Church Tech: Why Have Technology in Ministry: The Missing Factor
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How can a pastor be sure everyone in his/her church is learning to their fullest potential?
In what ways can a pastor promote optimum learning and spiritual growth?
Is Learning Happening? This is a critical question that I feel every pastor needs to ask and to determine by assessing the congregation. Pastor, are your members remembering what you are teaching? Are they implementing their learning / your teaching into their daily practices? If not, what's missing? Do you know how your members learn?
Two Sides. Just like a coin cannot exist with only one side, neither can teaching and learning be separate. An education setting, such as church services and preaching, involves both teaching and learning. One side is teaching, that is, how subject material is presented. The other side is learning, that is, how the material is being received, which includes listeners’ learning styles, and retention. Teaching involves the giving of information in a certain order, and learning involves the receiving and retention of information. Don't confuse the two--they are NOT the same.
On the teaching side, many pastors or ministry leaders are expertly taught how to PREPARE materials—methods of spiritual study, meditation, sermon preparation, and the like. Pastors are also taught how to PRESENT materials in an orderly sequence—expository, topical, thematic, narrative, etc. BUT the missing factor is the other side of the coin. Pastors have little or no training on how information is LEARNED—that is, received, remembered, comprehended, and applied.The Missing Factor. Seminaries, bible colleges, and pastoral preparation programs all invariably teach the prepare and present parts. As a professor in a Bible college, this author has personally yet to encounter a pastoral preparation program that equally includes the educational side on HOW MATERIALS ARE LEARNED.
Consider This Testimony. In the words of Pastor M.H. from Virginia, “I approached the manager of a local Shoney’s and was told it would be fine to display our free messages. I will never forget, I placed the first messages there on a Tuesday and on Thursday night after service, I received a call from a girl on a pay phone and she was crying. She began telling me her life was a mess and that she had picked up a CD at a local Shoney’s and had listened to it over and over. She said it spoke to her about all she was going through. I listened to her and prayed for her, and at the end of our conversation, she accepted Christ as her Saviour. I then knew this was the right thing to do.”
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Messages-To-Go — Spread God’s Word!What is the Power of a Recorded Message? One preacher in the U.S. received a call from another pastor in Europe asking if he could travel across the ocean to preach his sermon series in Europe. As the story unfolded, the U.S. pastor was very surprised to receive such a call, and asked the European pastor where he got that sermon CD, because he had preached that particular sermon about 10 years ago. When the two pastors tracked down the travels of the CD from each of their departure and arrival points, it turned out that the disc made its way from the States to Mexico, from Mexico to South America, from South America across the Atlantic Ocean to Africa, and from Africa across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. Just think of all the people’s lives that God’s Word touched across those continents and through various countries in the northern and southern hemispheres—all because the U.S. pastor RECORDED THE SERMON and GAVE IT AWAY!!! Did he ever imagine such a scenario while preaching the sermon 10 years earlier?
Messages-To-Go — Spread God’s Word!
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Consider a Teacher In School. An expert teacher knows that the same activities need to be taught in different ways to different kinds of students, and repeated often enough until they are mastered. Conversely, teaching an activity the wrong way or in the wrong order will cause learning failure. Even the best teacher’s skills can be ineffective if (s)he violates the learning styles of students or learning sequences within the subject matter. And guess what? Old-fashioned REPETITON in cleverly repeated ways so as to be non-boring is the best learning method.Repeated Listening. In the testimony above, please note the girl’s words, “listened to it over and over.” Without any further explanation, just ask yourself one question, “If that pastor had given his sermon the usual one-time aural presentation from a pulpit and had not recorded it, would this precious girl have become a citizen of Heaven?”
So, Pastor, DO YOU RECORD and DISSEMINATE your messages (God’s Word)?
START NOW — Messages-To-Go — Spread God’s Word!
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