like a fire

I am currently taking seminary classes and it has been a real challenge for many reasons. The biggest is the responsibility of the students to absorb an infinite number of new ideas with little or no thought given to ability to amount of information that will be retained, used or be useful. One of the ideas I always had about education is the idea of teaching. From my previous training and experience in education, I saw many students who were capable of learning who didn’t and many less capable who excelled. I often wondered if I was really teaching, or if the students taught themselves. Can anyone ever truly teach someone else? It is a worthy idea. On the one hand, you could say that it is impossible to teach someone anything unless they teach themselves. This isn’t a new idea, in itself. The best situation teachers can hope for is that they have students motivated to learn what they are teaching. But is this really teaching? Students motivated to learn about a subject are likely to learn about that subject themselves apart from a teacher. Looking at education from this perspective reduces teachers to information merchants.

There is one other possibility, however. Following the previous train of thought, if students learn through the motivation of ideas, then teachers become motivators. If the role of the teacher is to motivate learning, think of how that affects teaching or ministry. The ability to receive knowledge (especially spiritual knowledge) is not affected by the teacher. The desire to receive knowledge certainly is though. Would we need teachers if all students were completely self motivated? I think we would, but the role of teaching would become more refined in the process. Instead of shoveling information, the process of learning becomes the focus. What is the best way for students to learn? What motivates them? How do students process information into usable content? All of these questions are the plague of churches today.

Consumerism is rampant in churches. This is the evidence the need for more than just information. If the world could be saved through the perfect information in the Bible, then it would have been a long time ago. People need more than information. The cry of the Christian is motivate me, encourage me, walk beside me. Many people look at this as consumerism, but isn’t it taught in the Bible that we should do these things? Shouldn’t we sharpen each other as iron sharpens iron? Shouldn’t we encourage each other?

Fortunately I work in a field that is a pioneer in churches to do this. Youth ministry speaks to the issue of motivation more than any other part of the church I know. In youth ministry, there is a daily confrontation in the teens that want to be there for the right reasons, those that want to be there for the wrong reasons, and those that just don’t want to be there. Hopefully we are more than information merchants.