GOOD TEACHING IS HARD TO FIND

(No time to revise tonight - this is very rough drafty.) 

Good teaching is hard to find. 

I know there are standout teachers at all levels, but have you ever noticed that, on average, as the grade level increases, the quality of teaching decreases?

Kindergarten and first grade teachers are masters at the art of teaching. They have to be, or their kids make no progress - which proves to be very apparent at that stage! Administrators and parents put lots of pressure on teachers at the front end of kids' education. 

But by high school? It's fairly common to hear students complaining about "not learning anything" over an entire semester. And often it isn't really hyperbole. 

By the time a student gets to the college level, "teaching" is pretty much synonymous with "lecturing". 

And this paragraph and the next will likely not make it into my dissertation in any form, but I was astonished by the poor teaching practices I encountered during my two years taking classes at the doctoral level. I had one professor out of 8 who really excelled at TEACHING. 

The others "knew their stuff", no doubt about it, and they were wonderful people. But if they ever took courses on best teaching practices, it didn't show.

(In fact, as I understand it, once I have my doctorate degree, I will be magically qualified to teach at the seminary level - not because I happen to have been trained as a teacher and have years of experience, but by virtue of having a depth of knowledge on some particular topic and a degree to prove it. And, obviously, attaining a depth of knowledge for oneself does not automatically translate into the ability to convey that knowledge to others.) 

So if even those in the teaching profession often fail in educating their students, what hope do we have that pastors will automatically be good teachers? Does attending seminary qualify someone to teach?

I am not aware of any seminary which requires general students to take classes on best practices in educating others.

But what's crazy is this: good teaching IS hard to find, but it's not overly complicated to do. 

PREACHING AND TEACHING

When I started serving as minister at Sardinia Baptist Church two and a half years ago, I quickly realized I was much more comfortable Teaching rather than Preaching.

At first, I wasn't even aware that there was a difference and I'm still not sure where the line between the two actually is drawn.

Maybe I'm being overly simplistic, but I understand Preaching as aimed at the heart and the spirit. It is meant to motivate and persuade.

And Teaching is aimed at the mind, seeking to foster knowledge and understanding. Its goal is to explain and equip. 

Both can and should spur transformation. Under Preaching, it is the transformation of thoughts, words, and actions. 

And under Teaching, it is the imagination.  

I don't suppose either is inherently more valuable, but I do think there is an order: Teaching first, and then Preaching. 

There should be an order and there should be balance.

But in the American church, Preaching has long been prioritized over Teaching.

TWO TROUBLES

Ronald Reagan famously said, "The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so."

And I would say that, unfortunately, American Christianity suffers from both troubles: ignorance and wrong belief. 

Both, in the end, amount to unbelief.

Off the top of my head, here are a few important things I would guess most American Christians are ignorant of:

• The scope of the gospel
• The historical context of various books of the Bible
• The cultural contexts of the original audiences
• The metanarrative of the Bible
• Church history
• The major themes of the Bible

And a few of the things, in my opinion, which many American Christians "know that isn't so":

• Hell as eternal conscious torment
• Calvinism and all its distinctives regarding predestination, election, sovereignty, and etc.
• Penal substitutionary atonement 
• Faith as mental assent to propositional truth

THE HEART OF THE PROBLEM

At the heart of my dissertation work is the importance of education.

To put it negatively, a lack of proper education is often found at the very heart of society's greatest problems. And if it's not at the heart, at the very least poor education exacerbates other societal weaknesses.

Take our nation's current political climate as an example. How much of today's polarization could be toned down if the populace was trained in critical thinking?

I believe this much: if the citizens magically became critical thinkers tomorrow, much of the politicians' rhetoric would fall flat. Their word games would be over and they might be forced to govern instead. 

Fix the education and you fix the culture.

I believe the same is true within the American Church - we have a major education problem. And it's the root cause of all sorts of issues which weaken the witness and the power of the Church. And jeopardizes its future. 

Believers, by and large, simply do not know the Scriptures. In fact, they do not even know how to read them or where to start. They are fully dependent on interpretation done by pastors who are almost as ignorant. As a result, too many believers don't know God's character, His mission, or His provision for humanity.

They certainly don't seem to know the gospel. 

So how does the Church's education problem get fixed? Where do we start?

I know there's no quick fix. 

But I believe the starting point is with the young. 

P.S. I recognize that it's entirely possible this is only confirmation bias on my part - since I am a teacher at heart. Maybe I want to believe that teachers have the power to solve the world's problems. (But maybe they do.)

COMING CHALLENGES

I have a recurring stress dream where I am a new teacher in an unfamiliar school and I'm running late on my first day of classes. As I run down the hallway (sometimes in my underwear), I realize I have forgotten where my classroom is. 

Yesterday, reading the email informing me that I was a month into a class I didn't even know I was enrolled in felt a lot like that.

But only at first. 

After the initial shock wore off, I discovered I wasn't feeling too panicked in general. 

The class's major project will be the completion of my prospectus, a 20 to 25-page paper outlining the parameters of my project and giving a theological justification for it. 

And I have already done that once.

And, yes, my first attempt was rejected - for good reasons.

I am (2 years) older and wiser now and my foundational convictions are firmer. It shouldn't be TOO time-consuming to revise my prospectus. It's always much easier to start from a rough draft than a blank page.

The real challenge at this point will be twofold:

• Narrowing the focus of this beast down to a manageable size.
• And facing what comes next once this step is completed. 

If I'm honest, fear of next steps has been a major factor in my delay in revising and resubmitting my prospectus. 

BACK TO IT

I'm back to writing daily.

Because ...

1. I missed it. I have felt somewhat mentally adrift ever since I fell out of the habit. Writing helps me process life and reinforces whatever the Lord is currently teaching me. It's too useful to neglect.
2. I have a renewed purpose. Today (Noevember 5, 2025) I got notice that - unbeknownst to me - I am a full month into a 6-month class required for my dissertation! 

Yes, I have missed at least one assignment and a Zoom meeting so far.

Wesley Biblical Seminary decided they needed to light a little fire under a handful of their doctorate students who are stalled out - including yours truly. And so they established a new class.

Sure, it would have been nice to learn about the October start date in September rather than November, but I applaud the school's proactiveness. I NEED some deadlines if I am ever going to finish.

In theory, by the end of this class I will have my prospectus completed and, God willing, approved. 

In order to get everything processed and written by the end of March, though, I will need to invest time daily.

So THAT is my renewed purpose for this blog for the time being.

Hopefully, the things I write here in the coming weeks can serve as rough draft material for my dissertation. 

(The last time I tried to reignite my writing habit was in July, just before Melissa and I went to Scotland to celebrate our 25th anniversary. I was too much in the moment to write daily during that trip, but of course I now wish I had followed through with that writing!) 

GRANITE CITY

(I will add some photos to this post when I can.)

Aberdeen.

It's a place name that meant something to me from my earliest childhood, long before I first stepped foot on the campus of Aberdeen University as a college junior the fall of 1988. 

My father's roots were in Aberdeen, South Dakota. It is where my family drove in the summertime for a visit to my grandparents. 

The warm feelings and familiarity with the name "Aberdeen" undoubtedly played a role in making Scotland first choice among the study abroad options available to me.

(My shyness and lack of foreign language study outside of high school Latin and a year of faltering French at Wabash had already limited my choices to English-speaking countries.) 

It was a strange sensation to be back in Aberdeen for the first time in 36 years. The campus of the University of Aberdeen, like the rest of the city, is constructed of stone - primarily granite - so there is much that has not changed. 

And that aids in my recollections of my year in Scotland.

I can remember the names and faces of a few friends I made through Bible studies on campus. I can vaguely picture one professor as well as the arrogant Englishman who was the campus liaison for all of the American students. I recall trips to the corner grocery store to buy cookies and weekly calls home from the pay phones in a dark hallway just off my dorm's lobby. I vaguely remember taking a bus into the heart of the city on Sunday mornings and then walking up long, wide steps to attend a church with two friends from the Shetland Islands. 

I was thinking of all these things last night as Melissa and I walked through the center of campus. 

Unfortunately, even surrounded by the granite, my memory failed to resurrect most details of my daily life in Aberdeen those 9 months. They have been lost.  

This might sound strange, but I have long hoped that one of the blessings of the afterlife will be the restoration of our memories to perfection. 

I think it would be fascinating to look back over each stage of my life to see what words, thoughts, and events shaped me into the person I am. 

For the next 24 hours, I know I will be chewing on this mystery: who was I before coming to Aberdeen, Scotland and how did the Granite City shape me? 

P.S. In one of those sad ironies of life, my brother Ryan called on Monday to say that our Uncle Spencer had passed away. He was a sweet, loving, and all-around good-natured man. I am saddened to not be able to travel to South Dakota for his funeral. My 3 brothers will all be pallbearers and Spencer will be buried Monday ... in a cemetery in Aberdeen, South Dakota.