A word from heaven.

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Teaching the Word of God

What i am about to share is not for you to judge others. It is meant for self improvement. So don't take what i am about to share and judge your pastor. Look at yourself 1st. ok! here we go...

I get really really irritated and burdened when i attend a Christian event where there is a sharing and the sharing is not up to scratch. I get really disturbed when i know that the teaching could have been better prepared, presented to the person's ability or to the teaching/topic's impact.

We've all had our fair share of attending bad teachings. It is those teachings which you walk away from it feeling that you have wasted you time. You really try your best to learn something from it but you just learned nothing.

Or if you are a teacher, you know that you could have done much better in terms of presentation and preparation.

Do you know how much damage a bad teaching can do? Let me give a few instances:

1) People (especially non believers) are not going to be so graceful to say, oh, this guy is having a bad day. Maybe he didn't teach well because he is struggling with some issues in his life. They are not going to say that.

Instead, what you present to them, they are just going to give you that one chance to impact them. They will judge you by that session.

2) Not only will they judge you only, they will judge the entire 2000 years of Christian teachers based on what you teach.

Teach well and they will be convinced that Christianity is relevant and not boring.

Teach badly and they are likely write off each and every teacher for the past 2000 years because you represent them!! They will not give you a second chance. Especially if they are non believers.

3) The message of God deserves better then how some of us are presenting it. The way some of us teach the word of God takes every bit of interesting thing out of the message. It make the gospel sound like some chant. It makes sitting through the teaching a chore. They are like the age old priests at the pulpit.

Come on, let's be faithful with the concepts and teaching God has given us. Make it interesting. Make it relevant. Don't turn people off the love of God with your monotonous, get-it-over and done with, dull teachings.

4) Don't just say i do my best! Say i want to learn to do better as a teacher. Pick up skills. Watch online sermons, watch how other people do public speaking!

I remember that when i was preparing for the Ns vision night, shirley asked me to watch Obama's speeches. Not to watch it for the content but to learn from his public speaking skills. I did and i improved from there.

I learned story telling skills from pastor Wayne Cordeiro, i learned analogies and sermon structuring from Pastor Rick Warren, I learned how to inspire from Bill Hybels. My point is, if you're not that a good teacher, its ok! Learn to be one.

The gift of teaching is one which needs to be constantly exercised and trained for you to be powerful with it.

5) The bar has been set higher and higher as Christianity develops. You may be able to pass off as a teacher of the word of God in the past with just good biblical concepts. However, it does not work with this generation anymore.

The media has exposed this generation to so many great speakers and inspirational stuff that it is much more difficult to capture their imagination and attention now as compared to the pre-youtube, pre-internet, pre-television era.

The bar has been raised by people like Rick Warren, Bill Hybels and Billy Graham. There is no point in having all the biblical knowledge in the world but not being able to present it in a manner that people will embrace the message of Christ. Its a challenge that we need to live up to.

6) Every teaching has to be a homerun. Never take teaching the word of God lightly. If at the end of the day, you are not faithful with what God has give you, blood is on your hands.

To Start off things, I've posted a series of 4 lessons in the Resource hub-Restricted area for you to download. They are all password protected. This is to prevent the teaching from falling into the wrong hands. Drop me an email at shockerbolt@hotmail.com or leave a email in the comment page if you want to access the teaching.

They include:

a) Principles of Teaching the word of God: What kind of attitudes should we have as Teachers so that we can teach it well?

b) Lesson formulation: How to we structure, write or prepare a teaching? What should we include in a message?

c) Practical skills of teaching: How should we present the word of God? It cover things from public speaking skills to killers of a teaching.

d) Vision casting: What are the essentials in a vision casting? How should we structure a challenge?

Regards,

Jie Hui

Labels: Leadership

The kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.

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Thursday, August 21, 2008