While participating in a recent 3D Printing Conference, I started to think about how much education has changed over the past 30 years. Gone are the days of cassette tape driven listening labs. Gone are floppy disks and dust covered chalkboards.

Thinking even further back into my high school and college career, I reminisced the joys of the early coding languages, word processors that looked like type writers and the cumbersome and teacher challenging, movie projector.

After consulting with my teacher friends, this list continued to grow. I presented the question “What would you not want to go back to?” The responses flowed in with a few personal stories-some of frustration, some of laughter, all telling the story of what educators have done over the years to meet the needs and expectations of the classroom.

• Hand cranked mimeograph before the era of the photocopier
• Physical “cut and paste” before Google documents became a daily item in a classroom
• Overhead projectors and transparencies before the arrival of the Smartboard
• Hand written grade books including hours of calculating (and triple checking) student averages on a calculator
• Slide Projectors evolving into slideshows
• Card Catalogs and hours of time spent in the library prior to the invention of the online search engine
• Teacher created bulletin boards before the wonder of Amazon

This made me consider how we could ever have been effective. How was there even time to teach?

Returning from my reminiscing journey, I found myself sitting in a conference room where presenters were teaching the value of 3D printing in the classroom. One of the newest steps in the progression of educational strategies and tools.

Many would say that education has greatly changed with the creation of amazing products that equip the teacher to be more effective and to be able to present content in engaging formats with life application components.  Most teachers would agree that we could “never go back to the way it use to be”. But, I do have to wonder if education has really changed. Or have we just changed the “way” that we educate?

The underlying skills and educational needs of our students are the same. All students need to feel that they bring something to the story. All students need to learn to problem solve and work through challenges. All students need life skills that will allow them to be successful once they leave the classroom. Has education really changed?

Connecting that with our faith. I also wonder “Has church really changed?” or have we just changed our approach and/or strategies. Trading lyrics on a screen for hymnbooks. Altering the layout of our program to meet the needs of our “students”. Adding new options for service that meet the needs of an ever changing culture. Irregardless of those changes, are not our underlying needs still the same? We all need to be loved by a Father God that holds no record of wrong. We all need a place to grow in our faith walk. We all need a Savior.

Irregardless of where change might take us, our core needs should be the same. Take some time today to evaluate those core needs in your life and assess if those have remained the same over time.

Hebrews 13:8- “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.”