Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Education

  • The Importance of Studying Together

    The Importance of Studying Together

    Church and Sunday School are two different activities. Both can be valuable in one’s Christian life, but they do not substitute for one another.

    Sunday School has generally been in decline over the last few years, but I think there’s something even more important. Sunday School has too often been a light review of scriptures, taught in a general way and not an education that helps people grow in both faith and action.

    I looked at some statistics for Sunday School attendance, but didn’t find anything that addresses this specific problem. There’s a general decline in Sunday School attendance as opposed to church attendance, but there are many variables.

    My primary question is this: What is Sunday School attendance doing to make you a better disciple and to help you fulfill the Gospel Commission?

    Here are some questions:

    1. How long has it been since you learned something new in Sunday School?
    2. How long has it been since your Sunday School lesson led you to further Bible or other study during the week?
    3. Have you been encouraged to learn something about your neighbors, especially those not like you?
    4. Have you been encouraged to take positive action by something you studied?
    5. Have your beliefs been connected to a way of living in the world?

    These are not difficult questions. But sometimes making your Sunday School and church programs help people accomplish these things might be quite difficult.

    I have frequently encountered someone in Sunday School who has heard the preacher say something about witnessing, or helping those in need, or building up and serving in the church and community. They almost always have the question: How do I do it?

    And that’s where Sunday School should shine. This is a time for people to learn how to put things into action.

    I’m not one who thinks this has to happen on Sunday. Small groups that meet at other times are also good. The problem is to get people involved in such groups and to keep the groups from becoming another “check the box” activity. Small groups of any kind are not to make God like you more. God already loves you. These are to help you thrive in the life you now live by faith.

    Is this your experience? If not, why not? How do we grow more?

  • Psalm 119:99 – Teachers

    Psalm 119:99 – Teachers

    I have more understanding than all my teachers,
    for your testimonies are my meditation.

    It’s nice to do a meditation based on a text about meditation!

    The advantage and disadvantage of a meditation, as opposed to exegesis of a passage is that your meditation can lead you in a direction other than what the writer was intending. I did that today. I meditated about teaching.

    The first question that crossed my mind was how could I, as a teacher, keep my students from deciding they are wiser than I am since they meditate on God’s testimonies. An immediate answer came to mind. If I, as a teacher, am meditating on God’s testimonies, doesn’t that keep me ahead?

    It wasn’t long, however, before I was asking myself whether I should be concerned if my students were, or become, wiser than I am. And there’s an immediate answer to that. If I’m worried about my students getting ahead of me in any way, I have the wrong attitude. I should be delighted if any student of mine is wiser than I am or learns more about the subjects I teach than I know.

    Some years ago my nephew introduced me to someone as “the person who taught him how to program.” That’s true in only a most minor sense. I helped him with a few things when he was just starting out. He’s now a senior software engineer at Google and knows things in depth that I have no understanding of at all. And I’m very, very proud of him.

    The possibility of seeding some small thing into the life of a student and then seeing that student reach heights the teacher has not imagined is, I believe, as great a joy as any teacher can have.

    Now there are those, especially in religion and theology, who think the task of a teacher is to make sure the student stays on the straight and narrow way. The student must learn to believe the same things and teach the same things as the teacher, or the teacher has failed. If that is the goal, then the Psalm 119:99 student would mark failure, and the teacher would forever have to deny the insights of the student.

    I was to teach at a conference on prayer many years ago. I expected to have an hour, and I had a good hour’s worth of notes. Those who know me will realize that I only use notes to keep myself on the program. If I don’t use notes, I can easily fill an hour, and then the next, and so forth. Notes are, for me, a necessary discipline, telling me when to shut up!

    In this case, previous speakers kept pushing things later and later, and I realized that unless I wanted to keep people from their lunch, which the conference leader would doubtless not allow, I’d have less time. I kept hearing the nudge of the Holy Spirit: “Let me do the teaching.” So I chopped my notes down to size, and given a half hour, I took 20 minutes. Again, those who know me, will realize the miraculous nature of this self-restraint!

    Following that session I was approached by one pastor. I won’t go into the details, but that contact became one of the most encouraging and helpful contacts of my life. I’m pretty certain it wouldn’t have happened if I had been my normal wordy self. And I would definitely say that pastor, my student for 20 minutes, has more understanding than at least this teacher.

    Who can you encourage today to go beyond your example, your teaching, or even your imagination?

    (Featured image credit: Jovanmandic, licensed via iStockPhoto.com)

  • The Tyrrany of Normal

    The Tyrrany of Normal

    I am not normal.

    To the vast majority of humanity, that is not significant. From friends, it tends to elicit one of two responses:

    1. You shouldn’t say that! You are absolutely normal.
    2. Yep! Crazy as a loon and somewhat weirder.
    Photo from Adobe Stock by Jim Cumming
    (not public domain)

    I pause here to look up the word “loon” to be sure it was as I remember it, and to find and provide a picture of an actual loon. Further, I locate for you the history of the phrase “crazy as a loon” and link the phrase to an informative article. I love misusing words, but I like to do so intentionally.

    Growing Up

    I have great sympathy for my parents who had to raise me. They’ve now gone on to glory, but my mother had amazing patience with my weird ideas. I have an early memory, which based on context has to be from when I was 6 or 7, of myself blowing fuses in the house when I put copper wire into the electrical outlet. I was careful to insulate myself. I understood well enough that this could be dangerous and understood insulation. So I just blew the fuses (and pretty much disintegrated the fine copper wire). I didn’t get shocked.

    I explained that I was trying to get heat, and the previously used batteries I had with which to do my experiments did not provide enough power. My dad explained to me about resistance and how a heating element needed adequate resistance. Copper was generally not a good heating element. Who knew?

    By the time I was nine I had turned my closet into a lab to develop film. I recall my mother patiently explaining to some very concerned people that I really did know how to handle the poisonous chemicals involved, and really could produce actual negatives and even prints. All black & white, to my disappointment.

    Explaining things was one of my mother’s hobbies, I think. When I lived in Guyana, South America, people who visited from the US would admonish her that she should make me do more normal things and keep up with schoolwork, provided my correspondence from our denominational school. I shouldn’t just be allowed to do anything I want. She simply told them that when she let me do what I wanted, I read the encyclopedia.

    Abnormal Only in a Smart Way?

    You can see these things as positive, and many of my friends do. I do too. But you should also note that I had few friends my own age. I experienced none of the normal rites of passage, such as proms, high school schedules, and other social events. Most of my friends were older than I was.

    The word “normal” was trotted out frequently. My friends now know me as someone who completed an MA degree concentrating in biblical and cognate languages. At the time my mother had these discussions I was in my teens, nearly ready to leave home, and had less than a semester’s worth of high school credit.

    Living with a GED

    I eventually fixed that by taking a GED test. I cannot count the number of looks of astonishment people give me on learning that I’m a high school dropout. These days, people don’t call me that. “Well,” they say, “you got over that and buckled down and got your degree.”

    But on my first job (managing a health food store) I was a high school dropout. A lot of people were worried about that. I had relatives complaining. I should be heading to finish high school. I was 17 years old with less than a semester of high school! Scandalous! And here I was taking the position as manager (and, for the record, sole full-time employee) of a small business. This was no good for a career.

    I continued to make choices that astonished people and made them question my sanity. If I was going to study religion, I must surely want to be a minister. I should pursue ordination. No. I wanted to be a teacher. I was assured this wasn’t going to happen. All the religion teachers were pastors who had worked in the field before taking a job.

    I ignored them all. Some of them don’t think I ever had a successful life. I have certainly not had a career that one would normally consider successful. I’m past retirement age and I still struggle. I still don’t do things the way others think I should.

    Living with My Own Choices

    Despite my own complaints about myself, which I call “the hazards of being me,” I really wouldn’t have it any other way. I could have given in to any number of other options that would make me more successful to “normal” eyes. Sorry. Despite being potentially more comfortable, these paths are just not attractive enough to me.

    This Is About Everybody

    Now I tell you all this, not to justify my own choices. They are mine and I’m used to ignoring opinions about them. I’m talking about almost every person in the world.

    We think our children need to accomplish a set of prescribed things and do them in a prescribed way. If they are sufficiently dissimilar to this “normal” path, we worry about them and we try to bend them to be normal. We want good children, who conform to the general expectations of such good people.

    As they grow up, we want them to have “good” careers, ones that bring respect. When I was growing up it was minister, doctor (for the guys), nurse (for the girls), or teacher, preferably as a missionary at least to some extent.

    {As a side note, I learned later in life that I inherited some of my approaches to life from my father, who rejected a number of prestigious offers as a partner in a medical practice and resisted titles such as “medical director” even though they were thrown at him. At one time my parents had applied to be foster parents in Georgia. Approval came through but then no children, despite the fact that the county was badly short of foster homes. About a year later, suddenly a social worker showed up with the first child. What was the problem? We were told that the previous social worker had thought my father must be some kind of quack because he was too quiet and humble to be a “real” doctor!}

    We often privilege academic careers that require academic degrees over trades. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard someone say of my GED, “That’s OK! You went on and got a master’s degree afterward!” What if I’d decided to keep managing the health food store? It was in considerably better financial state when I left than when I took it over. Would that have erased the blot of not having completed a prescribed course of high school?

    In many cases I expect not.

    Does Success Give Value?

    I like to tell the story of my nephew who is on the spectrum and was not expected to make it past seventh grade because he “couldn’t do the math.” He has a PhD in math education and teaches in a university. That’s nice. I am incredibly proud of him and of his parents, particularly my sister, who didn’t expect the limitations others assumed.

    Yet there are others with various differences of personality or who are on the spectrum and don’t have that sort of accomplishment. As much as I am proud of my nephew and his accomplishments, those accomplishments do not give him his value. He, and others I know who are different in various ways, are valuable as whatever they are.

    I didn’t write this just about those who have some diagnosis that can be assigned. I am concerned with those who want to take a slightly different path. I knew a very intelligent man who was incredibly talented with computers in the early days. His parents thought it was more appropriate to become an attorney. It didn’t work. He eventually worked in the field in which he was so talented, but he wasted years pursuing “normal” and “respectable.”

    Some are going to comment that I was very smart, at least as a child. Often they’re the same ones who question the intelligence of my life choices thereafter. But this is not about making opportunities for the gifted. Well, yes it is. We should. It’s deeply stupid for a society not to provide special opportunities for those who can take them and go far.

    But I hate the very idea of “smart” and “stupid” as applied to people. I am not smart. I have particular gifts. Other people have other gifts. That’s good. You don’t want me repairing your car or installing your house wiring. I’m good with the theory of the electricity in the wires, but not so good with the wires themselves.

    I believe everyone is gifted in some way. I have yet to meet someone who I do not regard as gifted. As a Christian I add that there are spiritual gifts and spiritual callings. Everybody has something.

    Don’t Block the Doors

    The guardians of “normal” in our society are responsible for many, many people living frustrating lives and feeling stupid or incompetent, not because they lack gifts, but because these guardians live to close doors to people who just want to be who they are and find a way to work in something they enjoy. They want respectable, which means normal.

    We need to learn to open doors to whatever works best, and facilitate the paths of people who get where they’re going by unconventional means.

  • Christian Education Should Be Broad and Deep

    Christian Education Should Be Broad and Deep

    Christian education programs in churches are often the least well-thought-out elements of church life.

    Many may think I’m exaggerating or being unfair. I didn’t get this from a survey, so I can’t point you to statistics, but I am drawing on many years of experience with Sunday School and other programs, so while these are observations, and may be somewhat based on anecdotes, those anecdotes are numerous, and they are first hand.

    Here are some of the things I have noticed:

    1. Use of repetitive curriculum.
    2. A lack of goals.
    3. Willingness to interrupt Christian education programs for almost any other activity.
    4. Lack of teacher training.
    5. Lack of discipleship in action in & for church leadership.
    6. Failure to highlight and open up ministry opportunities for every member.
    7. Narrowness.

    Let me expand on each of these just a bit.

    Use of Repetitive Curriculum

    I have been in Sunday School classes that were using standard denominational and/or interdenominational curriculum materials for decades. Often, seen independently, these materials were not bad. The problem was that they did not nurture growth as they continued to discuss the same topics at the same level.

    I have seen comparisons of time in Sunday School (and even more in my Seventh-day Adventist days, Sabbath School) vs college or seminary classes. The idea was that the members should be happy that they were getting such a wonderful education.

    But if a student spend 30 years studying the same set of subjects at precisely the same level in a college, that would be considered time wasted. I don’t mean that we don’t need to review basic doctrines and theological ideas.

    We also need to grow.

    A Lack of Goals

    This is another way to look at the first point. What is the goal of your class or small group? Do you hope to grow? Do you hope to be a better witness? Do you hope to learn anything new?

    Or is your Christian education program, whatever form it takes, designed to make you feel good that you have attended Sunday School all your life, or that you are frequently at church like a good person?

    These goals need not be academic. It is good to learn more about doctrines, but what about learning how a church functions? Or even better how is should function as a part of the body of Christ? What about learning how to express your faith “with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15 NIV)?

    I have yet to attend a church that wasn’t scrambling for leadership in various programs. Here’s the question: Were you preparing church members to lead? Were you recognizing potential leaders and tailoring your educational activity, whether one-on-one, small group, or the whole congregation to help them develop and use their potential?

    Willingness to Interrupt

    This is a pet peeve of mine, and I’ve encountered it in every church I have ever attended. I don’t recall Sunday School classes being interrupted for things that were useless. This is not about denigrating the interrupting activities.

    But, and it’s a big one, I’ve seen small group activities, including Sunday School, most easily put aside for any other activity of the church. It’s possible that leaders recognize that their Christian education programs have no goals and are just marking time, so they can be put aside without harming the day-to-day life of the church.

    That should be a very big red flag! If you can easily put aside your Christian education programs, they are probably not set up to actually serve our Lord and His body.

    Lack of Teacher Training

    I have observed this in two ways. First, we tend not to have any idea of how we would prepare someone to be a teacher in the church. Second, we tend to throw anyone into the mix at just about any time.

    A third observation would be that we often don’t recognize capabilities that members bring into the church. A public school teacher may well be prepared to contribute to your children’s or youth programs. (On the other hand, they may prefer not to do what they do during the week, and may have other talents.)

    We can err by falling into the ditch on either side. We can create a set of requirements that are a barrier to entry for new members. On the other hand, we can entrust the education of the congregation to the unprepared.

    I recall early in my experience with the United Methodist Church the pastor invited me to preach. He knew I have an MA in religion and read the Bible in their original languages. He had talked to me quite extensively and was satisfied with my doctrinal integrity. A member involved in the United Methodist lay speaking program objected strenuously to me being allowed to speak when I had not completed the certification program.

    I had no objection to taking that program and thought it would be very useful in becoming acclimatized in Methodism. I was disappointed. As a program it was a program. One checked boxes. I still found it valuable for the people I met and a number of teachers who were gifted and helpful. But to this one leader, it was a box that needed to be checked.

    Lack of Discipleship in Action in & for Church Leadership

    Truly learning to do requires doing. This is true in your daily life and work. It’s true in the church.

    Everyone who is in leadership should have one or more people they are training and/or mentoring in their own skills and gifts. I see church after church losing long-time leaders, and lacking trained replacements.

    Note that mentoring is not just letting someone follow you around, or talking to that person occasionally. It is allowing someone to learn the job and potentially–indeed hopefully–become better than you are at that particular activity.

    The church should never have a shallow bench.

    And if you think that’s hard, read the gospel again. Watch Jesus work with his students: Disciples.

    Failure to Highlight and Open Up Ministry Opportunities to Every Member

    There are people who see things that need to be done and have the initiative to jump in and just take over. There are other people who are willing to serve, but need someone to point out what is needed.

    The first class of people tend to think the second class are lazy and wonder why they don’t just find something to do and get active already!

    People won’t always recognize ways in which they can serve. Indeed, if they are isolated from the small group which is active in leadership, they may never have the opportunity to know. They many not even know who to ask.

    I’ve heard by an 80-20 and a 90-10 rule, the latter being the pessimist’s view. Twenty percent of the people do 80% of the work. This is presented as a form of condemnation of the 80%. They’re just pew sitters.

    But if you are part of the 20%, and I’m pointing fingers at myself here, you are also part of the problem. You are letting this happen! You should not be participating in denying that 80% their blessing of service.

    Hard?

    Jesus. Disciples. Boom!

    Narrowness

    Here’s where I annoy the most people.

    Our Christian education needs to prepare people to be the salt of the earth. Salt needs taste, or “savor” as the KJV has it in the beatitudes. Salt has identity (its saltiness) and witness (what it does when spread out in food, etc).

    We need identity and witness.

    An educational program that just prepares people to repeat your church’s doctrinal views accurately is not adequate. Neither is one that prepares people to be evangelists of your church building, property, form of organization, or human traditions.

    People need to know stuff. Lots of stuff. Stuff about all the stuff.

    Some people were worried when I invited a Calvinist to address our Wesleyan/Methodist young people. I’d be worried if I tried to bring them up on just what I believe but not to understand how other Christians understand various beliefs.

    Oh, about that Calvinist teacher? He preached Christ and Him crucified. I was glad I invited him.

    Summary: Discipleship

    The critical element here is discipleship. “Imitate me as I imitate Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1 my translation). It can be frightening, especially if you’re honest with yourself about your success at imitating Christ.

    It’s still God’s ordained idea.

    And that answers all of the points. Set our standards high: He did. Be willing to do the hard work: He did. Make the building of disciples our priority: He did.

    That’s church.

  • Measuring a Liberal Bias in Psychology

    Measuring a Liberal Bias in Psychology

    As a self-professed passionate moderate (the liberal charismatic title was thrust upon me by an opponent), I’m very conscious of bias on both the liberal and conservative sides. To be human is to be biased. I have my moderate biases, including a bias toward considering anything from the left or the right obviously biased. You just can’t win with me!

    A number of readers likely already know that FiveThirtyEight.com is one of my favorite, of not my absolute favorite, news source. Besides their efforts to state their own biases, and the fact that I like numbers, this is a result of their efforts to cite their sources and show their work. If I question their rating of a pollster, for example, I can go look at what goes into that rating.

    Before I get to the article I’m linking from them today, I want to emphasize something important. I like numbers, yes, but you have to be careful. The reason for this is that you have to understand how the numbers you’re liking were produced. Let me give an example. A friend asked me to read a book on the ancient world because I know the languages and he wanted an assessment of how much credence I should give it. In the book, someone gave measurements for the original size of the great pyramid in millimeters. There is no way the author could actually have that information. Numbers calculated in that way are designed to give the impression of precision even when such precision does not exist.

    A more common way to produce a number is to assign it, such as asking people to rate something on a scale from 1 to 10. In order to know the question asked, how it’s asked, and who it’s asked of. After that you might consider asking what those people might know. For example, asking a random sample to rate the quality of cardiac care in this country on a scale from 1 to 10 produces information on how the sample views this, but might tell you as little as nothing regarding the actual state of such care, depending on who is being asked and what they could know.

    So here’s the article, Psychologists Looked in the Mirror and Saw a Bunch of Liberals. (You need to read the article—the whole article. This material is useless without the reasoning behind it and the look for solutions.)

    Someone noted the bias with a simple show of hands, and followed up with a study looking at the way in which results of studies were presented in journal abstracts. Here’s the generalization:

    Sure enough, the abstracts more often explained their findings in terms of conservative ideas rather than liberal ones, and conservatives were described more negatively in the eyes of the raters.

    The study authors tested for a bias in their raters and found that their liberal raters actually rated the abstracts as more negative regarding conservative views than did conservative raters. In a  separate test, they also note that a panel of psychologists surveyed for their expectation of bias expected the results to be more biased than the study showed they were. You should, in turn, read the note on the potential problem with the panel of psychologists surveyed.

    Note to self: Doing a deep enough study on an issue to have a strong opinion is a lot of work and takes a lot of time!

    One of the solutions suggested is studies done by “trans-ideogical teams,” i.e., have research done by people who expect different results and who then design a study based on what would change their mind on the topic. I like this idea quite a lot.

    I’ll note that this has a great deal to do with the way I publish (my company). I look to create conversation between people of widely differing viewpoints. (This is not identical to creating a church congregation, where some identity is necessary. I also support diverse congregations, but the boundaries will be set up differently.) I believe that in learning, there is great value in hearing the opposing position from someone who actually supports it.

    A conservative professor requiring readings from a liberal book and explaining liberal ideas is not as challenging as hearing from an actual liberal. Similarly, if you reverse liberal and conservative. I have lived and learned in situations dominated by conservatives and at other times in ones dominated by liberals. The result I see is the same: Complacency, laziness, and arrogance. One decides one doesn’t have to have support for an idea because “everybody knows that.” But this “everybody” is a very selected subset.

    I don’t see any solution here except intentionally involving people who disagree. I have found for myself that I cannot truly express the support for an idea I don’t accept myself nearly as well as a person who truly does support it, even if I try diligently.

    This article is encouraging to me because it attacks bias in two ways: 1) Identifying and quantifying it, and 2) Looking at ways to correct for it.

  • Women Teaching in Seminary, Oh Yes! (@KaitlinCurtice)

    Women Teaching in Seminary, Oh Yes! (@KaitlinCurtice)

    On Tuesday I noticed a tweet, after comments on the Desiring God blog regarding women teaching in seminary. The answer was, not surprisingly, no. The men who do ministry should be taught by men who model men leading the church.

    Here’s the tweet:

    I thought this such a good idea that I immediately chimed in with the names of two teachers, one in my undergraduate theology program and one in graduate school who had been important, even critical influences on my learning and development. I intended to blog immediately afterward and talk about why I list these two women, both of whom have gone on to glory, in particular. Unfortunately, life happened, and a couple of days have passed. I’m still going to do it.

    Preliminary Thoughts

    But first, ever the wordy one, let me write a note on my view of women in ministry. I’ve been accused of not really being egalitarian, not by other egalitarians, but by complementarians. The reason seems to be that I don’t say men and women are the same. Come to think of it, I pretty much don’t say men and men are the same. That is, we’re all different. What I do say is that this isn’t the issue. The issue is to see each person as one who is gifted by God, to recognize the gifts God has given, and to not merely allow, but to do everything to encourage that person to use those gifts.

    How many women should be in church leadership? Precisely the number that God has gifted for that leadership. How many women should teach? Precisely the number that God has gifted to do that teaching. My main scriptural argument in favor of women in leadership is that the Holy Spirit gives gifts as the Spirit wills (Hebrews 2:4, among many others), and that when such gifts are recognized, quenching the gifts is quenching the Spirit. It is also not men who have the right to allow or not allow women in ministry. Their call is a call from God. Men have the choice of recognizing or not recognizing God’s call.

    I do understand the other view and the scriptures on which it is based. I believe that it is a case of using advice produced for a particular time and place and making it universal. I believe making it universal hinders the advance of the kingdom.

    Many

    I have been taught by many women. Doubtless, complementarians would approve of having women as teachers in elementary and high school. I have to mention home school years with my mother and my older sister Betty Rae, both strong influences on my. Ethel Wood at Wildwood Rural School in northwest Georgia, who discovered I already knew how to type, and used my help in the school office. There I learned some skills that would come back to me later when I became a publisher. But this isn’t just about having women influence one’s life. It’s about training people for church leadership.

    Theological Education

    Lucille Knapp

    Lucille Knapp taught first and second year Greek at Walla Walla College (now Walla Walla University). I was privileged to take both these courses and to become friends. She was determined not just to teach us Greek but to help us use it to understand the Bible better and to help us grow in our spiritual lives in ways beyond just language.

    I remember her particularly for gentle conversations urging me to consider unfamiliar ideas that hadn’t been part of my world before. She also connected the beauty of literature with my spiritual journey. When I graduated, I received a gift from her of a book of inspirational poetry, along with a note that urged me to remember that faith and theology were not just about the technicalities of biblical languages and biblical studies, which were my focus, but also about the experience of beauty and of God’s presence that was available through art and literature.

    There were some people who thought she should shut up and just teach Greek. It was OK that she teach technicalities, but she should quit trying to influence others and shape their spirituality in any way. I’m glad she resisted those voices and continued to model spiritual leadership to her students.

    (A bio and obituary.)

    Leona Glidden Running

    When I arrived at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, though my degree was an MA in Religion, concentrating in biblical and cognate languages offered by the graduate school, I almost immediately meet Dr. Running. Some of us thought she truly deserved her last name, as she was an active and vigorous person who didn’t let any grass grow under he feet. Ever. She didn’t believe in letting grass grow under our feet either.

    One of my favorite memories of her was taking the final exam in Akkadian. I was the only student for that term for Akkadian, so the class had been somewhat informal. She handed me the final exam, which was a legal size sheet of paper filled on both sides with cuneiform text. She said, “Translate this. You have two hours.” Then she walked out of the room.

    Now my guess is that I might have produced a good translation of a few lines in two hours. I don’t mean getting the gist, but getting a workable translation. The idea that I could produce a decent translation of that much text in two hours at the end of my first quarter was ludicrous.

    So I struggled through, grabbing the first possible translation I could find and writing it down, knowing that I wouldn’t have time to recheck, and also knowing that I had to be making substantial errors. I managed half of the first page using that approach. At the end of two hours she was back, took the paper and made no comment. I got it back the next day with a grade — an A. So I asked her how this was possible. I was actually gratified by how few red marks there were in my translation, but I mean that with reference to my expectations. The page was still doing some bleeding! She said, “I wanted to see your first pass. I didn’t want you to have time to double check. I graded accordingly.” She had deducted only for things she thought I should have gotten without taking a second pass.

    She also invited me to tutor Greek and Hebrew for the seminary students, guided me through what to charge so I could help pay my way. (I had a fellowship, but it didn’t cover all expenses.) When my Uncle, Don F. Neufeld, passed away, she was the one who recognized that I was grieving when I was still telling myself I could handle this. She made sure I made the trip to his funeral and took care of myself. She remained a friend after graduation.

    She was, like Lucille Knapp, an example of leadership. She modeled that godly leadership for me.

    (A bio and her obituary.)

    Different Styles

    Even though I didn’t select them for that reason, I like the fact that they exhibited two very different styles. I chose these two names because their influence on me was powerful.

    I will still tell classes that while I value my knowledge of biblical languages highly, it was not learning the biblical languages that did the most for my hermeneutic. It was learning about people, learning how people react. Often elements of the tone of a Bible passage become much clearer when I think about the way people react to different things. Lucille Knapp is responsible for starting me on that way of thinking, and I’m eternally grateful.

    Dr. Running, on the other hand, taught me that thoroughness is important, but so is diligence and vigorous pursuit of a goal. It isn’t just your last read that counts, but the way you attack a text in the first place. In coming to understand a text, it’s important not to get hung up or lost in the forest while carefully examining each tree. Of course, that has to be balanced by thoroughness, but she both modeled that for her students and expected it of them.

    Conclusion

    My life and work would be significantly less productive without these two women who taught, one in a theological school, and the other in a seminary. I thank God that their gifts were not suppressed, and that they were there for my benefit.

    (Image credit: Openclipart.org. Modified by me.)

  • Energion Tuesday Night Hangout

    Tonight my guest will be Dr. Bob LaRochelle, author of books such as Crossing the Street and A Home United, and we’ll be talking about adolescents and faith. Bob is preparing a manuscript for release late spring or early summer on this topic. Join us and bring your questions.

  • Teaching How to Experience God

    Teaching How to Experience God

    At my home church, Chumuckla Community Church, we’re going through the Experiencing God workbook. There will be 10 sermons, and then discussion groups. My wife Jody leads one right after church each Sunday, and I’m part of that. Doubtless someone will suggest that the book is somewhat more conservative than the theology I express on this blog. I’m delighted that this is the case. Later I’ll read something that’s more liberal and I’ll be delighted with that as well. I believe God is just as happy to talk to conservatives as to moderates and liberals.

    The thing that bothers me about all teaching materials that deal with the experience of God’s presence, whether through listening to the Holy Spirit, expectation and exercising of spiritual gifts, or following God in any other way, is that it is often uncertain ground. In fact, I would suggest that if there isn’t an element of risk, you’re not really talking about experiencing God.

    There are two basic approaches to trying to teach someone else to experience God. First, one can be prescriptive and define parameters. Second, one can be descriptive and open doors. In reality, of course, an individual’s approach will fall somewhere between, but there is usually a tendency one way or the other.

    What I have found is that the most important thing any teacher can do regarding prayer, hearing from God, experiencing God, finding God’s will, or simply sensing God’s presence is ground clearing. Most people who want to hear from God or experience God aren’t simply looking for a formulaic approach they can follow. Rather, they’re usually facing barriers to the experience. Often these barriers are really good approaches they learned from someone else, but which do not work for them.

    For example, my wife and I pray differently. Yes, we have times of prayer together, but when we’re each in our private time with God, we take a different approach. She likes music. I like music, but not when I’m praying. She’ll turn on the music and enjoy her time talking with (with, including listening) God. I start with scripture. I will select a passage and read without forcing the pace. I read very fast when that’s what I intend. In prayer time I read slowly and allow the words to direct me into communion. I will sometimes be directed to a different passage.

    Jody’s prayer time would be really unfruitful if she used my method.  She’s likely to end up looking at scripture, but that will come as she hears from God in her prayer time. I, on the other hand, find music uplifting and energizing, and often use it to get myself charged for work on a day when I’m feeling slow. Right now I’m typing largely in silence. If I had gotten up unmotivated, I would likely have gone up to my office, turned on some music, and would have found myself getting ready to go.

    It’s great to share your experiences. Just avoid telling someone, or leaving them with the impression, that your way is the one and only way to experience God. If you read the Bible stories, you’re going to find quite a variety: Abram just hears, as Abraham he later argues, Moses hears but might rather not at first, Gideon required a sign for each move, Balaam heard through a donkey (hard head there, I think), Jesus was in constant communion. There’s a valuable variety in scripture.

    Experiencing God is great. Don’t be afraid of present experience. Beware of either letting someone place you in a straight-jacket, or of placing someone else in one. God’s way is past finding out. You and I haven’t gone that far!

    (I’ve put some books I publish related to experiencing God into a collection on Aer.io. Check these out!)

     

  • Is It Greek Pedagogy, Learning Skills, or Something Else

    Is It Greek Pedagogy, Learning Skills, or Something Else

    These discussions seem to come up all the time about learning Greek, but the discussion also applies to Hebrew. How one can imagine it’s critically important to learn Greek if one is to preach or teach, but not so much to learn Hebrew, I don’t know. But the degree requirements of various colleges and seminaries reflect just such an attitude.

    That said, I want to make some comments about learning and teaching, but more importantly about goals. Thomas Hudgins has written a good deal about this in a recent post, and he posted some material from Dave Black, which provides me a good link for that as well. Both make some excellent comments on pedagogy and what those of us who teach need from the students.

    On the use of the word “we,” I want to note that my role as teacher is vastly different from Dave’s or Thomas’s. I tutored Greek as a student in graduate school, helping Master of Divinity students get ready for tests. And that was indeed what it was: Getting them ready for the test. None had patience for letting me help them comprehend the subject better. They wanted to make sure they had memorized enough answers to get by on the test. Since then I have occasionally offered classes in the local church or tutored individuals who were trying to learn. The key element here is that people came to these classes because they had a goal, and they pursued the goal.

    And this is why I think we need to look at two other things. I used “learning skills” in the title, but what I really mean is the art and practice of being a student. There’s probably a perfectly good word for it, but short of suggesting you be a good talmid, I can’t bring it to mind. But beyond learning skills there’s motivation, and behind motivation there’s purpose, or perhaps mission.

    That leads me back to graduate school and my graduate advisor, Dr. Leona Glidden Running. I was truly blessed to have Dr. Running as a teacher and advisor. I learned enormous amounts from her in classes in Syriac (which I audited), Akkadian, and Middle Egyptian. From the list of languages you can see that I had the motivation for learning languages. Thus I learned from good teachers and some whose pedagogy may have lacked a bit.

    It was also Dr. Running who got me into tutoring and sent her students to me for help in both Greek and Hebrew. The problem with tutoring points me to what I think is a problem in ministerial education: Students going through language courses in order to check a box. We’re often fairly good at ditching traditions in Protestantism. Just look at the reformation! But folks, that was 500 years ago. What traditions have you ditched lately?

    What I encountered were students who were studying Greek because it was required for the degree, some of whom had been told by ministerial advisers, mentors, and church leaders that the only reason they should learn Greek was to get their degree, and most of whom would serve churches that didn’t care what biblical languages they might have learned. Is it any wonder that they just wanted me to help them through the test? I can’t count the number of times I was called within hours of the test, or late on a Friday afternoon or even working into Saturday with desperate pleas for that help. At this time I was a Seventh-day Adventist and I took my Sabbath seriously. (I’ve recently commented that it’s one thing from my SDA background that I really miss.) But these ministerial students who were supposed to be preparing to shepherd people in that tradition, were quite ready to ditch their Sabbath rest to get past the test.

    I know from reading what others have said that while the details may differ, the attitude is quite similar. Some seminaries have given up on the languages as a requirement. Often those seminaries are ones that have reduced the entire biblical studies requirement to a minimum. So study of biblical languages goes the way of Bible study, and it all happens without that much planning.

    So speaking as someone who thinks biblical knowledge is critical, let me suggest that we need to reexamine this entire process. What is a Master of Divinity degree for? What are our goals? Within that, what are the goals for knowledge of the Bible? Of biblical languages? Once we know what we need—and want—then we need to ask how we get it. Forcing students to take one or two (or whatever number) of semesters of Greek and/or Hebrew doesn’t accomplish anyone’s ultimate goal, at least anyone I know of. Nobody actually hopes that the student will pay tuition, check off a box, and leave with no knowledge that he or she will use (except possibly the university finance department).

    I don’t know about other biblical languages classes, but my teachers taught with the goal of having us learn to read the language. They knew they were only going to accomplish that in a few cases, but they still worked toward that goal. If the assumption of everyone else is that the student will not, in fact, learn the language, then we need to do something about that. That isn’t something that a Greek teacher can fix. He or she can try to motivate more students, to provide as much useful information as possible, but that all constitutes making the best of a bad situation.

    Amongst the possibilities that should be considered are requirements for additional classes in history, cultures, people (sociology/psychology), linguistics, or other topics that helps a person understand a written text. Perhaps, in addition, one might include classes specifically in taking complex ideas and expressing them clearly and simply (to whatever extent possible). Then we can aim the biblical languages classes at people who do actually want to learn to use the material.

    I have to put in my ritual dig at the whole educational system. I think that in the 21st century world the degree system is getting more and more out of date. Something more like the badges system that the Mozilla Foundation is sponsoring may be at least an early pointer toward a replacement. But that moves beyond this post …

    In summary, in languages as in anything else, we need to keep our focus on the mission. That starts with knowing what the mission is.

    And we don’t.

  • Saber-Tooth Everything

    Saber-Tooth Everything

    Source: Openclipart.org. I think this is the Cheshire saber-tooth tiger, fading toward his smile!

    I love the classic book The Saber-Tooth Curriculum, and I was reminded of it when I read The disposable academic in The Economist, I was reminded of it.

    In education we’re increasing the cost without increasing the benefits, and that’s not sustainable. Educators should be thinking of better ways to operate now, before unchosen and unwanted new ways are forced upon them.

    I think the whole system, which expects students to spend years and dollars getting degrees before they enter the workplace was designed for another time and is hopelessly unfitted for the 21st century.