Stretching Minds V
We’ve been talking about how to stretch minds in this series of posts, and I’ve suggested fours approaches that aren’t about scheduling events. However we can schedule things that address whatever we think needs addressing. In this final post I’d like to suggest some events you could schedule. I imagine Pastors reading this will come up with others ideas as they read, that’s great, do your ideas.
I’ve deliberately come to this last, we often rush to programmes as our ‘solutions’ to problems, and running an event won’t ‘solve’ anything. As I’ve written about before, looking for solutions is itself part of the problem.
Nevertheless, we can run events. They can be useful. Just don’t do any of these if they’re the only thing you’re doing.
One off events
Why not schedule a one-off evening or Saturday morning or whenever works for your church on a particular topic? I personally have recently done these on the storyline of the Bible and on understanding the Cross. You structure something that involves some front led teaching and some activities that people can get involved in, and some Q&A. I analyse my plans to make sure I’ve covered all three, depending on the topic I might even force myself to make them a third each. That isn’t most preachers intuition, but can lead to strongly interactive times, based on some learning theory, so people hear information, can interact with others over that information, and then can push deeper by interrogating that information with you.
If you don’t know how to do that, that’s fair enough, but teachers in your congregation do. Maybe sit one of them down for an evening and get them to help you plan something.
You could do a quick event like this on any doctrinal or ethical topic. Or, if you really want, get in touch and I’ll come and do it for you or help you plan it.
Teach the Creeds
After you’ve done some one-off events and built some appetite, you’ll want to do something longer and more fulsome. I’ve taught a short course on key theological topics across ten evenings. You could stretch that across a year or do it through a few months back-to-back.
It can work really well, but you can also go bigger. You can do Saturday mornings or Sunday evenings to squeeze an extra hour into your time, or even whole day Saturdays. The appetite will be lower the longer it is, simply because people aren’t always that available, but there is that much to say about key doctrinal topics.
If you’re looking for an organisational structure, you could do what I did and just work through the key ‘loci’, but if I were planning it again I’d do it differently, I’d structure it around one of the creeds. If you took, for example, the Apostle’s Creed and split that into ten sections—which works quite nicely—you’ll cover everything you might want to and be forced to work through important doctrines we might otherwise ignore, like the Ascension.
It’ll also have the benefit of keeping you teaching the real basics that all Christians agree on, for all you’ll inevitably explore some areas of disagreement. You may also want to find a way to teach the specific commitments your church has, but giving people the basics is a really good idea.
Teach the Bible
Even if you did a morning on the Bible’s storyline, people will still not know the big picture. Honestly you could give them ten Saturdays across a year working through the Bible’s storyline. If you could get them to turn up, this would be beneficial for everyone involved.
I did once plan the curriculum for a theology school that took a year through the Apostle’s Creed and then another year through the Bible, working chronologically. We could touch on pretty much everything in that framing. I don’t know if I’d ever run it, but if there’s appetite in your church, put it on!
Teach Ethics
It’s also not a terrible way to approach a range of important topical issues. While our preaching should touch on them, if you want to explore human sexuality, or assisted suicide, or medical ethics more broadly, or technology, or education, you could definitely run an evening where you present a little of what the Bible has to say and then give lots of space for questions and discussion. I suspect we often don’t do that because we think it could get a little out of hand. I understand. I think we should grasp the nettle anyway. The only way out is through.
I like the idea of something like a regular Sunday night seminar, where you do something more topical than you’d do in your preaching and explore a concept or question from a couple of sides. One of the benefits of being more regular is that you don’t have to be exhaustive. If you speak on sexuality once you feel like you have to do everything in an hour and a half. If you have many bites of cherry you can explore the Bible’s varied teaching, placing things in tension if they need to be, or just approaching from different angles. It also gives you the benefit of being able to hear questions you have no clue about and decide to plan in a session to explore that once you’ve had a chance to think about and prepare for it.
Have I just invented a Sunday night service? Not really, but as a complete aside I do think we should be more open to Sunday evening as a time to schedule stuff (‘instead of’ rather than ‘as well as’ midweek) in order to help us rest together. That sounds counterintuitive because we don’t understand rest.
Do things that address stuff
That’s the principle: do things that address stuff. What are the questions your people have? You can schedule a preaching series, after all not everyone will come to whatever the thing is, but why not schedule a thing.
There are three questions you’ll need to answer here. First, what stuff needs addressing? Pastors will know their congregations and know the questions people have. You’ll also have a sense of what’s next in the culture, or at least be reading the people that have a sense of that.
Second, what thing can address the stuff. Sometimes talking for 90 minutes is the answer, but when you’re a regular preacher we default to ‘preaching but longer’ too easily. Perhaps other ‘things’ might be a good idea.
Third, when and how often will you do the thing to address the stuff? You might love to do a day on it, but suspect no one will come based on past experience, but perhaps an evening might work. Do that then. Then, the one we all forget, just because you said it once doesn’t mean you don’t need to say it again. The most difficult issues in culture need to be talked about more, not less, because they’re the most difficult issues people are facing. Perhaps you don’t need to run the same thing again, but you will need to do something again; possibly even quite soon.
Schedule things that address stuff as regularly as you need to. Answer people’s questions. Answer the questions you wish they were asking too. Keep pointing them to Jesus as the answer.
Photo by Taylor Cole on Unsplash
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