A new year has come. What is the Lord going to do this year. We have the opportunity to be a part of what He is doing. How great is that.
Could you take a few minutes and complete this evaluation of the Titus Email? It has been a year since we started sending out this resource email. Your comments will be helpful. Thank you.
1. What is your overall impression of this email?
2. Do you look forward to receive this email?
3. What section(s) are most helpful to you?
4. What section(s) are least helpful?
5. How can this email be more useful to you?
6. Any other thoughts or comments about this email?
TEACHABLE MOMENTS BETWEEN JESUS AND PETER
The power of teachable moments and being in the field (or on the job training) as learning tools do not always get enough credit in the teaching world. It is difficult to measure the amount of learning a person gains this way. Yet Peter gained a lot of understanding when he would make a comment or ask a question. Jesus did not brush these opportunities off but only as a master teacher would do, Jesus captured the moment to help Peter understand what Peter was experiencing at that moment.
Experts indicate that this type of teaching has high retention rates. According to Edgar Dale’s Cone of Experiential Learning, teaching through an experience has a retention rate of 80% to 90% compared to only 5% to 10% if the teaching is done through verbal (lecture) or written means of communication.
Peter saw a great deal of ministry occur by simply being with Jesus. One of the three reasons Jesus selected the apostles (Mark
Questions or comments can open the opportunity for teachable times. On the way to Jairus’ home in Luke 8:40-56, a woman touched the cloak of Jesus and was healed. Jesus was making his way through a pressing crowd so being touched by someone was normal. So when Jesus wanted to know who touched Him, Peter was perplexed when he questioned Jesus. Maybe Peter had low expectations of Jesus, probably thinking Jesus’ comments were silly. Yet Jesus wanted this woman to stand up for her faith.
Then they heard Jairus’ daughter had died. When Jesus got to the house, Peter was one of a few that entered the girl’s room. There the girl was raised from the dead. Peter saw two situations up close where the faith changed lives, while the world thought it was foolishness. He saw what sincere faith did for two families. This potentially was building blocks to his confession that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matthew
When Jesus walked on the water (Matthew
During an explanation of how to deal with conflict and sin (Matthew
As spiritual leaders we need to be aware of teaching opportunities with those whom are under our tutelage. It is far too easy to teach the way we personally are most comfortable with or when we do have someone who has an inquisitive mind, we can brush them off as nosy or hyper. Seek God’s guidance with the people to whom are responsible to teach. This is in any setting, from formal classroom to an unstructured discipling time together.
ILLUSTRATION
Jesus shows us that great teachers know how to punch powerfully at the end, because ultimately, the chief end of teaching is not dispensing knowledge, but challenging people to take up God-directed life change. Outstanding communicators - inside and outside the church – understand that the conclusion is one of the best times to challenge people to life change and action. They understand the importance of recency and lay down the gauntlet clearly and powerfully.
One of the major differences between average teachers and great teachers is that great teachers understand and utilize the power of stories. Thus, great teachers, through the skillful collection, organization and implementation of stories, are able to achieve a heart connection with those they teach. The natural result is life change. Indeed, Jesus used stories to this end.
Therefore, it is critical that we take our teaching cues from Jesus and learn to lean into the power of stories to illustrate biblical truths.
On at least thirty-five different occasions, Jesus taught God’s truth using stories, usually referred to as parables. The first is found in the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew
The Teaching Genius of Jesus
By Bill Allison
YOUTH MINISTRY INSIGHT
Can you remember when you met someone important for the first time? How were you dressed, what did you say, did you trip over your feet? Now you may never have met someone important, so can you recall when you wanted to make a GOOD impression on someone of the opposite sex? You may have brushed your teeth a little bit extra hard that morning, rehearsed what you were going to say when you had the opportunity. For guys, it was a little extra cologne and for the girls, you put on a little extra lip gloss and made sure your hair was all in place.
Ever think about what Jesus’ first impressions were of Simon (Peter)? Here was a guy who was ordinary looking, nothing fancy about his clothing, messy hair and probably smelled like fish, being that he was a fisherman. To his defense, he did not have advance warning that he was going to meet Jesus. Andrew, Simon’s brother came running to him, exclaiming that Andrew had found the Messiah and he had to come immediately to meet Jesus (John
Yet the first thing Jesus says to Simon was not, “Boy, you smell like the lake”! Rather it was that he was getting a name change. “Cephas” or “Peter” was the new name. “Just call me the ‘Rock’”, Simon thought to himself.
What did Jesus see in Peter to make that kind of statement? All along Jesus kept a close listening ear to know what God the Father was doing, so Jesus saw the potential in Peter long before Peter even had a clue to his potential.
What do people see in you? You need to get around positive, influential people who will build qualities into your life, people from whom you can learn skills and character traits. There is a saying, you become like the people you hang around with.
As a sophomore in high school, Michael Jordan did not make the basketball team. His talent level must have been extremely low. Yet his father (and others) believed in him and encouraged him not to quit playing basketball. The rest is history and our enjoyment of one of the greatest basketball players of all time. Michael’s self-fulfilling prophecy was greatly impacted and influenced by his dad.
Who is making a positive influence in your life? Are you hanging around people who encourage and build you up, helping you to make positive decisions? Find an adult or a group of adults (parents, teachers, youth leaders, relatives, friends) who believe in you and see things in you that you do not see in yourself. These people speak positively into your life, though sometimes you may need to be corrected, people who speak wisdom from the Scriptures and genuinely care for you.
Peter’s life was never the same after that first encounter with Jesus. He was used mightily for God’s glory in his life. You have your own opportunity to be used in an awesome way for God. Often it begins with the encouragement of other Christians.
YOUTH MINISTRY ILLUSTRATION
One day a prairie chicken found an egg and sat on it until it hatched. Unbeknownst to the prairie chicken, the egg was an eagle egg, abandoned for some reason. That’s how an eagle came to be born into a family of prairie chickens.
While the eagle is the greatest of all birds, soaring above the heights with grace and ease, the prairie chicken doesn’t even know how to fly. In fact, prairie chickens are so lowly they eat garbage.
Predictably, the little eagle, being raised in a family of prairie chickens, though he was a prairie chicken. He walked around, ate garbage, and clucked like a prairie chicken.
One day he looked up to see a majestic bald eagle soar through the air, dipping and turning. When he asked his family what it was, they responded, “It’s an eagle . But you could never be like that because you are just a prairie chicken.” Then they returned to pecking the garbage. The eagle spent his whole life looking up at eagles, longing to join them among the clouds. It never once occurred to him to lift his wings nad try to fly. The eagle died thinking he was just a prairie chicken.
Application: You were born to fly. But some of you think and act like prairie chickens because the world keeps telling you that’s what you are. God created you “a little lower than the angels” (see psalm 8 and Hebrews 2:7). Do you ever feel like there’s something more to life that what you are expecting? Look up! Lift your wings and fly! God wants you to be all that you were created to be.
The apostle Peter writes in 1 Peter 1:14, “As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.” In other words, “Stop living like eagles who think they are prairie chickens.” You are no longer ignorant. You know who and what you are you are born again through the living and enduring Word of God. Now live that way. Spread your wings and fly.
SCRIPTURE-BASED PRAYERS
To Have Your People Pray For You and Other Pastors
- In Jesus’ name I speak to church hurts, abuse, and ungrateful forces to move. I speak to mountains of criticism and inordinate expectations to be cast into the sea. I speak to stress, excessive phone counseling, and fatigue to be cast into the sea, and I believe every need, vision, and dream of Pastor’s will be completed (Mk. 11:22-24, Phil. 4:19).
- Forgive those who hurt Pastor and speak against him, and may my pastor walk in forgiveness (Eph.
QUOTES ON TEACHABILITY
“You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself.”
Galileo
“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or self-confidence.” Robert Frost
“As long as you’re green, you’re growing. As soon as you’re ripe, you start to rot.”
Ray Kroc
“It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” John Wooden
“I am defeated, and know it, if I meet any human being from whom I find myself unable to learn anything.” Isaac Singer
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” Henry Ford
“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.” Ernest Hemingway
“Sermons should have real teaching in them, and their doctrine should be solid, substantial, and abundant. We do not enter the pulpit to talk for talk’s sake; we have instructions to convey important to the last degree, and we cannot afford to utter petty nothings. Our range of subjects is all but boundless, and we cannot, therefore, be excused if our discourses are threadbare and devoid of substance. If we speak as ambassadors for God, we need never complain of want of matter, for our message is full to overflowing. The entire gospel must be presented from the pulpit; the whole faith once delivered to the saints must be proclaimed by us. The truth as it is in Jesus must be instructively declared so that people may not merely hear, but Know, the joyful sound….Nothing can compensate for the absence of teaching.” Charles Spurgeon
