One of the popular concepts over the past decade or so has been that of “learning styles.” It’s an idea that’s been around for many years in the field of education but it has been in danger of becoming “faddish” of late. Depending on how you count and who you read, there may be upwards of twenty-five identified “learning styles.” This may seem a bit excessive given the fact that people have only five senses that they depend on through which to “learn” throughout their lives. How many “new” ways of learning can we identify that are distinct enough to warrant adding to the list?

[Read more...]

One of the most frustrating things for congregational educators is the little spoken dirty little secret about their teachers and planning. That secret being that most volunteer church educators, Sunday school teachers and Bible study leaders, tend to do a minimum of planning in preparation for teaching. Most have fined-tuned a routine of Saturday night cramming. Only a few do anything that can be considered advances planning, study, and preparation.

Some of this is understandable given that most of our church teachers have full-time jobs, lead full lives at work and with family. Add to that recreation, hobbies, and just the pragmatic details of living (cooking, cleaning, homemaking and maintenance, laundry, auto care, personal care, and other domestic chores) and whatever may be let over for study and planning is minimal. But, while we can sympathize, we are tempted in our better moments to admit that those are not good excuses for not living up to an important commitment. As James said, “Let not many of you desire to teach, for those of use who teach will be held to a higher reckoning.” (James )

[Read more...]

The concept of the emotional triangle often is referred to as the “building block” for emotional process dynamics in relationship systems (families, churches, organizations, etc.). Dual relationships (one on one) are difficult to maintain so it does not take long for a triangle to develop. A triangle is made up of any three persons in a relationship, or two persons and an issue. Triangles are not only the way we tend to default in our relationships (dual relationships are impossible to maintain) but they are also the most effective (if not always the most efficient) way we have for handling interpersonal anxiety. However, getting into an anxious triangle is a sure way of tripping and stumbling into something that can get us stuck.

[Read more...]

I had a friend in college who dreaded going home on the weekends. The problem was that he never knew what he’d find in terms of the living decor and arrangements. It seems his mother had a penchant for creative interior decorating. That’s putting it mildly. It was more like a mania with her. On any given weekend the furniture would be rearranged, walls re-painted, whole rooms redecorated, and on occasion, rooms switched around (a dining room became a den and the den became a guest room). On one exasperating visit my friend arrived home to find that his room had been moved from the upstairs to the basement! As a result of that chaos my friend developed a penchant for routine, almost to the point of excess.

[Read more...]

When I was in parish ministry I enjoyed writing corporate prayers for worship. Many of those found their way in a collection in the book Let Us Pray. It’s been a while since I’ve written a corporate prayer for worship, but recently my pastor asked me to lead “the prayers of the people” at our church’s Pentecost Sunday service. Here it is below. Perhaps too late for this year, but maybe you can file it away for next year’s Pentecost Sunday.

[Read more...]

One of the most unfortunate practices I see often in instruction is when a teacher’s goal is to get “right answers” from students. This is not to say that getting your students to get it right is wrong–in fact, it’s very desirable. Usually what happens, however, is the teacher is engaged in teaching a concept and then pauses to “test” to see if students are getting it. The teacher asks a question intended to solicit a right answer, then is satisfied when one or two students answer correctly. It seems that in the mind of the teacher a right answer indicates that learning has taken place and the student understands the concept.

[Read more...]

Please note the new listing on the blogroll for Chuck Warnock’s blog, Confessions of a Small-Church Pastor. Chuck is pastor of the Chatham Baptist Church, Chatham, VA. Spend some time on Chuck’s blog and visit the church’s website. You’ll be glad you did.

When it comes to effective teaching, “less is more.” While the brain is an amazing information and multi-sensory processor, it can only effectively learn one new thing (concept) at a time. The maximum number of “bits of information” the mind can process at any given time is eight (like in the “eight bits” of a computer chip), or, as sometimes notated “7 +/- 2″ (seven plus or minus two).* When it comes to teaching, we do well to focus on teaching one (1) new concept at each learning session (that’s one new concept per class session!).

[Read more...]

I’ve only watched one Veggie Tales story. It was a televised Christmas special some years ago. I thought it was cute, and well done. It didn’t convince me to change our practice in our church to NOT use videos in Sunday school or any children’s programming, though. It’s not that we believed that there’s something inherently evil in media. We just held the conviction that: (1) kids were exposed to enough passivity-inducing media during the week—they didn’t need more of that in church; (2) Christian education is about relationships, so we wanted lots of quality relationship time between teacher and child and among the children; (3) given that for most educational programming we had the kids for less than an hour we felt is was poor stewardship to give up that precious time to someone else or to entertainment.

[Read more...]

The current issue of Christian Reflection: A Series in Faith and Ethics, published by The Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University, addresses the issue of Catechism. It contains some very good articles as well as downloadable teaching plans for all of the articles. I really enjoy this series. It’s good for congregational study groups and personal study. Downloadables and personal copy is free. Copies for study groups are $2.50 per copy.

Check it out at:

Web site: www.ChristianEthics.ws
Email: Christian_Reflection@Baylor.edu