This past
weekend I led a retreat with six men from one of Briarwood Presbyterian
Church’s Sunday School classes. They were all “class
shepherds,” men entrusted with spiritual oversight, and were eager to become
better spiritual guides.
We began our
retreat on Friday night by exploring the relational intimacy we can enjoy with
God in Christ. Taking Psalm 63 as our starting point we considered the nature
of David’s relationship with God. As we did so, I could see “lights turning on”
for people. There were dimensions of practical spirituality the men were seeing
for the first time.
I went to bed
near midnight profoundly encouraged by what I sensed God was doing among us. In
fact I was so encouraged that sleep didn’t come easily. I spent most of the
night thanking God and praying that he would continue what he had begun. When
morning arrived I was more than ready to take up where we had left off.
And that’s
essentially what I did after we had breakfasted and regrouped with our Bibles. I
reviewed what we had covered the night before, and carried on. But immediately
I sensed a difference. Where the previous evening it had been easy to talk, and
hearts seemed open to new insights, now things were different. I just couldn’t
seem to connect with the men. Speaking to them and trying to get them to
interact was hard work. “Whatever can have happened?” I asked myself.
Resuming after
lunch, I asked the men to share how they were responding to what they had heard
so far. All deeply appreciated the ideas we had discussed, but felt helpless to
put them into practice. It just seemed too hard, too impossible for them. They
hadn’t given up, but the challenge seemed beyond them.
Immediately I
realized what had been wrong in the morning session. I had been like a steam
locomotive with a full head of steam, while the men were like carriages which,
through their sense of helplessness, had become unhitched. While I was charging
ahead, they were still back at the railway station!
Reflecting on
this later I couldn’t help but think how often this happens in our churches. Those
of us who teach can easily leave our listeners behind. They may understand what
we are saying, but find they can’t process and apply it. Consequently, as
interested and committed as they might be, they simply give up when they feel
left behind.
That poses a
challenge to us when we are teaching groups. We are never going to be able to
suit our pace to every individual in a group. But what we can do is make sure
that our attitude is right. We can approach our task with the welfare of our
listeners foremost in our hearts. It’s easy to engage in teaching with our own
interests or an externally imposed agenda primarily in view. We may, for
example, have to complete a curriculum in a limited time. With that in mind we
race through material “in order to get it finished.” However necessary that
might be, it certainly is a huge step away from speaking to people where they
are at with a view to helping them.
This, it seems
to me anyway, is how Jesus approached teaching. He went among people as a
servant, bringing light and truth into their world at the point at which he met
them, and in ways best adapted to help them.
That’s the
lesson I learned (or better, re-learned) this past weekend. I suspect I will
need to be taught it again and again. Transformational ministry of the word is
more than pouring out what’s burning in our hearts into the ears of others.
It’s about ministering the word discerningly into the lives of others. As hard as that is, and as easy as it is to
forget it, we need to make it our goal.