Continuing Education

Tonight Tim left for a week of classes at the Pastor's College in Gaithersburg, Maryland. While there Tim will be learning from very wise and godly men. He will be sitting in a classroom filled with men preparing for ministry and men presently in ministry. All men will be there to learn more about what it means to be a pastor-shepherd for the people of God. Our pastors' responsibility to continue their education in the things of God never ends.

Ours doesn't either. I was thinking about that today as I observed one young mom hand another young mom a book entitled, Shopping for Time by Carolyn Mahaney. I thought to myself, "Now there's a woman who wants to keep learning." Then, I learned about another young mother spending the evening with another woman and again I thought, "I know their time will be spent in some form of teaching-learning exchange." I know of another young woman continuing her education in biblical womanhood through the relationship with an older woman. Yesterday after worship I observed a young woman (a Christian for less than a year), speaking with a godly woman about learning how to live the Christian life.

Is your education continuing? Sometimes we tend to have grand ideas for what to learn, and where to go to learn it. But the most important learning and the best teachers are available to us within our church. Besides our four pastors, there are many in our church from whom we can learn much. Not the least of which is other women. Every time a recipe is shared, someone is learning something. Every homemaking tip shared is domestic education. Every theologically sound book shared or recommended and read is continuing education. Every sharing of cares, prayers and biblical counsel is an opportunity for growth in our understanding of God and His Word. And every trial is the school of suffering which God uses to grow us in many, many ways.

What are you learning these days? Who is the Lord using to teach you? Let's keep our education continuing, for the Glory of God, for our own growth and for the good of others as we share with others what we ourselves have learned.