Exploring the First Century Church: Instruction & Teaching
The last post talked about the Bible proper. This post is going to be exploring how the early church went about making instructions and teaching from what they had. As was already mentioned, completed New Testaments took some time to be compiled, copied and circulated as a whole for the churches in the ancient world. […]
A Light Bulb Moment in Teaching the Bible – Try this out!
When we teach and when we are in class we are expecting to get more words from the teacher than the text. I propose a new approach. This is not something to do every time you teach but I have tried this and I think you will find it worth your while and a memorable […]
The Value of Collaboration & Team Teaching
Have you ever co-taught with someone? Five years ago the Spiritual Growth Workshop director asked Donny Dillon, Eric Brown and me to teach a class on outreach to young adults. It was one of my first big tastes of collaboration and I really enjoyed it. Beyond just being an enjoyable experience, I grew a lot […]
Why I am Teaching On Thanksgiving the Sunday After Thanksgiving
Some time ago Eric Brown mentioned to me something he thought he heard from N.T. Wright…that is that in the Gospels and Acts teaching, discussion, and debriefing usually followed events rather than preceded them. Yet, somehow, we usually teach first and then try to do some kind of application after the teaching. Think about it, […]
Staying Relevant: Six Things to Keep In Mind
I once read that the reason the world is dissatisfied with church is because the church spends too much time answering questions that no one is asking. That one hit me between the eyes. We have to be relevant…no compromising on that one.It is important that the church understands its own relevance in the world. […]
Teaching Workshop With Houston Heflin This Saturday
Northwest is hosting a teacher training workshop this Saturday from 9-12 with Dr. Houston Heflin of ACU. I have known Houston for at least 10 years and have a tremendous amount of respect for him. If you live in the Tampa Bay area or even in central Florida come on over to Northwest this Saturday […]
Teaching Forgetable Bible Classes and Redefining Success
The world throws so much data at us that we now forget more than the average person consumed 10-20 years ago. This has a direct impact on our teaching. How many Bible classes do you specifically remember over the last 5-10 years? If your answer is, not very many, it shows us that the goal […]
How Useful is Giving Out Class, Sermon and Small Group Notes in Advance
A friend recently asked the question of whether or not it would be beneficial to share sermon notes in advance of the sermon or if doing that would be distracting. The only times I have ever given out notes to a sermon in advance is to our lady who does sign language. I talk pretty […]
Ten Principles for Grooming Future Teachers
The pool of people who are capable of teaching a Bible class with a high degree of skill is getting smaller and smaller. I am not saying that in reflection of those who teach at Northwest. Our teachers do a great job. But the number of people who are interested in teaching and skilled enough […]
Assumptions and Communication
Assumptions are powerful. What we communicate has everything to do with the assumptions we have about what is going on, who people are, and what people need. Assumptions usually grow and develop based on things being the same or constant for a period of time so that we begin to expect things will always be […]