St. Augustine Taught the Catechumens and So Do We

Abstract

In this essay prepared for the 2015 WLS Fall Symposium, Pastor Habben uses insights from the educational methodology and thinking of church fathers such as Augustine, along with his original research and Bible study experience, to equip pastors with a schema and strategies for capitalizing on their aptness to teach.

To watch Augustine and his contemporaries in action and to read their treatises on the education of the unlearned and unconverted will gain participants excellent insights into principles of teaching adults which are underscored by modern emphases of andragogy and are often different from concepts of pedagogy. The essayist will lead participants to grapple with issues currently in play (active learning, dialogic learning, constructivism, etc.) and seek to increase the tools available to the pastor while at the same time highlighting the strengths and appropriate settings for techniques already well-known and used.