An article by Israel Galindo appears in the current issue of Congregations magazine from Alban Institute. The article is titled “What’s Systems Theory Got to Do with It?: Addressing Congregations’ Emotional Processs in Our Preaching.” In it, Galindo says, “The sermon is as much about the preacher, the congregation, and their relationship in the context of being church as it is about the text.”
I recently visited a church in which a staff member did the “children’s sermon†during the morning worship service. It was all I could do to keep from moaning and cringing. This staff member broke all of the “rules†for delivering a children’s sermon. I’ll spare you the gruesome and unfortunate details of the performance, suffice it to say it was one of the best examples I’ve seen of the worst way to do it.
I’m not quite sure about what makes children’s sermons such a universally bad practice in congregations. I suspect a lot of it has to do with two things: (1) a lack of understanding of the developmental characteristics of children, and (2) a lack of a clearly articulated theology of children in the church. A little effort in those two areas can go a long way in helping church leaders and members be more effective in the way they minister to, and with, the children in their congregation.
Here are the suggestions I share with pastors about how to deliver a children’s sermon. There are other concepts and points that can be made, but these address the more egregious sins committed in this regard:
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Sometimes I get the nagging suspicion that there may be some things that are “unteachable.†Ironically, those things may be the most important things we want to teach, things like maturity, emotional intelligence, faith, and the usable part of systems theory—that part which we are able to actually live and apply and not merely “know something about.â€
There are two educational thoughts that challenge my occasional suspicion. Those are: (1) you can teach anybody anything in twenty minutes, and (2) “any subject could be taught to any child at any age in some form that is honest.†(Bruner, pp. ix, 33, 47) While number one may not be provable, the second has the weight of research and evidence behind it.
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Interestingly enough, we’ve yet to have a “second chair” post on the blog. This is interesting in that most of us in the GRACE group fall under that category. Whether you are a second chair or first chair in your current ministry position it may be worth working through this informal and unscientific quiz. posted on Todd Rhode’s blog, Monday Morning Insight.
Take the quiz for youself as a checkup. Take it with your fellow staff members to open up some honest sharing. If you’re a first chair lead your staff to take it together, and you go first in sharing the results (after all, going first is what leadership is all about, isn’t it?).
We all know that one can be lonely in a crowd. And too often, things are even lonelier in a ministry staff setting when our relationship with colleagues is superficial, distant, and lacks honesty and collegiality.
In the field of community psychology (yes, there is a field of community psychology), the theory of “logical types†and the concepts of first and second order change can help us understanding some aspects of addressing homeostasis in relationship systems.
The Theory of Groups says that any group is composed of members who are alike in one common characteristic, and their “actual nature†other than that characteristic is irrelevant when it comes to trying to bring about change. Groups are said to have four properties that support this contention:
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The idea of self-differentiation has within it the hint of the idea of the necessity to “know thyself.†Evidence of this is the emphases on achieving insight into how we got to be who we are (family of origin work) and understanding about what we are working on becoming—being clear about values, beliefs, principals, etc. The unspoken assumption here may be that the more we “know ourselves†the more capacity we have to move toward self-differentiation.
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In his book, A Failure of Nerve, Ed Friedman writes about the tendency of ineffective leaders who exhibit the tendency to seek the “quick fix†and the obsession with methods, techniques, and programs rather than engage in the hard work of leadership that focuses on challenge which leads to growth. He said,
“The difference between a professional and a hack is not in their degree or training. Both may do what they do with polish; but the hack is not transformed by his experience.†(p. 88).
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We’ve added a new poster to the Art Gallery section of the Educational Consultants website. Go to Links/Art Gallery to locate the poster. The poster is titled “Love” and has the text of John 3:16.
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One of the continuing paradoxes of Christian education in congregations (and in most seminaries, admittedly) is that the ways we’ve chosen to go about teaching for faith is actually inimical to how people need to learn it.
Here are some basic pedagogical concepts:
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Well, Lent is almost over, so I’m looking forward to enjoying again some of the things I’ve “given up” during the season of denial and penitance. If you’ve had trouble sticking with going without, or if you’ve had trouble giving up a food item or two, consider spending some time on the Gallery of Regrettable Food website as you start next year’s Lenten season.
This is one of the funniest sites I’ve seen in a while. I belly laughed (no pun intended) through the whole thing. The writing is hilarious–a wicked sense of humor. It’s also an interesting social retrospective on how emerging food technologies and marketing made for interesting bedfellows. Obviously, marketing seems to have yet to come into its own in the 50s. Enjoy.