Learnings From an Odd Source

So today for our pastors meeting we did something a little different. We have been doing it different the past couple of meetings. trying to make them more helpful to us as a team and as individuals. To be helpful from a spiritual standpoint and from a leadership perspective.

Jon Keatts led today’s meeting and he showed us footage from a video I would have never watched on my own. It was a portion from a VHS tape series called “The 7 Laws of the Teacher” taught by Dr. Howard G. Hendricks. The first strike I would have had against it is it’s a VHS, secondly it has the title “The 7 Laws of the Teacher”, and thirdly it;s twenty years old. But it was good – I mean it was meant for teachers, Sunday School Teachers, etc. But I was looking at it from a how we do church perspective. Here are some meaningful points:

• Maximum learning comes from maximum involvement – preaching form half an hour a week won’t do it alone. People need to be involved, and I’m not talking about working in the nursery – but practically living what is being taught
• Experience is the best teacher – goes with the first point
• Learn by doing. Must be doing the right things.
• I hear and I forget. – 10%
  I see and I remember. – 50%
  I do and I understand/change. – 90%
• What kind of doing?
• Activity that provides direction without dictatorship. – organic movements, small groups, and ministries that are informed and formed by the congregation.
• Students don’t work for you – they work for themselves.
• Let them hang themselves – organic and incarnational – allowing room for people to experience what it means to fail, to have the willpower to move on and find new ways to be the hands and feet of Christ using the passions God has given them
• Activity that puts constant stress on application
• Activity that is planned with a purpose.
• A lot of what we are doing is an insult to their intelligence. – By telling people that serving as an usher is making an eternal difference, or giving them 5 steps to being a successful husband you are telling them they are stupid. They can smell the bullshit.
• A lot of what we are doing m – i – c – k – e – y – m – o – u – s – e.
• Activity that concerns itself with the process as well as the product. – the journey is important, it shapes us and teaches us what it means to live a life like Christ.
• They go beyond – you and know what they believe and why.
• Activity that is realistic and lifelike.
• Sin is fun – we forgot that.
• We’re answering the questions nobody’s asking. – so true of the church today