Imagine being an expectant first-time mother or father taking a parenting class. The instructor starts out talking about early infancy, and all of the pregnant women and their husbands are nodding and taking notes. But then their expressions become increasingly puzzled as he moves on to academic difficulties in elementary school, dealing with rebellious teenagers, the importance of saving for college, and empty nest syndrome. By the time the class is over, they’re looking stunned and glazed over, and the instructor dismisses them with, “Okay, now go out there and parent!”
We can’t frontload content like that and expect it to be effective. Just when a parent masters the baby stage, that baby turns into a toddler. What we need is follow-up at each stage along the way, step-by-step. Some form of relational coaching—monthly or more frequent—needs to be offered as a piece of that follow-up. Often people aren’t sure what the next step is after learning some information; they need someone along the way to help them figure it out and help them stay on track. Life itself has a tendency to distract us from what’s truly important. How we use the information we have learned is, in a sense, more important than the information itself.
Bob, I have been reading your posts and wanted you to know they are very good and challenging. Keep it up!
I wonder how much church size impacts our willingness to try this? It seems the larger the church, the greater the pressure to do “group” training which covers “all” the bases? Or is the major problem the classroom model of Sunday School discipleship that I venture most existing churches are entrenched with? What I’m wondering is what are the “baby steps” I could take in an established church to move the kind of training you’ve described forward? I am convinced it would produce better long-term fruit.
Glen, I have also noticed the tendency for larger ministries to process people in a more classroom style. And what’s lost is the more personal touch and hands-on training. I think you’re absolutely right in trying to come up with some baby steps for larger ministries to take. I’d suggest identifying a ministry area where this more hands-on approach would work well—maybe small groups or pre-marital counseling—and start with those who are willing. Instead of revamping everything, try a small voluntary pilot project and see what God does.
I was reading ‘The Forgotton Ways Handbook’ today and this reminds me of ‘acting our way into a new way of thinking’ rather than thinking our way into a new way of acting. The latter seems to be the dominant paradigm in the church of changing behavior, but it isn’t how Jesus did things when he told the disciples- ‘you give them something to eat’ at the feeding of the 5,000 to allow them an opportunity to come to the end of themselves and trust in Him. We focus so much on ‘getting things right’ that we never jump.