Wednesday, September 01, 2010

More on Teaching

In a recent post, I wrote that most efforts of Christian teachers are a waste of time. This lead to the following questions from a couple of readers.

What about Jesus. He spent a lot of time teaching in the synagogues and the lakes and mountains.

What about Peter and Paul. They spent time teaching in the temple and the synagogues.
Peter and Paul both spent time in the temple, but that was mostly on evangelistic efforts. They were trying to reach the Jewish people with the gospel. The temple was the best place to go reach Jews with the gospel, because that was where they gathered.

Much of Jesus teaching to the masses was the same. He was taking the good news to his people. That work was not really successful, because the people who attended his teaching meetings deserted him when the got tough. Many shouted “crucify him” when he was before Pilate.

The ministry of Peter and Paul that had long term fruit was their house to house discipling new believers. Jesus most effective ministry was the time that he spent with the twelve and the seventy. I presume that many of the seventy were among the one hundred and twenty people that were in the upper room praying at Pentecost.

The modern church has got the balance between teaching meetings and active relational discipleship wrong. We have focused on the former and neglected the latter.

Teaching meetings have some benefits, but they are much more limited than we think. Lack of teaching is not a widespread problem. With the internet and tapes, teaching is very easy to get.

Most Christians are not practicing all they know, so lack of teaching is not holding them back. The real problem is inability to practice what they have been taught.

The critical lack in the modern church is active relational discipleship. Going out and practicing their ministry with someone who is already proficient is the best way to learn. That is what Jesus and Peter and Paul did really effectively.

2 comments:

Gene said...

You could not be more correct. My eyes have been opened to this. Relational Discipleship IS the way church will work.

What we do now doesn't.

I wish I could have you see the DVD of Abe Huber who has a church of 50,000 built purely on relational discipleship. Ten years ago it was less than a thousand. This works to reach people.

I will send you my notes on a presentation I gave on this called the Barnabas Factor. They are a little crude, I don't write out my talks. BUT you will get the drift.

It's all a little new to me still. I'm still getting my hands around this. But when I read your note I realized that others see this too.

Thanks. I'm going to link to this in several places. You may have more to say about this.

David said...

Excellent! I have been saying similar things for years. If Christians did a 1/10 of what they were taught, the world would be turned upside down.