Developing Christians - people who love God and desire to live in the way of Jesus - is not primarily a cognitive endevour . . . but for hundreds of years the church has treated it as such. The act of becoming a Christian is the actual practising of being a Christian, over and over again. One does not become Christian by sitting in a room in a church hearing a Bible story. This is part of it, yes, but one becomes Christian by being immmersed in God's story everywhere it is told, living with God's people, and repeating the symbolic acts of the church, as well as repeating acts of loving neighbour and denying oneself, over and over again. This form of education . . . cannot be regulated to a few hours a week spent learning inside the walls of a church.
Ivy Beckwith, Formational Children's Ministry, Baker 2010, p19
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