introduction to christian education: section 5

Law 5The Law

of the Heart

Sunday, 11 August 13

Teaching that impacts is not

head to head, but heart to heart


What is the heart in biblical understanding?

Not the mushy, imprecise thing we hear of today.

Deut 6:4-6

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.


In Hebrew thought heart embraced the totality of your personality - your intellect, emotions and will.

Therefore the process of teaching is,

“one personality transformed by the supernatural grace of God, reaching out to transform other personalities by the same grace.”


Character-Compassion-Content

Socrates summarised communication using three words;

Ethos - character

Pathos - compassion

Logos - content


Character for Socrates, meant establishing the credibility of the teacher, your credentials.

Who you are is far more important that what you say or do because it determines what you say or do.

People listen to you because of who you are.


Compassion, meant how the teacher arouses the passions and emotions of the students.

Emotions run in the direction of action.

So motivation comes out of emotions as God created us as emotional beings.


Logos was the word used by Socrates for content; as used in John 1;1-2

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning ...The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

When God wanted to speak to us he put his message in a person. As teachers we follow the same principle.


You can teach without character, without compassion and without content - but how would that make students feel?!



The teachers character produces the learners

confidence



The teachers character produces the learners

confidence

Ask: Is there something you see in the life of your teachers that makes you think there is something significant they can

contribute to you?Sunday, 11 August 13

Most importantly you should be trustworthy as a teacher.You should not be a liar.As a teacher ask yourself:

“What kind of person am I?”


As a teacher your compassion produces the learners motivation.

If I think you love me I will be more eager to do things for you.

The disciples were motivated (and drawn to him) by the love they saw Jesus had for them.


How do you feel about people?

Do they bother you?

Do they challenge you?

Do you like people?

Do they threaten you?


Your content produces the learners perception

You as the teacher have seen something - now I as the learner see it. It has to become part of ‘me’, I discover it, it is now mine.

Good teachers have great heart


The Teaching-Learning Process

What is teaching, what is learning?

A very simple definition: Teaching is causing people to learn

The relationship between the teaching and learning process is inseparable - if the learner has not learned we have not taught.


The Teaching-Learning Process

As a teacher your

effectiveness is determined or tested by what

the student does as a result of your actions.


Simplest definition of learning: learning is change

- a change in your thinking

- a change in your feeling

- a change in your behaviour.

(Mind, will, emotions)


And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

Romans 8:28-29


Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Romans 12:1-2Sunday, 11 August 13

Put the two passages together and you see God’s plan - you are made to be like Jesus, not like the world.

How does this happen?

By the renewing of your mind.

It is radical change

Then after receiving this revelation from God you are responsible for what you do with it.


Where Learning Begins

Hendricks,

“All learning begins at

the feeling level”


Where Learning Begins

Hendricks,

“All learning begins at

the feeling level”

A person has a positive attitude - they accept what they hear; if a negative attitude they reject it.

If I feel negatively about you - I reject what you are saying as I have rejected you.


If I like you - and if I know you are interested in me - you can get me to do incredible things. And there is also a possibility that I’m going to like your Lord, who made you the way you are.


If I like you - and if I know you are interested in me - you can get me to do incredible things. And there is also a possibility that I’m going to like your Lord, who made you the way you are.

No one cares about what you know until they know

that you careDo you agree?


Hendricks suggests that your need is to win the heart of the student.

Imagine each student with a gun in their hand - you job is to take the gun and lay it down - you do this by relationship with them. You do it by establishing rapport so that your student is free to interact with you on the subject you are teaching.

You do it by touching heartsSunday, 11 August 13

•Tell them you will pray for them, and will be there for them

•Take them out for a coke, say you know how hard it is to be a teenager

•Admire something about them - like shoes

In effect Hendricks suggests you try to show you are on the same team.

Hedndricks suggests you cannot ignore a persons attitude - but you can work to change it.How would you work to change the mind / attitude of a student?


•Tell them you will pray for them, and will be there for them

•Take them out for a coke, say you know how hard it is to be a teenager

•Admire something about them - like shoes

In effect Hendricks suggests you try to show you are on the same team.


Never forget the Facts

Remember content is important

What you believe - and therefore teach - is vital in determining your behaviour.

So if you believe correctly - you will behave correctly.

We believe the Bible is God’s revelation to mankind - and that God wants us to understand it by studying it.


Christianity is based on facts - 1 Cor. 15

Christ died

He was buried

He rose from the dead

He appeared to certain people

Knowing the facts (in the right order) is critically important.


Until the mind has been changed, and the emotions have been changed, and the will has been changed, biblical teaching has not taken place.


How do we apply what has been said in teaching our class?


How do we apply what has been said in teaching our class?

We must be a personof impact


1. Know your Students

Repeating what was said in an earlier section.

If you know their needs - you are better able to meet them.

The price tag is commitment and time!


Get personally involved with students - inside and outside of the class. Stay late, be ‘around’, be involved, stay with them, let them see the real you...


Get personally involved with students - inside and outside of the class. Stay late, be ‘around’, be involved, stay with them, let them see the real you...

You can impress people at a

distance. But you can impact them only up close.


2. Earn the right to be heard

Credibility always precedes communication.

Ordinary people get extraordinary ministries because they have earned this right - they are not celebrities but they are life changers.

Win the right to be heard


3. Be willing to become vulnerable before your students

Let them know what you are struggling with - and what you have struggled with for years.

Would this work in India?


Tell them how you struggled with age related issues.

Most people see you as how you are now - not where you have come from - they did not see the process


So time passes once again and we must bid one another

adieu - study hard my friends and remember that hopefully

we shall soon meet again


introduction to christian education: section 5

Spiritual

teachers character

great heart

teachinglearning process

process of teaching

things god

good teachers

supernatural grace of

hebrew thought heart