gotta focus on both those things and create that atmosphere of hospitality that will make connection happen just as much as you focus on “hey, do we have the right content for our people?”
Q: “Is curriculum more than what adult education classes teach?”
Remember that when you think of your church’s curriculum, it’s not just your Adult Ed ministry. I mean, curriculum includes what’s being preached from the pulpit. It includes what people are learning by participating in mission trips. So, it’s a reminder that adult education ministries are one of a larger piece. And it’s really helpful to sit down and think of your whole church’s curriculum, and what gaps—or maybe gaps—and what places you can fill most effectively. And it kind of depends on, you know, is your preacher a deep expositor? Is your preacher a very practical life-skills person? And you might counterbalance that with what you do in your adult classes. Because your people are learning from sermons. They are learning from mission trips. They are learning from serving in other ministries. And so you don’t want to duplicate that with what you are doing in Adult Ed.
Q: “Are Bible classes at church outdated or are they foundational?”
Classes, I think, are still important. What we’ve done at Memorial Road—modeled for a long time before I got here—is that our Sunday classes essentially stick together for life. Like they come out of college, and every few years we start another young adult, young couples, young singles class. And they stick together. What it means is these groups are excited to be together each week regardless of who is teaching or what the topic is. “I’m seeing my people, I get to check in with them.” For our people who aren’t really interested in small groups, this is their main community.
I would say Bible classes are more foundational—at least for the time being—in our model of ministry than small groups. On a given Sunday—at least pre-COVID—about 85-90% of our worship attendees were going to a Bible class that day, which is a really high percentage and one for which I’m grateful. Our small groups are more like 50-60% of our membership. I think your learning communities do things besides just learn—when they connect, when they are having social gatherings, when they are serving together. Our learning communities are still the primary way we do service projects. If it’s time to go serve our community, we organize those projects by adult class. So it’s doing things together outside of that learning hour that create connection.
Excerpts taken from my interview with Josh on Episode 1 of the Avenue for Faith podcast. You can find the podcast on all major podcasting platforms.
Top Picks: This Week’s Recommended Resources
Website: Memorial Road Church of Christ Adult Education
The Memorial Road Adult Education website is fantastic, and serves as a helpful model for anyone interested in developing a ministry like this. Their class listings are available and archived. There are curriculum sheets, teacher training helps and loads of ideas to borrow or build upon.
Curriculum: Josh Kingcade
Josh has written curriculum for Memorial Road and has made that curriculum available for free. Each packet contains a 13-week plan, individual lessons, and helps. Old Testament, New Testament, and Topical lessons are available.
PDF: Josh Kingcade, “Welcoming Digital Learners”
Josh and the team at Memorial Road put together an excellent guide for preparing and teaching classes on Zoom, or offering a hybrid option where people can “Zoom in” on an in-person class.
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My name is Nathan Guy, and I serve as the preaching minister for the West Side Church of Christ in Searcy, Arkansas. I am happily married to Katie and am the proud father of little Grace. You can find more resources on my website over at nathanguy.com. Follow me: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.