Deep Dive Podcast

Podcast Episode: Faith and Lifelong Learning

Mara: This week, Galen Zook brings us a homily on faith, lifelong learning, and what it really means to keep growing — not just as children, but across an entire life.

Pip: Let’s start with what that actually looks like in practice.

Faith and Lifelong Learning

Mara: The central question here is deceptively simple: does learning about faith stop when you reach adulthood, or is there always more room to grow?

Pip: The homily opens with Psalm 78, and the framing is intergenerational from the first line. The setup is one generation speaking to the next — and the psalmist puts it plainly: “We will tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord and his might and the wonders that he has done.”

Mara: So the upshot is that passing on faith is not optional background noise — it is the explicit work of every generation. The psalmist frames it as a chain: ancestors tell parents, parents tell children, children tell their children, so that each generation sets its hope in God.

Pip: And the homily is honest that this transmission happens less through formal instruction than through being watched. There is a memory here of a father sitting in a recliner reading his Bible every morning — no sermon, no Sunday school lesson, just a visible habit.

Mara: That example carries real weight. The argument is that the next generation is learning as much, if not more, from watching how faith is lived than from what is said out loud. Words instruct, but lives demonstrate.

Pip: There is also a quietly devastating observation about adult Sunday school — the idea that childhood faith formation has this sense of progression, moving up through classes, but then you arrive in the adult class and, as one young adult put it, you are just there until you die.

Mara: Right, and that is precisely the assumption the homily pushes back on. The story of Jesus at the temple at age twelve is brought in here — not only as a picture of Jesus growing in wisdom, but as a model. Luke notes that those who heard him “were amazed at his understanding and his answers,” and the homily reads that as evidence that teaching and being questioned deepens understanding in both directions.

Pip: Which connects to Paul’s letter to Timothy — “continue in what you have learned and firmly believed.” Timothy has been at this since childhood, and Paul still says continue. The word is doing a lot of work.

Mara: The homily extends this into very practical territory. There is a story about preparing a forty-page training manual for a future successor at a seminary — and the act of documenting everything clarified and improved the work itself. Teaching, or even preparing to teach, sharpens what you already know.

Pip: And for those who feel they have no one to teach, or no platform to teach from, the homily offers memoir-writing as an alternative — including a phone call from an older man writing his autobiography, not expecting anyone to read it, but noticeably more at peace for having done it.

Mara: The closing image ties it together: keychains made for the congregation, inspired by Psalm 121:8 — “The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.” The backpack blessing becomes a recommitment to lifelong learning for everyone in the room, not just the students.

Pip: Whether you carry a backpack, a briefcase, or nothing at all — apparently there is always more.

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Mara: What stays with me is that the chain runs both ways — teaching deepens the teacher, not just the student.

Pip: Next time, we will see what else is growing around here.