Discipling Teachers –November/December 2012

 Disclaimer: This blog is from a pastor, with a very slow learning curve, who has finally started trying to follow the revolutionary plan of his Master. 

What’s your biggest ongoing challenge in ABF ministry? Is it keeping leaderships teams in place? Is it encouraging member care within the ABFs? Those are biggies for me, but the one I really sweat is having enough qualified teachers.  You’ve had the dreaded call that one of your teachers has to “step away for a time.” This usually means for the rest of their natural life. The issue is not just finding a replacement, but a replacement who buys into the ABF ideal of participatory learning. I’ve found that many people who are willing to teach have one basic approach … lecture.

Some individuals are truly gifted in this area and to be honest many ABF attenders prefer to be static learners. Simply put, people like to be in the position of “expert” and people like to learn from “experts.” It’s gratifying to walk away from Sunday morning reveling in some new insight, some startling Scriptural nuance that you can use to impress your Christian friends. I’ll admit that I’m a recovering expert … but the more I see the effects of this style of teaching, the more I believe it disserves our people. Let me be clear that I’m not referring to the pulpit ministry. Authoritative proclamation is a legitimate, Biblical and needed type of communication. It’s just that we need something different at the ABF hour. You know the old adage, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” I believe well-rounded adult education must include both proclamation that feeds and coaching that teaches people to feed themselves. ABFs should focus on creating people who can open God’s Word and teach themselves and others.

Our church’s dearth of qualified teachers convinced me that I should be personally discipling a few new teachers every year. After all, individual discipleship of a few men was Jesus’ revolutionary strategy for reaching the world. Certainly, Jesus did proclamation in large groups, but most of his time seems to have been focused on discipling the twelve.  It was in the close fellowship that he said “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you.” Mk 4:11 It was to this smaller group that he basically said do for others what I have done for you … “Go and make disciples.” Mt 28:19 Jesus revolutionary plan worked then … it still works today. I know I haven’t said anything radically profound, but let me share what happened when I tried to put this into practice.

My first subjects were four couples in their twenties. All were involved in ministry and all of the husbands had expressed some sense of calling to vocational Christian service. I decided to start with a simple inductive Bible study. I gave each couple a totally bare copy of Mark; no cross references, no footnotes, no paragraph headings and certainly no study notes. I called our experiment “The unMARKed Gospel.” Each couple was assigned two passages that they would prepare and eventually teach. I encouraged them to mine the book of Mark for all that could plainly be discovered without outside sources. They had wide margins in their copies of Mark where they were to record questions they had of the text and questions they would ask their future hearers. We had subsequent group and individual meetings to discuss their passages prior to public delivery. Finally, I had them team-teach the study to one of our small groups.

Several things startled me as I observed their teaching:

• First they were all very good! Not one of their lessons was a bomb. I remembered internally shaking myself and asking, “Why haven’t you done this before?”

• Next, I was surprised at how revolutionary the inductive study style seemed to these young couples. They spoke effusively about how meaningful it had been for them to discover the text without the assistance of study aids. They seemed amazed that they could understand God’s Word without all the extra-biblical helps. All of them verbally commended this study style to the group.

• However, none of them taught in a way that encouraged this inductive style of learning. Somewhere between the process of digging deep into the text and teaching the text, they had miraculously become experts. They quoted John MacArthur, James McDonald and shared deep insights into the historical and cultural nuances that informed the text. None of it was bad, but the average hearer might have thought, “I can’t understand God’s Word … I’m not an expert.”

Here are the corollary lessons I took away from this experience:

• Christ really has given the Church teachers “to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.” Eph 4:12 The real issue is that we often fail to discover, develop and deploy the people he has given.

• Some foundational methods that pastors take for granted are revolutionary to the people we serve. All too many learners have inferred from the multitude of expert Bible teachers that God’s Word is a coded book only to be handled by professionals.

• Finally, you are discipling future teachers whether you do so intentionally or not. I was greatly convicted by what I heard from those new teachers. I knew they had, in part, picked up the stance of “expert” from me. I’ve rededicated myself to teaching in such a way as to clearly display the perspicuity of God’s Word. I want people to leave my ABF knowing better how to feed themselves and others from Scripture. And I will endeavor to disciple a few new teachers every year.

Submitted By: Jon Wiziarde.  Jon has been on staff at Christ Community Church in Zion, Illinois for 18 years, serving as the Pastor of Adult Ministries. I’ve been responsible for ABFs since we adopted that ministry model in 1999. Sue and I are currently transitioning into fulltime missionary service with Converge Worldwide and will be establishing churches in Panama City, Panama for English-speaking internationals.