Everyday obstacles, Part 4: Education, training and discipleship
/Dave is a truck driver who participated in some Bible studies I led a while ago. He struggled through school, and his negative experience of education has affected how he views himself.
Sometimes when I asked Dave a question about the Bible passage we were looking at, he would say, ‘I don’t know, Andrew, I’m just a dumb truck driver.’
It was a way for Dave to protect himself from failure. But was it true?
Absolutely not! It was a lie that Dave learned from our education system and society.
How do I know it wasn’t true? When pressed to give an answer, Dave often shared the same insights into the passage that I had read in the commentary I had used to prepare for the study, written by an Old Testament academic with a PhD.
Further, Dave’s hobby is to take apart old cars, rebuild them, get them registered and sell them. It’s not the sort of thing a ‘dumb’ person could do.
The education problem
Dave’s experience of education is all too familiar for many everyday people.
Their view of themselves as inferior, incorrect though it is, has been compounded by many university-educated people’s belief that it is true and by their struggle to thrive in a school system that was geared towards those who would go on to university.
This makes it extremely hard for everyday people like Dave to believe that they could ever contribute in Word ministries or leadership in local churches run by ‘professional’ people.
And this further contributes to them thinking, ‘I don’t belong here.’
For lots of everyday people, education on the whole has not been a positive experience. It has not provided them with a career, an honoured identity or a higher paying job. In many instances, they have ‘failed’ at school.
Did they ‘fail’ because they are less intelligent or less capable than others? Many people – both everyday people and university-educated people – assume so.
Training and discipleship at the local church level
The ways of learning valued by university-educated people have significantly shaped how we approach the discipleship and training of our members in Reformed evangelical churches.
If a brother is having marriage difficulties, he is given a book to read.
If someone wants to learn how to share their faith with others or preach a sermon, there is a plethora of good books recommended to help them on their way.
At church weekends away and conferences, those who are keen to grow are encouraged to buy books from the bookstall.
Of course, in itself this is not a bad thing. Books are often filled with helpful ideas and knowledge. (So are blog articles!) They can help us to grow in knowledge and understanding of God and his Word and ways to serve him.
But what happens if you find reading slow or difficult, and it’s not an effective way of getting things into your head?
The book on marriage will remain mostly unread and fail to help you in your marriage.
You will believe that in order to be a mature Christian, you need to be a ‘book person’.
You may naturally conclude that you are not the sort of Christian who could ever be a leader or help others follow Christ.
What’s more, if all the discipleship and training in your church relies on you being a good reader, and you just don’t learn well that way, you may stagnate in your growth as a Christian.
Alternatively, you’ll go and find another church where your reading ability is not the measure of your ability to love and serve God and grow in your faith.
Don’t hear me saying that reading is not important. We are people of God’s Word. He reveals himself to us in written language.
Formal training for paid Christian leadership
So if it’s difficult for everyday people to be participants in discipleship programs in their own local congregations, imagine the barriers that must be overcome – at an institutional and denominational level – if we are to raise up everyday Christians to be leaders and teachers in our churches.
Most Reformed evangelical denominations have chosen to provide training for their leaders and teachers solely through the Higher Education sector. This has arisen out of the belief that Higher Education is the superior form of tertiary education and training, and in many circles the only legitimate form of training for Christian ministry and leadership.
Trent’s experience
While I was studying at theological college, I became good mates with a guy called Trent. He was not the norm in our year. He hadn’t been to university, unlike the vast majority of students. He was a carpenter.
In second year, Trent got an essay back. The lecturer who marked it said he had done a good job, considering English was his second language.
The only problem was that Trent only spoke English.
The lecturer had assumed that Trent was an international student because his grammar and spelling were not at the standard he expected of a native English speaker.
I told Trent that I thought the comment was a bit rough.
He replied, ‘It feels like a kick in the guts.’
I responded, ‘Why can’t we train you for ministry in the same way you learned your trade?’
‘I don’t know, but it would be far better than this,’ he said.
Trent is one of a handful of everyday people who have struggled their way through a university degree in order to be accepted as a pastor in a Reformed evangelical church. But he felt like a square peg being pushed through a round hole, because his learning preferences were not suited to the learning environment he was in.
Many everyday people don’t thrive in a Higher Education model of training that focuses on reading and writing and lectures.
And so we have created a very effective ‘filter’ for the sorts of people who train for leadership and paid ministry in our churches, with mainly university-educated professionals going into formal leadership roles.
How does this affect our churches’ capacity to make disciples of everyday people?
Professionals tend to lead churches according to their culture and learning preferences, building communities that attract people like them and risking alienating those who are different from them.
Like attracts like, and so we find ourselves in Reformed evangelical churches made up predominantly of university-educated professionals.
What is concerning is that Reformed evangelical churches in the developing world are seeking to model their training of pastors on what is done in the West. This could well lead to these churches in the developing world being places only for the educated, wealthy elite.
We need everyday people in leadership positions in our churches to help overcome this obstacle. We need to make sure our churches don’t look like places reserved for society’s elite.
It’s uncomfortable to think about class divisions like this in the context of Christian ministry, isn’t it? But it would be even worse to let it keep being a blind spot.
This article is one of a series that I’ve written about making disciples of ‘everyday people’.
It can be read on its own, but if you’d like to gain a greater understanding of how my thoughts around this important topic have developed, you may wish to read the full series of articles in order.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™