If you’re responsible for educating and training church leaders you may not want to read this quote. It will ruin your week.
The same goes for any theological students out there. Especially if you’re in Australia or New Zealand facing end of year exams.
It’s a comment from Sherwood Lingenfelter about the amazing story of how Paul Gupta began asking awkward questions like these and where that took him.
What do you do when you discover that none of your graduates are evangelists or church planters, and that our training program produces completely different results than you intended? What do you do when you discover you have recruited the wrong people for the mission you wanted to accomplish? Most institutions respond by making changes to curriculum and programs, hoping to recover their mission. This rarely, if ever, works since the cause lies in the fundamental design or paradigm of learning in the institution.
I spent 17 years of my life in part time and full time undergraduate and graduate studies. Don’t tell me the ladder was leaning up against the wrong wall.
One Comment
Great image…
so, why on earth are we setting up ladders and climbing walls in the first place, when Jesus commissioned His followers to get out and “go!” Where did we get the educational models we use… certainly not from Jesus. While classroom education may have a place, I reckon our culture gives it a far greater place than is actually effective. I’m sure my primary school education helped lay foundations BUT how much of it can I remember, how much of it applies to my life today… so how effective is it, as a percentage of the time we spend in the classroom?
In the priveleged world we’re the most informed generation in all of human history – are we the most effective? Global warming, global poverty, global disease, multinational greed, dysfunction, psychological trauma, ADHD, ADD, ACDC!! The state of our world is certainly motivation for climbing the walls… but is that what we should be doing? Is there a right wall at all?
Rather than climbing the walls we need to dismantle the walls, get out from behind the walls and among the people. Christian development needs to return to the apprenticeship model of Christ rather than the classroom model we rely on. The desire to fill our heads with information about Christ is not the same thing as a commitment to follow Christ. You generally won’t discover the difference in a classroom. Gupta’s questions are a consequence of this institutional model of education – who said that’s the way we should do Christian development? Why do we stick with a model that has outlived its used by date?
I’m tired of the old Christian adage (I’m generally tired of all Christian adages in general!) that we need to build bridges to our community – we only need to build bridges because we’ve already built ourselves a wall and then we dig ourselves a moat to stop “them” from infecting “us.” It’s time the light got out from under the basket and appeared in the world… it’s time we saw ourselves as the ones with an epidemic to spread – the contagious love of Christ.
I’ve learned more about leadership in the reality of trying to lead people, than I’ve ever done from sitting in a lecture on leadership or reading a leadership book. I learned more about Pastoral Care by asking to go on visits with a caring Pastor, than I did from teachers in a classroom. I learned more about funerals by conducting one than I ever did by reading…
Dismantle the walls and be a disciple…
the ramblings of a celtic son
ps i am aware that sitting in front of a computer screen typing this into cyberspace, is a complete contradiction of the skin on skin apprenticeship model I’m suggesting… bah!