|
Teaching I have enjoyed (immensely) teaching God’s
Scriptures to the juniors, junior high schoolers, high schoolers, collegiates,
and post-collegiates at my church for the past six years. Most likely, they do not internalize the
majority of the teaching. In part, I do not want to be overly concerned. Doing so moves me toward a performance
mentality. However, I should still be
concerned about the way I teach. Does
it remove barriers or does it add obstacles to the learning process? Over time, I have improved on the former and
tried my best to prevent the latter. I have developed a set of
methods/attitudes with how I teach (pardon the sinister lingo that
follows):
Scheme
I clandestinely glean
what issues my students are dealing/struggling with (by dialoguing with them in
informal settings) and I teach with an agenda to address them. That does not
mean I do eisegesis (read into Scriptures my own interpretation) but rather I
choose certain Scriptures that are relevant to the issue/struggle.
Encounter
I try to get the group as close to the text as possible. This takes a variety of forms. I may make the group study a painting, watch a
movie clip, act out the text, or draw their depiction of the text in order to
make them pay attention to the details.
Essentially, I maneuver them to practice observation and apply
that skill to reading Scriptures.
Poke
I probe and prod the group
and do my best imitation of the Great Teacher who queried his listeners
strategically. I avoid questions that
evoke pat Sunday School answers like "Jesus", "God", and "Bible". Unfortunately, the church
culture that most of the learners grew up in does not lend itself quite well
with open-ended questions so I have to be strategic in how I frame questions in
order to draw out meaningful insights-and believe you me there are some great
insights lurking in the minds of my church community. I relish the times when I do not do the majority of the
talking. I am not a didactic learner
so I lean heavily towards teaching in a non-didactic manner. Nonetheless, I do believe didactic teaching
is useful (but over-used)and didactic preaching is essential.
Subvert
I take examples from
culture or popular misunderstandings of God and I explore them to eventually
expose their falsehood in light of the overarching story that God weaves
throughout Scritpure.
I have a lot to
grow as a teacher though. I need to
better unfurl to learners how they can exercise their faith and live out the
gospel concretely. Here are some of the
learners that I have had the privilege of teaching...and no I did not teach them what they were doing in the pic. 
More pics from Project Poverty here.
| 
