CDM Archive

Discipleship Ministries of the PCA

Dennis

Destined for the Trinity: How to Experience God’s Trinitarian Love Within the Church and Beyond

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I have often asked my classes what the image of God is. The typical answer is we are both spirit.

When God told Adam it was not good for him to be alone, He was giving Adam one of those teachable moments, when he would be taught something new about himself and his God. Instead of giving Eve to Adam right away, He instead sends the animals to him to name. Why? So Adam could observe that with every animal species there were male and female. Adam would soon discover he was alone, except for God.

The Scripture is clear that God only needs one thing – Himself – the Trinity. They live in perfect harmony with each other. God created within man the same desire for community. It was not good for him to be alone because he was created in the image of the Trinitarian God.

Wally builds on the three fundamental aspects of relating discovered from his analysis of the Trinitarian relationships between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit: knowledge of one another, access to one another and delight in one another. Incorporating these three Trinitarian elements into our relationships with God, then our family, our church and the world is the thrust of his book.

What helped me as I worked through this book was its practical emphasis – taking us from the theoretical to seeing how it works in real life. To do this, Wally takes us through the life of Kevin, a man struggling with God, his family, and beyond, and how Wally was able to walk with him through how understanding the Trinity teaches us how to improve our relationships with the people in our lives.

This book could be described as John Piper’s Desiring God on steroids. Both emphasize delighting in God, but Wally puts it on a much more workable foundation, especially as we get to see it blossom in Kevin’s life.

I had the pleasure of spending a few hours with Wally at General Assembly. I got to hear his heart for God’s church, and the families in it that are hurting because they do no know God or understand the fundamentals of His working in and through relationships.

This book is for personal study, and it can be used in groups. My hope is you will use it both ways.

3 DVD Studies: H2O – A Journey of Faith; Not a Fan; The Easter Experience

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Not long ago I was introduced by one publisher to the work of another. He was really excited about the work being done by City on a Hill Productions and wanted me to get to know them. After viewing their work I too was convinced they deserve more exposure in our churches. They have, to date, produced three series; each is narrated by Kyle Idleman.

Not a Fan is for the church audience. Kyle persuasively moves Christians to consider where they are with their walk with Christ. Are we simply fans of Jesus? Or, are we followers? His presentations are well produced, well stated, and convincing.
H2O is very different. These are crafted for viewing by non-Christians, BUT, the encouragement is for your church to use these to train your people to invite non-Christians into their homes for a series of discussions on the claims of Christ.



The audience for the Easter Experience is the church. It is a challenging series to watch, as Kyle takes us into Israel and we watch the last hours of Jesus acted out. It is one thing to read the Bible and form our own visual pictures, it is quite another to see it acted out for us, showing the levels of emotions on the face of each participant. I have shown the Easter Experience to my college and career class. Each grew up in the church and in Christian schools. All of them were moved and expressed a great appreciation for what they experienced watching these last hours of Jesus. Kyle keeps bringing you back to the question: What if what happened then changes everything now? A masterful question that forces us to think about where we are with our relationship with Jesus.

I highly recommend all three of these, and encourage you to use all three as they are intended. They are great for outreach as well as equipping your church for the work of ministry.

The main text for this series is published by Zondervan.

How We Teach and How They Learn, Part 11 – Learning Styles and Questions

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Many manuscripts are submitted to CEP for publication consideration. I like to read the Bible studies, but I don’t start with the written sections, rather, I start with examining the questions. I am convinced if the questions are not written well; the rest is just commentary and not Bible study.

Every question contains an “action verb.” This word determines the level of the question. Remember, the goal of Christian education is not just knowledge, it is changed lives, and this can only be accomplished when we put right knowledge into practice.

Equip to DiscipleYears ago it was established there are six basic levels by which actions verbs are measured:

Cognitive – This is the lowest level, asking students to recite information given to them.

Comprehension – This level helps the student move from memorization to understanding, such as discovering relationships among facts.

Application – Here the student takes what was learned and puts it into a new setting involving real life.

Analyze – This step requires the taking apart and examining each to see how it relates to the whole.

Synthesize – Now the student is able to take the parts analyzed and put it together into a different setting. This is higher critical thinking. Putting students into a role-play will move them to think through issues they may not have personally encountered, such as taking what they know about their Christian faith and witnessing to a Muslim.

Evaluation – This is the highest level of creative thinking. Now the student will be asked to judge between the good or bad, right or wrong, useful or useless, etc. Competent evaluation requires good analysis.

The cognitive level might be the lowest level, but it is still an important level. Memorizing the books of the Bible may seem mundane, but it is important in enabling students to move to the next level of study.

Read entire issue of Equip to Disciple, 4th Quarter 2011 (Acrobat Reader required).

A colleague of mine in Kenya once told me if he could just get the faculty to teach to the application level he could die a happy man. But, if our goal is to see the lives of those entrusted to us changed, then we must understand the process by which this is done. Memorizing the books of the Bible will not get anyone growing spiritually. They need to be taught to dig into the Bible at a higher level. Memorizing verses will not get them growing spiritually either. (I must add here this is sadly a lost art in the church today, and needs to be rectified.) Learners must understand those verses and be able to apply them. Then they can be taught to think critically about those verses so they will be skilled in growing on their own and be able to teach others also.

When you ask questions in class, or when you write them in a study, you need to evaluate (highest level) your questions. This, again, is determined by the action verbs you use. We will post this article on our website along with a chart giving you the action verbs for each category. Remember, there are times for low level questions, but these should be minimal. Higher critical thinking produces Kingdom minded Christians who know how to think and evaluate their lives and the world around them.

Using higher critical thinking questions works for all learning styles. However, the analytics will be content to stay with the learning of facts. This is never satisfactory, as God requires us to put His Word into practice.

If you are thinking about submitting a manuscript to us, I suggest evaluating your questions first.

How We Teach and How They Learn, Part 9 – Learning Styles, Culture, and Denominations

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How We LearnWe have looked at all four learning styles. Did you find where you fit? Even more, have you learned to appreciate that not everyone learns in the same way you learn? This time I want to go a step further and explain how learning styles fit in different cultural settings, and next time how it even affects different denominations.

In every culture, all four learning styles exist. However, not all cultures fit the same learning style(s). Let me explain. We live in a Western culture. The characteristics of Western thinking are that we like things to be done in a logical, sequential, and time-honoring way. When we teach something like Church History, we make sure we start from the very beginning and work straight through to today.

Well, not every culture works like this. Two-thirds of the world fits what is called a non-Western culture. Time is not measured the way we measure it in importance. In a non-Western setting, time is not as important as the event is. Let me give an example.

A colleague of mine in South Africa asked if he could teach Church History. He was educated in Western schools, colleges, and also two seminaries. But he was from a very non-Western culture, and his learning style was imaginative, stretching over into the dynamic. After teaching for a couple of weeks the students started coming to me complaining about the class. They could not figure out what he was doing. The first week he started with Martin Luther, then went back to Augustine, then to Constantine. As the students talked I began to realize what the prof was doing. I asked the students if they enjoyed the lessons on Luther, etc. They loved what he had to say, but they could not put together what he was doing. Nor were they happy that Church History was all over the place.

These students previously had my course on Teaching and Learning, so I went over with them what we studied regarding learning styles and their effects on culture. It was the events of history that were important to this prof more than where they fit in history. He was a global learner, more interested in people and events than in details like who came first. Once the students put all this together, they were able to go back to class, and together we worked with this prof to help him understand what was going to help these students the most.

Another way to understand this cultural divide is to see how it affects our observance regarding time. Westerners keep time, while non-Westerners make time. Which one is right? If you say one or the other you would be wrong. It is not a right/wrong issue. Both have their place, and both need to learn to play well with each other.

If you can grasp this difference, then there is one more thing that will help in your Bible study. The culture of the Bible is not Western! When you read the Gospels do you ever wonder why the events of Jesus’ life are not written chronologically? The Gospel writers were not Western. What was important to them was each event of Jesus’ life more than the sequence. Therefore, learn from what God has given us, and don’t try to read more into it than is there.

If you have questions about this, or anything regarding learning styles or Christian education, we are here to help. Feel free to email me, and I will do what I can. dbennett@pcanet.org

Targeting Comprehensive Christian Education

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It never ceases to amaze me that anywhere in the world you say “Christian Education” people automatically think Sunday school. Is this the only Christian education the church does? If it is, then we are in big trouble. Let me explain.

In teaching the Christian Education (CE) courses in South Africa for eight years, the student’s first exercise was to list every church activity, i.e., worship, soup kitchens, Bible study, missions, etc. The challenge was for them to tell me which one was not CE! As you read further, that is my challenge to you, because the way you understand the educational ministry of your church will determine its spiritual depth. You disagree? Then my challenge is to prove my point.

Let’s start with missions. My contention is that missions is a sub-set of CE! What do missionaries do? They share the Gospel. To share the Gospel means to teach the meaning of the Gospel – this is CE! When there is a group of converts a church is started and training leaders is a number one priority. Training is CE! How about worship? Worship is leading people in worship to understand the importance of what they are doing. It is not only the sermon (which in itself is CE), but it is instructing the people to understand what they are singing and why. A well planned worship service is led by one who understands what it means to keep the people focused and aware of what they are doing. This too is CE!

View and download the complete Equip to Disciple Issue 1, 2011 (Acrobat Reader required).

Think about every ministry in your Church. Is there one thing that isn’t in actuality Christian education in some way?

So what is the point? In any good education program there must be good planning and coordination. This is where it appears that many churches fall short in seeing the big picture of what is really taking place.

If you had asked your child’s teacher what she was going to cover that year, how would you react if told she will figure that out as they go along? Imagine 12 years of this? Would anyone ever get an education? Then why do we think that we can do this in the church? This leads to a further challenge.

I will use several examples:

Youth: What are they being taught? Why? What is the plan? What should they know, be, and do after 4 years? Or is your group like most, simply teaching one topic this week and another the next; somehow hoping they will eventually develop a healthy Christian worldview by themselves. Is this what you want for your young people who will be going on to university where they will be confronted with philosophies that are not only not Christian, but in many cases anti-Christian? Have you really prepared them? This is like that teacher with no plan.

Bible studies: What is being studied? Why this study? What are you trying to accomplish in this group and study? At the end of this study what will they know, be, and do? Think about this – if you have no objectives then your objective is to accomplish nothing. But you say, “Our objective is to study the book of Romans.” Great! But what does that mean? If you ask the group at the end what they have learned about Romans you might be shocked that little was learned or remembered. Worse yet, little has happened to change anyone’s life. The goal for CE (discipleship) must be transformed lives! If our only goal is to cover a book, or to know a doctrine, then true discipleship has not taken place. Discipleship is moving people ever closer (by the work of the Holy Spirit) to being like Jesus (Rom. 8.29). So I ask you again, in your teaching, what are your goals for your group becoming more like Jesus? Will they see Jesus in every verse? Will they grow in their relationship with Jesus as a result of interacting with Romans?

Another area focuses on – preaching. Are your sermons planned for the next year? Why not? What are you trying to accomplish? What really “scares” me about wellmeaning preachers is when they say they believe they are discipling their people through their sermons. That is scary because you have already told me that you do not have a plan for what you hope your sermons will accomplish. How does your sermon connect with other teaching going on in the church? You have one ‘goal’ for this sermon and another for the next. If your people don’t know your objective, how can you expect them to figure it out when you haven’t? This is not discipleship; this is a hit-and-miss approach to giving disconnected information, with no thread to help the people tie it all together! This again is like the teacher you would not allow to teach your children.

Continued…

How We Teach and How They Learn, Part 8 – Teaching All Four Learning Styles at the Same Time?!?

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We have looked at four ways people process information. Now, how in the world will you teach four different groups in one lesson? This is not as hard as you think. Look at this diagram.

Learning StyelesEvery week your lesson will contain four parts. (If you need more details on each of these, re-read the previous Equip Tips.)

1. The Imaginative learner is drawn into the lesson by the introduction. This is used to motivate them into wanting to know more.

2. You can probably guess what the Analytic learner wants. This is where we as Presbyterians thrive. We love facts. This is where we give them the depths of our teaching. However, that does not mean it has to be all by lecture. Remember, the more you draw out of the learners, the more they will remember.

3. The how-to Common Sense learner wants to know what he can do with these facts. This can be taken in many different directions as we teach the learners to move from facts to concrete ways of how to apply the facts to all parts of life.

4. The last part of the lesson will satisfy all the learners, but especially the Dynamic learners. Here you will give them some real-life way they can put into practice this week what you have taught them today.

You don’t think you have enough time to do what seems like four separate lessons? Actually, if you look at almost any curriculum, they are divided into these four parts, even though they might call them by a different name. The easiest way to do all this is by a careful division of your time. If you have an hour, then you only need to spend about 5-10 minutes on your introduction; 20 minutes on the main part of the lesson; 20 minutes on the how-tos; and 5 minutes on the final application. If you have less than an hour, use these proportions to plan your lesson.

I am going to post a sample lesson planning sheet on the website. If you follow this plan, you will be able to teach any lesson, even if you don’t have a curriculum to follow.

Next time we will look at how much people remember, as we use different teaching methods.