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Growing Times articles are provided on this website for your personal ministry educational purposes. New articles rotate on this page monthly. To receive new Growing Times articles in your e-mail box, please sign up on our contact page. |
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Speed Teaching In the fourth law, The Law of Retention, in his Book “The Seven Laws of the Learner”, Bruce Wilkinson describes what he calls speed teaching. He states, “Just as a person can learn to quadruple his reading speed, so a teacher can quadruple her teaching speed.” more |
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Growing Times is published for your personal ministry use. You may print copies of Growing Times for distribution in your church for training purposes only. Reproducing Growing Times in whole or in part for publication or sale is strictly prohibited under U.S. copyright laws. The Growing Times logo and format are registered properties of George Yates and SonC.A.R.E. Ministries and is produced for churches with a heart for equipping present and future leaders. |
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Be A Good Bible Study Chef
You can watch the gourmet chefs on TV prepare their dishes. You will notice a lot of time is spent on the presentation of the dish. The chef is concerned with how the customer is “wowed” by the looks of the dish when it is first set before him/her. more |
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Christ's Awareness Raised Everyday |
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Growing Times |
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More Growing Times Articles · Learning From the Preschool Classroom · The Styles Family—Learning Styles
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Creativity: It’s in the Hands of the Creator “I could never be as creative as you...” The truth is, I am no more creative than the next person. Most of my ideas and “creative” works are variations of something I have seen, read about, or experienced in another venue. “Every thought that’s in my head, Every word that I have said, has been said before.” (The Who) more |
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Monthly Feature Article |
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Are Your Class Doors Open for Business? Friends since high school, James and Earl dreamed of owning their own business. Often, they would get together and discuss this possible business venture. They watched their community and realized a great need for a business like the one in their minds. One day they got serious about this venture, realizing the need was growing every day. They sat down, made plans, and began to meet regularly discussing business plans. Their plan was coming together. James and Earl purchased a building and the needed equipment, put up a sign, and continued meeting weekly reviewing and rewriting their business plan. Each week they would discuss different parts of their plan and how to execute it. Each week they would leave feeling good that they had been together discussing the good their business could do for the neighborhood and beyond. However, the people of the neighborhood did not know what was inside this building in their neighborhood. Weeks, months, and years went by and the neighborhood changed. The culture was changing, too. Soon, there was no desire in the community for a business like the one James and Earl had dreamed of and planned for. People of the neighborhood passed by the empty building day after day not knowing or realizing the potential inside the building. James and Earl continued to meet weekly discussing but never realizing the potential that lay just beyond the walls of their building. It is a sad scenario, yet played out every week in churches across our nation. We purchase land, build nice buildings, meet weekly to plan and strategize the “how to” of our business (God’s work), yet we fail to do one thing. At least we fail to do it effectively. We fail to go out and tell the community of what great potential lies ahead if they would take advantage of what we have to offer (in Christ). Come in and see. James and Earl never opened their door for business. Are the church doors open for business? Are your class doors open for business? Do your class members know it? It is time to go out and “compel them to come in.” Today is the day. Now is the time. Let us go “Beyond the Walls”! .
“How will they know, lest someone should tell them.” |
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What is Good For Children’s Leaders is Good For All Ages Bible Study classes should not be boring. It is about the greatest news ever! It should be invigorating and exciting. We should be creating good memories for our attendees. Those who minister to children through Bible Study classes profoundly affect the kind of adult Christians those children become. more |
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A partial answer to this question is relevancy. While this is not a complete answer, without relevancy in a persons life, a church or any organization will never reach this person. Let’s face it, you and I are the same as anyone else. If it is not relevant to me, I will not likely attend on a regular basis.
A lot of people love hockey. I have never played hockey, have never been to a hockey game, and really have no desire to attend one. I have nothing against hockey, but it is not relevant to me. It is not of interest to me. I might enjoy hockey if I took interest in it. But I have a lot of other interests that I would rather spend my time on. I have a lot of sporting interests. These things are relevant to me. There are not many men into knitting or crocheting (I honestly do not know the difference). This is just not relevant to men. Sports, cars, and music are more relevant to men.
If we as the church desires to reach and keep people coming back we must be relevant in our approach to the different groups in our community. Age is only one aspect. But have you considered the difference in relevancy of various ages of the adult population in your community? In his book, “The Improvement of Teaching in the Sunday School,” Gaines Dobbins lists adults in these four stages:
· 18-24 period of adjustment · 25-34 age of achievement · 35-50 years of attainment · 51+ time of appraisement
It is important to understand that we can minister to all ages yet to be relevant in the lives of each generation takes on a different meaning. The relevance issues of a 64 year and a 24 year old are worlds apart. Relevant issues for one include beginning a career, starting a family, building a foundation. For the other it is closing down a career, medical issues, and physical health limitations.
Age is only one factor for relevancy. If only accepting the challenge of this one factor of relevance your ministry can accomplish much. Knowing your people, the people in your class, your church and your community is key. Instead of telling the community what we “think” is relevant, should we not first find the relevant needs in their lives?
When I read the gospels, I find relevance at the entry point of every ministry encounter of Jesus. I believe Jesus had a pretty fruitful ministry, don’t you agree? Relevancy—this is ministry that changes lives. This is ministry that Bears Fruit.
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Relevancy in Reaching and Keeping Adults
How are some churches and Sunday School classes growing and apparently effectively ministering to certain age groups of adults and others cannot? |
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Have you ever walked into the aisle of a small hardware store and noticed everything covered in dust? I am talking about dust on dust on dust. I’ve seen dust so thick that you could not read the writing on the package. My first thought is, “How do they expect to sell anything in this condition?” Have you ever been in a bowling alley or other independently owned business and noticed cracks in the floor, broken floor tiles, or torn places in carpet, and perhaps even broken window panes. Other businesses are so cluttered and disorganized that it is difficult to shop. Perhaps like me and many others you wonder how these places can stay in business. If we were to look at our churches and our class rooms with the same eyes, we might see many of the same situations. I know you do not want to believe that about your class room, but it is true of many of our churches. We tend to overlook what we get use to seeing. What may start out as a small stack of left over quarterlies turns into a stockpile of previous years lessons. And the posters –if we take them off the walls– start another pile in another corner of the room. And that small stand at the front of the room was placed there for the teacher to place her two markers and eraser. Now on it lies three different Bibles left behind, several magazines, greeting cards, and a stack of unused napkins. And what about the carpet ravels, the scuffed up floors, and walls? “Oh, that light? That one hasn’t worked for three years!” I have been in many of our churches and seen these and other circumstances including broken windows covered with cardboard and plastic, yet none of the members could remember how long the window had been in this state of disrepair. If your church has a light fixture that isn’t working, instead of calendaring how long it has not worked, why not ask, “What can we do to get this light operating again. You and your fellow members may be use to the unlit area. But to a guest it is an area of darkness. Darkness represents the unknown and most people do not wish to venture into the unknown. You see, it is easy to overlook these things because we are use to seeing them this way. We may see the disrepair at first, but after walking past it for a time it becomes the natural to us and we tend to overlook the obvious need to repair. However, to a guest this is like walking into a hardware store with dust so thick they want to ask, “How can you as a church stay in business?” What message are we sending to our guests and new members? Broken floor tiles and window panes, torn carpet, piles of clutter, broken light fixtures, dust and cob webs speak loudly to others about you as a church. And the voice heard is this, “We (the church) do not care about our facility.” The human mind hears this as we do not care. In other words by leaving things in disrepair we are telling guests and visitors, “We do not care about you.”
It is time to take a walk-thru (with the eyes of a guest) and see what can be discarded and what can be cleaned up, painted, or repaired to make your room more appropriate for a teaching/learning environment. .
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Would Your Learners Carry On Without You? The gospels demonstrate how close Jesus was to His disciples. From our reading we can assume they virtually lived together day and night for more than three years. Jesus knew the worth of His learners. The disciples were not merely means of Jesus’ ministry. more |
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Learning Through Expressed Experience Learning is validated and manifested through expressed experience. Parents and early childhood educators realize children are learning when they begin to name colors and point them out correctly. In school, teachers recognize learning is taking place as children begin to form letters into words and words into sentences,...more |
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Become an Enabler 10:30 Sunday morning: “Whew. That’s done for another week. I think it went rather well. We didn’t get sidetracked too much, and there were no questions that I couldn’t answer...be certain you are providing all that you can to enable the leaders in your care to be the very best they can be. more |
