NEWS: UNIVERSITY EVENTS: INCREASE YOUR LEARNING CURVE
Increase Your Learning Curve
Mar 11, 2010
This essay on the learning curve in ministry by Dr Evertt W Huffard, VP/Dean, appeared in the spring 2010 edition of The Bridge. Access The Bridge here.
In 1885, Hermann Ebbinghaus published Memory and became a pioneer in psychology with research on the “forgetting curve” and the “learning curve.” Both exponentially impact memory.
According to him, we forget much the first 20 minutes, more after an hour, and then it evens off after a day. (So next week you may only remember reading this article but not remember what I wrote.) As for our rate of learning, the sharpest increase comes after the first try and becomes less effective after each attempt.
So, give it all you’ve got the first time!
Studying at HUGSR and involvement in ministry greatly improves the effects of the learning curve. We cannot afford to ignore the learning curve; we celebrate it and accelerate it. It defines kingdom business.
Disciples call it a cross they accept daily. Here are my reflections on learning curves in ministry that cry out for vision and training:
In Biblical Studies: The excitement of discovering new insights on a biblical text or book after reading a commentary or hearing a gifted speaker is not the same as learning Hebrew and Greek and developing a reliable hermeneutic of the Word.
In Campus Ministry: Planning meaningful activities for university students and connecting to their life issues will call for skills in philosophy, wisdom, counseling, and conflict management if these students are ever to develop the discipline for building strong families and a healthy church life.
In Church Planting: The thrill of starting something new quickly cools in the face of limited resources, discouraging responses, and long nights of spiritual struggles with new believers who seem so far from becoming mature church leaders.
In Counseling: The heart to help people get better or have a better marriage aches in the face of people who come to you with really deep, complex problems. Giving hope requires professional skills to override destructive emotions.
In Evangelism: The noble goal we all share of bringing the lost to Christ increasingly requires more patience, openness for spiritual conversation, and hospitality than most people in the pew know how to give. Therefore, the skills needed for creating a church culture for outreach and acceptance of infant believers usually don’t come naturally.
In Missions: Short-term missions seem so clean and neat that we may assume long-term missions are just more of the same. Even the missionary kid who returns to the “field” realizes that prior cultural experience will not flatten the learning curve for doing ministry among adults in a culture where he/she lived as a kid. They still learn to cope with the challenges of culture shock, relevant teaching of the Word, and leadership development.
In Preaching: The most gifted speaker, with the natural ability to interest and inspire people, will still find an empty bucket. Preaching deep and wide will flow from a discipline that appreciates a weekly learning curve in the Word, community, and inner-life development.
In Shepherding: The learning curve that comes with fatherhood does not compare to the learning curve of being an elder in a culture where individualism and entertainment prevail.
In Teaching: It is one thing to study and understand a complex and deep topic, but quite another thing to get others interested in that topic or deliver it in such a way that learning actually takes place.
In Youth Ministry: Loving our teens and keeping them out of trouble is not enough to adequately connect them to the mission of Christ in their young adult years for a lifetime within the body of Christ.
Learning curve theory tells me that left to myself, it will be difficult to succeed in any of these areas. Our alumni show me that hope abounds for effective service in any one of these areas with appropriate training, mentoring, and spiritual formation.
