Day Three

Today in our discussion we spent our time in four areas: appropriate teaching techniques for differing ages, creativity in teaching, evaluating our teaching/preaching, and employing the HBLT approach in post-Christian contexts. In the first block, characteristics of adults, adolescents, older/younger children, and toddlers were presented. Then, based on that knowledge, some "Do's" related to each age group were offered. For instance, since adolescents are searching for and beginning to establish their personal identity, do create an environment where questioning is okay.

The second block of time was really interesting, in that it began with a phone interview with a staff member from Saddleback. He shared some of the details in their approach to a creative teaching experience for youth. It was great.

Not much to say about evaluation.

Teaching HBLT in a post-Christian environment: I don't see any problem with it. Sometimes I think that we need to leave questions hanging to allow people to come to terms with a truth or passage on their own, but that's not necessarily unique to young people with cool hair. That's probably good for all people of all ages at least some of the time.

Finally, I've been asked to post my favorite web sites with spiritual stuff. Here you go:

1) http://www.puritansermons.com/ Come on. You think I'm going to leave this one off of the list? There is a depth in these men that I beg God to create in me. The sermons are relatively short, and they aren't so antiquated in language that you can't read them with a little concentration. Spend the effort. It's worth it. As Piper says, these men are the redwoods of our faith. There's a wide scope of topics covered, works from many different puritans, and biographical information on a number of them.

2) http://www.tracts.ukgo.com/index.htm This site contains writings from some of my heroes--Edwards, Whitefield, and Spurgeon, and many others. It also has links to some other great resources such as The Banner of Truth Trust (which prints books no one else does), Desiring God (John Piper's website--check out his podcast on Romans), and The Martyn Lloyd-Jones Recording Trust (arguably the best preacher in the UK in the last 100 years--you can listen to sermons delivered over 50 years ago--amazing).

3) http://faith.propadeutic.com/authors/authors.html This is a Christian author database which contains authors from every end of the theological spectrum, and spans from ancient to contemporary writers. Click on a name, and you'll get a summary paragraph about some of their significant beliefs, writings, ministries, etc. It's quite helpful to check someone out that you've never heard of before. Warning: this site paints with broad strokes, and doesn't always characterize people with 100% accuracy. But it's still a good way to quickly investigate several people you heard mentioned in a conversation, but were too proud to admit you had no idea who's being critiqued.

4) http://www.wholesomewords.org/biography/bio.html This is a fundamentalist website. I'm not a fundamentalist. However, I love reading biographies of heroes of the faith, and they have a pretty good collection here. It's worth checking out.

5) http://www.the-highway.com/index.html OK, it is poorly designed with weird music. And I can't say that everything there is good, b/c I have no idea. However, a few pages are quite interesting: Calvinism and the Reformed Faith, Notable Sermons, and Predestination. If you are interested in studying Reformation theology, this site has a lot of historical resources. I list it #5 on purpose.

Finally, (I know that this is more than five) everyone in a teaching ministry needs to be aware of the following sites: www.biblegateway.com ; www.crosswalk.com ; www.bible.org ; www.oneplace.com ; www.sermonspice.com ; and www.sermonaudio.com . That's all I have to say about that.