by Fred Peatross, New Wineskins
May - June, 2008
“Over the last decade there has been a total dumbing down in the church. I don’t think you can argue with me about that. People are reading less; fewer churches are meeting for Wednesday night Bible class, Sunday morning bible class attendance is down, and fewer Christians read and study their Bible. If you ask me the church is ill prepared to navigate the future.”
This comment was made in the heat of a recent discussion. And this was just one of the comments among many. It didn’t catch me off guard or concern me. But why should it? (I chose not to verbalize this.) I’ve heard similar sentiments expressed on other occasions. Actually many times before.
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In Jesus’ day trades were learned through apprenticeships, observation, and practice with little verbalized instruction. The apprentice hunter hunted with the experienced hunter. The novice Roman seamstress worked on a toga with a skilled Roman seamstress. What the apprentice learned was not so much abstracted rules or decontextualized generalities (the stuff of how-to-manuals) as a vast range of particulars and a varied repertoire for responding to particulars.
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In a time much more analogous to the first century (more so than any other period in recent history) the apprentice model rises from another era to charm today’s leader with an effectual training process. If ever there was a moment in time for leaders to become the purveyors of wisdom for the next generation the time is now. Teaching God’s people to love, to turn the other cheek, to walk the extra mile, and grow in one’s prayer life demands far more than an educational model.
You cannot diagram the formula or sprinkle salt on a cucumber to get a pickle—you have to marinate cucumbers in vinegar or salt water. To look like, and then leak the life of Jesus one must “marinate” in a mentoring relationship, absorbing the things of life—unaware—until one day you realize you are a different person with a new serenity and love, a different kind of mercy and grace, a different kind of humility and openness.
Teilhard de Chardin reminds us that, “we are not human beings having a spiritual experience but spiritual beings having a human experience.”
1 comment:
Maybe he's not so concerned about decreased attendance at traditional times of study because he understands that there are so many alternate means of learning and educating oneself these days, such as DVDs, podcasts of Christian material and sermons to download to your iPod and then listen to at your leisure, as well as many excellent Christian books and on-line universities, etc., etc., etc. Right. In our busy worlds, maybe a few are actually doing these things. Maybe the few who "by constant use have trained themselves" to learn. I have a feeling that if anything is lacking, it's not educational materials, but spiritual discipline. I know, but I'm working on it! Just like tithing the first fruits of our income, am I tithing the firstfruits of my time, devoting some time to daily study and prayer? Adam touched on this in Bible class Sunday morning. A second important concern for me though is that these times a body has set aside during the week for Bible study are also good times for discipleship, for connecting, for family living. We're not doing much barn raising like the Amish. Get the image of men working elbow to elbow, and women making delicious food together. Instead, we each go to our respective grindstones each day, coming together as a family only at these prescribed times. If we are missing these times, then when is anybody living life together? We really ought to meet more, not less. But how? NA church is always making efforts in the right direction. Let's keep trying to stay out of our rooms, away from the TV, UNplugged from whatever. Counterculture. Counter the world's culture. -pj
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