What Others are Saying. Comments about Christ-Light^® from pastoral doctrinal reviewers:

"Wow! What a major project!

Well done! Thanks to all who contributed!

Throughout there is a clear simple presentation of beautiful Bible stories.

• Clear presentation of law and gospel
• Gospel motivation is clearly seen
• Jesus the Savior, our Savior, is evident throughout
• Excellent ideas in "Parents and Kids" section to help parents apply the main point of the lesson to their child."

The Foundation

Christ-Light® is based on a number of premises that guide and control the entire curriculum. These premises are revealed to us by God in his Word. We accept them as essential to Christian nurture only because God the Holy Spirit has led us to this conviction by working faith in our hearts.

• God’s Word is truth. God’s Word is verbally inspired, inerrant, and infallible.
• God’s Word is Christocentric. The chief purpose of the Bible is to reveal God’s saving plan, which centers in Christ.
• The two main teachings of God’s Word are law and gospel.

The law teaches us God’s holy will, that is, what he requires all people to do and not to do. Because all are sinful by nature and sin daily, the law also teaches us that we are all sinners who deserve God’s punishment of death and eternal damnation. The gospel teaches us the good news of God’s grace and mercy. It proclaims that God in love sent Jesus to take away the sins of all people and that everyone who believes in Jesus has eternal life and salvation.

God's Word

• is the means by which God brought us to faith
• gives the continuing motivation for living a life of faith-born love to God’s glory
• is the means God has given us to bring unbelievers to saving faith
• is the means by which we continually nurture one another to grow in saving faith and to live a sanctified life

General Objectives

These premises make it evident that a curriculum which is designed to carry out God-pleasing Christian nurture will be based on God’s Word and will aim at carrying out the purposes for which God gave us his Word.

The general objectives of Christian nurture, therefore, are:

• that by learning the law, Christians realize ever more fully their sinfulness and utter helplessness to save themselves.
• that by learning the gospel, Christians grow in their knowledge of God the Father as their loving Creator, God the Son and their gracious Redeemer, and God the Holy Spirit as their enlightening Sanctifier.
• that by learning the gospel, Christians keep growing in faith, ever more firmly embracing Christ as their only hope of salvation and accepting with childlike trust everything in the Bible as God’s inspired and inerrant truth.
• that by learning the gospel as motivation and the law as a guide, Christians continue to grow in living lives of thanksgiving to God for his undeserved grace.
• that by being trained in the proper use of law and gospel, Christians are enabled to use the gifts God has given them to share the saving faith with others and to nurture fellow Christians in this faith.
• that by continual personal and group Bible study, Christians grow daily in faith and in leading in a Christian life.

Four Basic Elements Used in Developing Christ-Light^®

Curriculum Building and Coordination

• Eleven goals establish the framework for the Christ-Light ® curriculum. Children are introduced to new elements as they proceed through the curriculum. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, the children continue to grow in their understanding of and commitment to God’s Word. It is our prayer that, by God’s grace, each student will achieve these goals by the completion of twelfth grade.
• An important feature of Christ-Light ® is its flexibility. Christ-Light ® contains the resources a congregation needs to coordinate the curriculums of all its youth education agencies.

Parental Involvement

• Throughout the curriculum parents are encourage to work together with congregational agencies to nurture the faith of their children. Parents are encouraged and taught to be responsible for nurture from birth to age 2. They can actively share nurturing with the church agencies from age 3 through eighth grade, while remaining involved in nurture during the high school years.

Cognitive and Affective Goals

• Each lesson was written with knowledge, attitude, and habit goals in mind. Activities, application, and directed projects of various kinds are suggested in order to carry out the goals for each lesson. Teachers can select those which best address the spiritual needs of youth in their specific groups.

Mix of Chronological and Topical Courses

• The topical approach is a good way to develop spiritual truths in depth. A Chronological approach helps to develop and understanding of God’s plan of salvation from the beginning of the Old Testament, through the life of Christ, to the time of the early Christian church. The curriculum uses a mix of the two approaches in order to expose youth to the strengths of each pattern of organization.

God's Plan of Salvation

There is another progression that is vital to the nurture of young Christians. This progression is the development of God’s plan of salvation though the Old Testament into the New Testament. Scripture’s focus is Christocentric; that is, the focus through the whole Old Testament is on the promised Messiah, and in the New Testament the focus is on Jesus, the Son of God, who came to redeem us and whose second coming we eagerly await. This progression needs to be reflected in the chronological arrangement of biblical material at every level.

Each of these elements serve as the key building blocks of Christ-Light ®. Portions of the Bible are arranged so that children can learn of God’s plan of salvation in a planned, sequential way that is appropriate to their developmental stage.