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Education, Spirituality and Learning

Ken Robinson’s recent TED talk on “How To Escape Education’s Death Valley” is absolutely brilliant. He addresses some key problems in American education, and more importantly has some great reminders about learning vs. teaching, and the diversity of students in the classroom today. When a standardized test becomes the measuring rod instead of a key diagnostic, we move towards conformity and forget that our children are different and diverse, and there is more than one learning style.

This is actually a problem in the church too. When we believe there is only one way to teach/preach, and we think that spiritual growth is about conformity and not maturity (and there is a vast difference between the two),we will continue to see people leave the church in search of a spiritual experience that better aligns with the way God created them.

In one chapter of my book, Sacred Space, I merge the thoughts of Gordon MacDonald and Gary Thomas who have written about sacred pathways, or leading instincts. These exist within all humanity and are demonstrative of various ways we best connect with God such as:

1. The Student: Loves to study, discuss, expand knowledge, a searcher of truth.
2. The Aesthetic: Loves formality and tradition. Learns best in an atmosphere that reflects beauty, symmetry and respect.
3. The Activist: Loves to learn while doing. Needs to transform information into action.
4. The Charismatic: Loves hands on, tactile experiences that united body, soul and spirit. Learning through all the senses.
5. The Contemplative: Loves to think and chew on process, knowledge and learning. Learning is multiplied through meditation and rumination.
6. The Relational: Loves group activities, group learning, group experience…Learns best in team environments.

It would seem education and the Church behave as if “The Student” is the only pathway that exists. This is not the only pathway and it isn’t the “right” pathway, it is simply one of the pathways that exist. However, those with this leading instinct/pathway seem to be the ones in charge, both in the Church and in the University.

If our endgame is learning and spiritual maturity, we need to leave behind a “No Child Left Behind” mentality that focuses on one type of person and measures success in such a “standardized test” way that ensures success will never happen in light of the diversity of people’s wiring. How do you best learn? Scan that abbreviated list, you will get an idea of the environment in which you best learn.

Let’s acknowledge that all children are different, and therefore one of the most important things we can do to raise the bar in education is to revisit the art of teaching and preaching. As we look at people and students as individuals, and equip teachers to become unleashers of learning, I believe we will see our educational system skyrocket, and people in churches better reflecting the beauty and love of God. Check out the TED Talk.

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Missio Dei or Missio Moi’

Bad things
I was at a conference recently that had a powerful missional heart-beat. As for me, I am incapable of separating and dividing the functions of faith into nice little boxes that we all pick and choose from depending on our preferences. Some like to live in the prayer box while others dwell only in the land of the Bible study box, while others are barricaded in the social action box.

As I look at Jesus, he managed to integrate into his life and ministry all of the faith expressions that most churches separate into distinct expressions, and then try to make Jesus the poster boyt for whatever expression they happen to have, or think is the only right one.

The church, however, is most reflective of Jesus when we integrate all the various passions, instincts and expressions of our faith under a healthy missionality that comes from Jesus Himself. For Jesus His worship and actions all flowed from His purpose, so while He operated in many expressions, His missionality, or His purpose was the thread integrating them all into one. Jesus was not a poster boy for a social Gospel, a Charismatic gospel, An Evangelical Gospel, or a Contemplative Gospel. He was the beloved of His Father, and that is where the compassion that fueled His every action had its origin.

While it seems to me that God has established our prime directive, the reality that we need to have a "missionally-focused" conference tells me that we have missed it somewhere. Perhaps even worse, there are those who don't even see the necessity of the Body of Christ operating from an -others-centeredness. Instead, they see the church primarily as an entity to meet their own person needs and desires.

Which floods my brain with the thought:

We have a dead orthopraxy when the missio dei is subordinated to the missio moi'!

When the Mission of God is subordinated to the Mission of Me, we end up with a religiosity that is self absorbed, unattractive, and completely other than God's plan.

  • Missionality motivated by love gives us the incarnation.
  • Missionality motivated by love gives us Forgiveness and grace when we don't deserve it.
  • Missionality motivated by love gives us the Crucifixion.
  • Missionality motivated by love finally gives us resurrection!

But in church after church I see the missio dei subordinated to the missio moi! In otherwords, it is commonplace to see communities of faith so self-foucused that it has become a rarity for them to follow God's Spirit on a journey that puts their energy, time, and finances into something that doesn't directly benefit them. Then, viola!' we need to have seminars to remind us of the Prime Directive of missionality!

When we become better at justifying why we don't do something missional than we are at saying yes to Divne opportunities of "others-ness" our orthopraxy is dead, our love is selfish, and we have forgotten the Prime Directive Jesus gave us. Over and over again, Jesus directs us to a path of love towards all people.

As we love others because of Christ's love for us, and then allow that to be the motivation behind our actions and involvements with people, we have stepped into the realm of misisonality…we have made movement toward fulfilling our prime directive and consequently we balance all the other faith expressions that the Holy Spirit has given to the Church.

The ancient goal of spiritual formation was the elimination of the "I", or a self-centered spirituality. Instead, words like service, surrender, supplication, and sacrifice were the language and actions of a life formed by the heart of God. The ancients knew that the self-life stood in the way of the Divine-life. An emphasis on taking what God has done internally was automatically connected to extending that awareness outwardly to others.

The practice of humility, simplicity, prayer, meditation, even fasting were not to be an end in-and-of themselves, but rather portals to receiving grace and then the empowerment of the Spirit is within us to extend that grace. Today, we have become masters at taking a practice and creating a denomination.

Maybe a better way to look at it is by comparing our lives to either a bowl or a hose. For many people, their spiritual life is like a bowl. They paint the outside of their bowl so that it is attractive. They take it to places where their bowl can get filled up with all the things that make them happy thinking that "When I fill my bowl with happiness I will have arrived."

Many even fill it with good things like church, family, PTSA, scouts, and prayer. Then add a job, career, cultural toys, stuff & things, you name it, everything goes into the bowl of us. Then when we say to God, "Okay, I'm ready for you to fill my life, lead me, direct me and…guess what? There is no room left in the bowl for God to even wriggle in.

The empowered spiritual life is not about filling our bowl with spiritual stuff, it is about turning our bowl into a hose that becomes a rushing conduit of Christ.

You see a hose works both ways. It can pour out, but it can also pour in. Spiritual disciplines exist not as a bowl filler, but as a way to empty the bowl and then transform it into a holy hose that gushes with the grace of God and waters everyone it comes into contact with.

A hose simply becomes a channel or a conduit for what ever is being poured out through it. A hose really doesn't care about how it looks. only that it is able to maintain the dynamic force that is flowing through it. Similarly, our lives transform from a bowl of religiosity to a channel of grace when we begin to view our beliefs through a missional lense.

When we become that spiritual channel/hose, we are filled with grace, life, goodness, beauty, provision, promise, and everything that is encompassed in Christ. All of those things are given to us as we become willing to allow God to move through us. We create a blockage when we are self-focused, and the result is a waterlogged believer. We have been designed not to merely receive, but also to freely give.

Let's keep the Missio Dei in the pole position to our cultures infatuation with the Missio Moi' and I believe we will see God move in surprising ways!

Dei Gratia,

Monty