Talking is not Teaching

I have learned over the years that teachers, especially the good ones, have several enigmatic sayings like, “There is no such thing as teaching, only learning.”
As a first year teacher, I asked a good friend of mine and master teacher to observe my junior literature class. After the observation her advice came in this form. “My mother, who taught for 40 years, said to me, ‘Talking is not teaching.’”

Every teacher who is honest recognizes that grades don’t only reflect a student’s ability to learn; they also reflect a teacher’s ability to teach. As a teacher I had the accountability of frequent tests. Students demonstrated, at times weekly and daily, whether my talking was actually teaching. I saw it in their grades—whether they learned the lessons or not. A teacher has two options when it comes to teaching. They can learn the material and communicate it through talking. Or they can guide students through systems whereby the student arrives at the same destination as the teacher. I began to see teaching not as acquiring certain information, but arriving at a particular destination. In Communicating for a Change, Andy Stanley writes of the need for pastors to take people on a journey toward a particular destination rather than merely communicating information.

It is easy to stand on one side of the Grand Canyon and beckon to our students across the chasm, “Come on! You can do it!” Shouting out directions, “turn left there, go around that tree, no not that one.” It is another thing to walk back across the chasm and lead each student by the path we have come. Good teachers guide students down the path they have taken. The best teachers find short cuts and new paths based upon the student's abilities—all the while with the goal at arriving on the other side. Some of our students may have a limp and have to take an alternate path. But it is our job to help them arrive at the same destination.

As pastors we are in the business of teaching. We want people to arrive at a particular destination. Let’s face it; we are sometimes called preachers, because we are seen primarily as talkers. With all of the talking, preachers are in the most danger of losing sight of what actually helps people get to the other side of the grand canyon. It is easy to lose sight of the fact that our processes/systems by and large trump what we say. Our processes and systems are our most powerful tools in helping people become spiritually mature.

At the 2006 Drive Conference the components of a system are defined as:
1. Expectations/rules

Example: Northpoint Community Church has a rule for its family production called “No Dropoffs” They expect for parents and children to attend Kidstuf together. They reinforce this expectation by not offering anything during the Kidstuf timeslot that would compete for a parent’s attention. There are no adult Sunday school classes on Sunday morning, no adult worship service occupying the same timeslot. Andy Stanley is rigorous about ending the service on time so that parents can pick up their children to attend together. There is a very important lesson here: Our stated expectations are meaningless if our systems reinforce different expectations.

Key Questions: What expectations do our systems reinforce? How can we align our systems with our expectations?

2. Rewards (or lack of) What is rewarded is repeated.

Example: We began a family production (a shared experience for children and parents) in our church in November of 2005. To see what we did, go to www.kidstufventura.com . Within a month we went from 15 children to 150 parents and children in the same room. Huge win if numbers was our win. It was extraordinarily tempting to advertise the success of our numbers. But a large crowd was not my goal—transformed lives was. I felt that I needed to make a conscious effort to redefine the win: from numbers to transformed lives. Shortly thereafter my team began to work on ways to gather stories of how the family production was impacting family’s lives. I intentionally began telling these stories rather than numbers to our production staff, small group leaders and church staff. I would retell the stories during the family production, while the team found creative ways to reward parents who were winning. I.e. teaching their children about faith and character during the week. We set up a discussion board on our website where parents and children could write about how they were interacting with the virtue of the month. The curriculum provided by www.ReThink.org was also very creative. We gave away a foot of duct tape for every story of resourcefulness written by the children. At the end of the month we taped our co-host to the wall. We had over 170 stories.

Key Questions: What do we reward? Do we reward the behaviors we want to see repeated? Are we currently rewarding things that we don’t want repeated?

3. Consequences (or lack of)

Example: over the summer we began enforcing small group leader/student ratios in our children’s small group program. This communicated several things. It communicated to our small group leaders that we did care about their sanity; it meant that we were serious about not slamming a single small group leader with a large group of 25 four year olds. It communicated to our parents that we cared about the safety of their children. There was an unforeseen positive consequence. In our laid back So. Cal beach climate we now have parents arriving early to ensure their child gets a spot in their small group. I think Jim Collins calls these policies with teeth.

Key Questions: Have you changed anything recently that resulted in inadvertent results? What were they? What about your system created them?

4. Communication (content and style)

According to David F. Wells, at the 2006 Desiring God Conference:
it becomes more and more imperative for preachers to make sure that the truth that they are preaching intersects with what is going on inside people’s minds so that the line is drawn so clearly, that people in their own lives know whether they are being obedient or not and what they should do with that truth when they have heard it. Now that is contextualization. And so it goes all the way through from people sitting in pews in American and missionaries preaching in Hindu contexts in India.

Our communication, its content must align with what we are trying to produce in our systems, and its style must intersect with what is going on inside people’s minds so they know what we are asking them to do.

Key Question: Am I spending time on Sunday communicating strategy to the church members? Does the content of my communication align with or contradict the created/established system?

5. Behavior (of those in charge)
Example: I think we can all come up with some examples of this one. The most compelling reason to change is seeing such change lived out in our own lives as leaders.

Key Question: Where does my own behavior not align with my expectations of those who follow me? What must I do to change that? (By the way, when you do change misaligned behavior in your own life you have great power in helping others make the same change. Plus your living illustration is preachable.)

Body of Christ

The church as the body of Christ: I am just now getting a better grasp of those passages that talk about the body of Christ. I confess I have overlooked the primary point of those passages. Because I had thought that the body imagery was primarily about unity, I had missed what was most germane. We are all to play our part, work within our strengths, using the talents God has given us, doing and being that which God has called us to do and be because “corporately” we are the only representation of Christ to the world; we are the body of Christ. (cf. 1 Tim. 3:15). The body of Christ is not merely and illustration it is the point. This has profound implications; if we are the body of Christ it means that the mission of the church is the same as the mission of Jesus Christ. It begs the question, ”What was Christ’s mission?”

Maybe this is a no-brainer for the rest of us, but I have always thought Jesus accomplished His mission and now the church has a different mission. Now, before you call me naïve, think about it for a moment. Don’t we commonly think that Jesus came to die on the cross? Didn’t he accomplish that mission? Certainly. Now what remains, but for the church to proclaim what Jesus did? There are two missions here: Jesus made the way, the church is to proclaim the way. What if dying on the cross wasn’t Christ’s mission? What if it was only part of the mission?

I thought I would start with the most simple way of discovering what Christ’s mission was and the church’s mission is: I decided I would start with what Jesus said His mission was. Not what He did—because I know how theological types like myself can wax eloquently on what Jesus did and what that means for how we do church. Not what Jesus did, but simply, what mission did Jesus say he was on. I am reading through the gospels first, then the epistles with one question in mind, “What was the mission Christ said He was on?”

Drive Conference 2006

I like the term "resonance."

Tesla claimed to have created a simple mechanical machine that leveraged resonance to create earthquake like effects on large structures. Over time imperceptible tremors would result in catastrophic vibrations that had the potentional to not only shake a skyscraper to the ground, but (according to Tesla) if used properly could even split the core of the earth. While no one has been able to achieve such an effect--theoretically it is possible.

I find myself resonating with the principles that I learned at this year's Drive Conference at Northpoint Community Church. It is my hope and prayer that the resonance of these eternal principles will ripple into the churches of the world and break down the structures that are obstacles for unchurched people to get to God. That means, I believe that the systems in most of our churches are putting barriers in front of people who want to get to God. That means that the church, created to be the body of Christ, created to build a bridge to God and turn on lights, created to do what Jesus did in the world, the pillar of truth is currently failing.

I am convinced that the systems of the North American church are preventing us from fulfilling the Great Commission. Our systems are the reason why 10,000 Southern Baptist Churches--a denomination that has historically focused on evangelism--baptized fewer than 7000 people last year. That is less than 1 person per church. It is why 100's of churches close their doors every year despite locations in growing communities. It is why, every Sunday, 1000s of people pass by our church on their way to the beach or the mall and never think about going to church. Systems are the reason why the church has diminishing impact despite great visions, great teaching, dedicated prayer and large faith. Our teaching, vision, prayer and faith fail because our systems betray our cause.

In Psalm 106:4-5 David desires to be present when God's salvation comes. He looks forward to the coming of Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God. He says, "God, when you do it, when you save your people, when your Kingdom comes, I want to be there." Like David, I want to be there. Here's the difference. David could only hope for the future coming of the Kingdom; he could only hope for what was to come. For us, the Kingdom has come. Jesus embodied the Kingdom and he opened it up to the spiritually impoverished, the meek, the opppressed. The Kingdom has come, but it has not come into many of our churches. The church is not the Kingdom. There are people in the church that are in the Kingdom. . . . but by and large our churches do not reflect the kingdom. Kingdom churches cannot be ignored, because Jesus Christ could not be ignored in His own time. I want to be there when it comes. I want to be part of a ministry that is dedicated to being part of the Kingdom's coming in the lives of the people of our community. Lord, I want to be there. I want to be there when your salvation comes to your people. I want to be with people whose hearts beat in rhythm with Kingdom growth, Kingdom impact, Kingdom living and transformed lives.

Drive Conference 2006

Session 1: Replacing the Filters

Bottomline: If you make it difficult for unchurched people to get to God, you are testing God. Acts 15:20

Session 2: Repairing the Transmission--Liberating Your Organization

Bottomline: Systems creat behaviors.

Components of a system: Expectations/rules, Rewards or lack thereof, Consequences or lack thereof, Communication (content and style), Behavior of those in charge.

The systems of a church will always trump teaching, communication, vision & mission. A mission is meaningless unless you change the system.

Session 3: Changing the Plugs--Recruiting and Retaining Great Volunteers

1. Connect the dots: make volunteers feel that they fulfill a vital role that is connected to the overall mission and strategy of the organization.

2. Start and Stop: Clearly define the beginning and of a volunteers role.

3. Eliminate the Competition: Eliminate competing systems within your organization.

4. Bring them along: apprentice volunteers; don't parachute them into a role.

5. Recognize and reward: Positively reinforce actions that reflect the core values---celebrate the win

6. Make them proud: Create an environment that volunteers would be proud to be a part of. Captivate their imaginations.

7. Staff for stars: Leadership attracts leadership. Hold out for the best leaders.

Session 4: Recharging the Battery--

Bottomline: In conflict, obey God and trust Him with the consequences.

Session 5: Cleaning the Fuel Injectors--Building High Performance Teams

Bottomline: A high performance team is a small group of competent (interdependent) individuals passionately engaged in the execution of a plan designed to solve a specific problem.