As my wife and I raise our two-year-old daughter, we’re learning a lot about learning. For one thing, I’m realizing how unhelpful all of those “people learn best by …” books and articles are. Even as a toddler, our daughter learns in many different, seemingly conflicting ways. In some cases, she soaks up information like a sponge. It’s like living with a parrot—she repeats everything we say. Even my sneezes are followed by tiny, fake “ah-choo”s. She learns through imitation, so my wife and I trying to be intentional about the things we do and say around her.
But in other cases, she’s less like a sponge and more like a stump—unyielding and uncompliant. “Time to brush your teeth,” I say at the same time every night. She looks me in the eye, frowns, and goes right back to playing. I wish she picked up this habit as quickly as she did mocking my sneezes! Situations like this require clear, consistent, firm instruction.
Similarly, teaching in the church needs to come in a variety of ways. You may read that young people no longer learn well through lectures or that people are less likely to trust and imitate authority figures than they used to be. Those things may be true broadly, but I still believe in the transformative power of weekly, Spirit-filled preaching over a person’s lifetime. And I believe examples of faithful, godly living are just as important as lessons from the pulpit.
Since people learn in many different ways, our churches must employ a variety of teaching methods. This week, Angie Ward shares how her church is moving toward a more robust vision of what it means to be a teaching church. It requires more than a weekly Sunday-morning message, though that’s very important. A teaching church is one whose members value learning as much as the pastors. It’s one whose culture is saturated with clear training in every venue, from thoughtfully prepared sermons to thoroughly explained programs to teachable moments in one-on-one interactions.
As my wife and I raise our two-year-old daughter, we’re learning a lot about learning. For one thing, I’m realizing how unhelpful all of those “people learn best by …” books and articles are. Even as a toddler, our daughter learns in many different, seemingly conflicting ways. In some cases, she soaks up information like a sponge. It’s like living with a parrot—she repeats everything we say. Even my sneezes are followed by tiny, fake “ah-choo”s. She learns through imitation, so my wife and I trying to be intentional about the things we do and say around her.
But in other cases, she’s less like a sponge and more like a stump—unyielding and uncompliant. “Time to brush your teeth,” I say at the same time every night. She looks me in the eye, frowns, and goes right back to playing. I wish she picked up this habit as quickly as she did mocking my sneezes! Situations like this require clear, consistent, firm instruction.
Similarly, teaching in the church needs to come in a variety of ways. You may read that young people no longer learn well through lectures or that people are less likely to trust and imitate authority figures than they used to be. Those things may be true broadly, but I still believe in the transformative power of weekly, Spirit-filled preaching over a person’s lifetime. And I believe examples of faithful, godly living are just as important as lessons from the pulpit.
Since people learn in many different ways, our churches must employ a variety of teaching methods. This week, Angie Ward shares how her church is moving toward a more robust vision of what it means to be a teaching church. It requires more than a weekly Sunday-morning message, though that’s very important. A teaching church is one whose members value learning as much as the pastors. It’s one whose culture is saturated with clear training in every venue, from thoughtfully prepared sermons to thoroughly explained programs to teachable moments in one-on-one interactions.
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