Tag: Teaching

The Top 10 Things I Learned in Seminary [#8]

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Having graduated from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary early this month, this is the next of my seminary reflections. This marks the third post. They are out of order, except for the last few.

#8

Preaching is as scary as I always thought [but it can also be powerful!].

One of the more intimidating aspects of the pastoral vocation is this: speaking in front of a lot of people. Those people may be judging you, or they may offer great charity. Those people may come interested, or they may come with impatience and plenty of other things to think about at that time. Those people long for a sense of the eternal, of deep purpose for life, of grace and truth; but they may not have gotten enough sleep the night before.

And there they are at church.

Scary, right?

Now, let’s add to that.

I’m not someone who was naturally drawn to speaking in front of people. My college speech class illustrates this perfectly. The goal to was to eradicate ums and uhhs from our speeches, and also to memorize our main points. I couldn’t remember the next point, and I knew I couldn’t say uh or um, so I just stopped. It was probably about 8 or 10 seconds. Yeah.

If you listen to me preach nowadays, don’t be deceived. You may initially think I’m calm and poised, but don’t let that fool you! I am not! Well, at least beforehand. As I move into a message, somehow God’s Spirit seems to slowly calm my nerves, and I allow him to animate me. Somehow, my hands even seem to work with my words as I tread holy ground. Somehow, the people out there who always used to intimidate me have turned into people who simply long for an experience of God.

Just like God used Moses, a guy who stammered and lacked confidence and poise, God can use a guy like me. God can use a guy who wasn’t always a natural with words and with communication. God can use a guy who hated public speaking for the first two decades of his life. For me, this has been evidence of my calling that I have been given grace to do the communication that pastoring requires. That’s not to say I’m killin’ it. But I’m taking steps. The meme below says it all.

onedoesnotsimply.meme

God calls various people in various places to proclaim the hope contained in Scripture and made most evident in the Son, Jesus Christ. This is a serious, scary task. That can [and does] make us young pastors terrified!

But the incredible thing about preaching is this: it sticks. I still remember concepts and illustrations from the sermons my pastor preached growing up. I remember the story about bitterness that featured Eskimo hunters who dipped an icy blade into blood, then planted it in the snow. When a wolf would smell the blood and lick the blade, they became so intoxicated that they failed to realize their numb tongue was being cut open. That’s harsh, but it’s what we do to ourselves when we fail to forgive and harbor bitterness against others. Preaching sticks.

That stuff matters. It’s terrifying, and it matters. A lot.

Teaching with Imagination: Part 1

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Animals and people are similar in so many ways. We see a chimpanzee at the zoo and immediately (though subconsciously) mentally list its similarities to the last baby we saw watching the chimp from a stroller. Both have a face, though the human’s is slightly softer. Both have hands, even opposable thumbs! However, as we synthesize similarities, we also analyze differences.

This task of making this delineation is equally simple at some level. The chimp likely will probably not excel in physics, though he can likely learn to play a video game. She won’t graduate from elementary school, but she may very well flourish as a hunter-gatherer in a tropical jungle. Animals are a part of the world, immersed in the same surroundings as their human zookeepers and zoo-supporting philanthropists. But they do not seek to change their world. Rather, they simply want to survive and reproduce.

Humans, on the other hand, make a choice. They must make the choice of how they will influence the world. Every human has agency – the ability to affect change. Though humans use their agency differently, each human possesses it to some degree.

No one would argue that education is an irreplaceable aspect of human participation in the world. Educations alerts individuals and communities to the world around them, helping to guide and direct young persons in their forthcoming autonomy, their long-anticipated independence from parents.

In education, however, young people are, at times, treated as vessels for holding information. Instead of sparking the imagination of youth and inviting their participation in the world, education often trains up young ones to know every state capital and the names of all the US presidents. Of course, there are many excellent educators in our world, and they certainly don’t simply deposit facts in students’ brains. But this does happen.

Paulo Freire, a Brazilian philosopher and educator, has juxtaposed two means for pedagogy. The first, deposit-making, consists of giving information, of filling the minds of students with information. The second, problem-posing, invites the agency of the individual to factor in to the pedagogical matrix. In other words, Freire believes critical intervention in the world is essential for
thorough and meaningful education.

In my next post I’ll take a closer look at how this pertains not only to education but also to preaching, politics, government, and other spheres.