Time for a new post. I'm feeling really stretched the last oh...lets see...6 months since I started at Crossings Community. I feel that way because I'm really being stretched in these areas....teaching, administrating, and casting vision that works. I am more comfortable with my strengths, which are on the opposite end of the spectrum- building relationships, listening, being compassionate, etc. So as a youth worker, I need the last list, but as leader of our group I also need to be adequate in the first set of skills I listed. It's hard.
So what have I learned about teaching the last few months? Well, it needs to be practical. Thats it. Biggest thing I've learned. Teaching must meet people where they are at. Once again- hard. Hard for me because I'm not practical, I get lost in the text. I read, ponder, and read some more, and then continue to ponder about the biblical theology, whether the text means this or that, how much biblical history you need to know to understand Jesus and so on and so forth. HELP! I also spend too much time on seminary websites, searching for something that will help me bring this divine story right down into the practicalness of life. The struggle I have is that the Bible is not practical sometimes. It has great, grand themes of redemption fulfilled in Jesus. So why would a middle schooler care about those things? They don't....unless they see how it practical, how it applies to them somehow.
Soooo....I'm stretch,stretch,stretching.......someday maybe I'll get it together.