just thoughts

janelle and i went to bridgewater conference on easter sunday afternoon. it was nice to get out. some of the ministry made me think though.

i don't know why it is that just about every time we hear ministry about reverence, our behaviour in meeting is pretty much the main topic. i mean, don't get up to use the toilet, don't chew gum, don't fall asleep...

reverence is something that we do every single day. if we haven't got it monday to saturday, we aren't going to have it on sunday--even if we manage to sit through meeting without going to the toilet or without chewing gum and falling asleep.

the thing about ministry meetings or pretty much any conference meeting is that it's a facility for learning. when people get up on the platform it's to teach the Bible. the main problem with that is that only about a third of the people actually learn very well in a lecture style setting like most ministry meetings and conferences are. so the other two thirds of the people have to either work very hard to understand and to learn from and retain what the preacher is conveying or they get bored and uninterested. and regretably, sometimes the preaching is pretty shoddy. not that i want to knock anyone's preaching because i know it's a tough job, but realistically, it can be and sometimes is ineffective.

so what happens a lot in gospel hall culture is that the audience gets blamed for being uninterested, bored, and incapable of learning when it is quite possible that our whole system of teaching is fundamentally skewed to cater to only a minority of the people.

i'm a visual-kinetic learner, i learn from diagrams and charts and maps and things like that. it takes a lot of effort for me to follow a ministry meeting. especially if i've been up late the night before at a sing and full of delicious, hot food and full of exciting and fun people (like usually happens at conferences).