The implication for the education ministry for layperson based on Calvin's doctrine on education

Abstract

The fully-grown Korean church has been criticized from all social standings since the church had lost its nature and mission filled with non-christian and non-ideal factors. The purpose of this paper is to seek practical measures to deal with problems the Korean church has and to restore the church’s dynamic characteristics in order to identify the necessity about the roles of Christian education. The most significant factor can be found in the education for layman. To deal with th layman education, this paper will analyze the church problems which have been created in the rapidly-changing Korean society. By doing so, Korean church could develop its potential to perform the ministry for layman more effectively. Theretofore, this paper concentrates on the layman education of the several roles of the Korean church. Korean church has paid much attention to its expansion and growth while it has been indifferent to its internal growth. Meanwhile, when many church members are gathered in the church, it was considered that this is the work of the Holy Spirit. In fact, that it is true that various Christian events such as revival conferences and Big Inviting Day, etc. greatly affects the revival of the church. However, it is still questionable whether the church has internally grown as much as the church has quantitatively grown. In Korea, about a quarter or a fifth of the total population is Christians. However, it is lamentable that the Christians could not act as Christians in the society. This is largely because the Korean churches have been accustomed to carrying out he ministry for the entire church itself, but having not paid much attention to each church member’s faith life. Thus, this paper will describe a right methodological theory for education aimed at laymen through the doctrine on education and find a new direction for the layman education. This will be described with four steps. Firstly, the purpose of this paper is to establish proper methodological theory on layman education through doctrine on education. To illustrate the purpose, the effects of church education for layman based on the Bible and the Historic view of the church. This will describe the direction and responsibility for church education. Secondly, this paper examines Calvin's doctrine on education and its significance for the education of the laymen on the ministerial standpoint. At the same time, it will consider in the viewpoint of education ministry how Calvin concerned about the matter based on theological basis. In doing so, this paper will emphasis the necessity of the doctrine on education and suggest its direction for future. Thirdly, it establishes the relationship between the implication of church education through the doctrine and the education for laymen. For this, it will analyze present condition of church education and based on this, it offers suggestions for improving awareness of pastors. This approach could suggest that how the doctrine on education of Calvin can be applied and performed to the layman education in the modern society. To accomplish the purposes, this paper will attempt to find the implication for the layman-education-based ministry on a basis of the doctrine on education of John calvin who was a pastor in the 16th century, educator, reformer and distinguished theologian.