Mark A. Lamport teaches practical theology at Tyndale Theological Seminary

jor the Educational Mission of the Church Christianity is fundamentally a peculiar way of life. Christian initiation is the process a person goes through within a Christian community of being formed and transformed into a new being, modeled after the likeness of Christ. Yet, two facts need faced. First, after almost two thousand years after the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the vast majority of the world's population has not accepted the Gospel. Second, after almost two thousand years of performing baptisms in the church, the lives of the baptized are not significandy different than the lives of the non-baptized. Fact two explains fact one, but the root of the problem lies in a fundamental misunderstanding of Christian faith formation and the church's attempts to educate its adherents. Foiled attempts at Christian teaching have often resulted in unintended outcomes, curious inventions, and misshapen creatures. The Church needs to understand how belief and practice juxtapose to better form its strategy to more effectively produce faith in its eager but undereducated adherents