Presume to Teach

Here’s that stack-of-books picture that all us preacher/teacher types like to post from time to time.  

I think we think it makes us look smart or important; or at least we hope it is proof of our invisible work and justifies all the time we’ve sequestered ourselves in our offices (or at the cottage).

I’ve just come off a teaching-intensive kind of summer.  Just measuring Sundays alone, of the nine weeks between June 23 and September 1, I’ve been ‘off’ two Sundays only.  Not all of that involved teaching, but the bulk of it did. 

Every sermon is researched and a thesis statement is constructed, delivery is rehearsed, and then there’s the sermon itself.  Many have Power Points or other visual assists to prepare.  While in Thailand the teaching component becomes a daily thing, with curriculum development, learning objectives, lesson plans, and themed teaching manipulatives.  Coming home from Thailand, I’ve hidden myself away at the cottage in unscheduled seclusion to prepare for the next run of sermons, both in Canada and in Thailand, as well as a month of Bible and ESL lessons, again with the kids at Hot Springs in October.

I checked off the last prep task this morning, and had this sobering realization.

 “Whoa!  That’s a LOT of teaching!” 

Last fall when I dug deep into a Directed Reading and Research credit on Cross Cultural Teaching, I felt like, in the Christian Education bibliography, I found again my ‘tribe’.  Seems all my life I’ve been teaching in some capacity or another.   There’s so much passion and joy in this for me.  But also.

Really, who do I think I am?  What a preposterous presumption!  The seriousness of this weighs heavy sometimes, like the load of books I’ll soon be packing to take back to the city with me.   I know I’m not alone in this.  Any teacher with a conscience understands this sense of weighted audacity.

I am reminded of this around a lively lunch table just a few days ago, which included another lady preacher and so the conversation came around to what constitutes ‘strong’ preaching.   I had a few thoughts to add to the mix, but they were tempered by previous conversations I’ve had earlier this year with another vigorous group to which I belong, who in the course of our discussion had laid out a robust rubric for sermons.  In that conversation, which I appreciated very much, I had felt like I didn’t quite measure up. 

Then, of course, when you put yourself out there, you invite ‘feedback’, or ‘constructive criticism’ or whatever it is you might want to call those often off hand comments just after or even just before you get up to preach.   “Thank you for letting me know your thoughts.  I will take that into consideration.”

And I will.  Deeply, in fact.  Because we’re sensitive like that, us preacher/teacher types, sometimes causing us to stack up  pile of books and take a picture to post if we get the chance.

In his cautions about how we can misuse words, teacher/preacher James takes a direct line to speak to the weight of this matter.

“Not many of your should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.  We all stumble in many ways.  Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.”  James 3:1-2

I think James, who by the way had pretty impressive credentials (besides having written one of the books included in our New Testatment!), has nailed it.  Stay humble.  Be ever mindful.  With many words comes the opportunity for many “stumblings” (in other places in his letter, he’ll outright call this sin). 

It’s a brutal task, but necessary, this self-awareness, honest self-critiquing thing.   Sometimes I wonder if the most responsible thing to do about it is just quit.  Which I will do, if the people I’ve put in my life to keep in check and help me decide these matters agree that it’s time. 

But for now I’m simply packing up to go home.  And like so many teachers preparing classrooms right about now, I’ll presume to move forward, presume I might have something to offer, presume that God might be able to take whatever loaves and fishes I’ve been able to pack, and feed the gathered people somehow.