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Beloved colleagues,

Welcome to Dallas for the 50th anniversary meeting of the Society of Professors in Christian
Education! What a joy and privilege it is, particularly this autumn, to reunite with one another!

Throughout our history, members of this scholarly community have been steadfastly committed
to sharpening one another in our calling as professors of Christian education—namely as those
entrusted to teach the art and practice of facilitating learning unto redemptive formation and
discipleship.

By conviction and calling, therefore, we affirm the centrality of teaching (didaskalia) as the
church’s primary means of pursuing discipleship, according to the Great Commission. We also
affirm that the essential outcome of Christian teaching must be both vertical and horizontal,
according to the Great Commandment. As we prepare men and women to serve churches,
ministries, and communities wherever they may be “sent into the world” (John 17:18), we are
responsible to equip them to teach and lead according to the mission of God, on earth as it is in
heaven, “so that the world may know” (John 17:20-23).

Likewise, we ourselves must model a pedagogy that displays the full message, ethic, and beauty
of life in Christ, lived well. It is this sense of sacred stewardship that compels us as we gather
around the theme of Teaching for Redemptive Flourishing.

We have designed this conference to encourage opportunities for community interaction,
professional development, scholarly discourse, and vocational reflection. Our hope and aim is
that our time together would serve to focus our motivations and refine our competencies, that we
may be evermore faithful and virtuous in serving our students, institutions, and congregations.
May it be so, for the glory of God.

On behalf of the SPCE board, thank you for your presence and investment in this society, and for
your part in sustaining our community of learning. We are truly grateful for each one of you, and
we pray that these few days together will be beneficial and edifying for all. Enjoy the
conference!

John 17:20-23 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me
through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in
you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as
we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the
world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”

John David Trentham, Ph.D.
President
Society of Professors in Christian Education
spceonline.org

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