This book offers an energizing Christian vision for the art of teaching. The authors -- experienced teachers themselves -- encourage teacher-readers to reanimate their work by imagining it differently. David Smith and Susan Felch, along with Barbara Carvill, Kurt Schaefer, Timothy Steele, and John Witvliet, creatively use three metaphors -- journeys and pilgrimages, gardens and wilderness, buildings and walls -- to illuminate a fresh vision of teaching and learning. Stretching beyond familiar clichés, they infuse these metaphors with rich biblical echoes and theological resonances that will inform and inspire Christian teachers everywhere.

David I. Smith is director of the Kuyers Institute for Christian Teaching and Learning, coordinator of the de Vries Institute for Global Faculty Development, and professor of education at Calvin University. In 2024, he won Calvin University's Presidential Award for Exemplary Teaching. He has published extensively on Christian education and the relationship between faith and pedagogy; his books include On Christian Teaching: Practicing Faith in the Classroom, Learning from the Stranger: Christian Faith and Cultural Diversity, and Everyday Christian Teaching: A Guide to Practicing Faith in the Classroom.