How should the church respond to the challenges of the day? Should we reject our historic traditions and acquiesce to the contemporary world? Or should we reject the world and retreat into the ways of the past. Neither, advocates Cassandra Williams. Instead, we must recover and reclaim our living tradition and foundations of our faith and reinterpret those for the present-day.

In Learning the Way: Reclaiming Wisdom from the Earliest Christian Communities, Williams outlines the ways in which the first believers formed and nurtured Jesus-followers and offers from that historic witness foundational principles for Christian education. Those principles are then unpacked, creating a mandate for authentic discipleship formation in the context of Christian community. Each chapter includes exercises and questions, making this the perfect resource for individuals and small groups who:

. . . have the nagging sense that church has to be about more than choir rehearsals, chicken dinners, and disputes over carpet colors. . . .  who believe that Scripture can inform all aspects of personal and congregational life, including the process as well as the content of Christian education. It’s for those who think the world is in desperate need of concrete witnesses to the power and presence of Jesus and who both suspect and hope, as I do, that revived and reformed ministries of education are central to reclaiming authentic faith and witness. (From the Introduction)