my goodness.

Rob Bell on teaching

Weekly teaching can be destructive to creativity.

I don't teach something that has not been a part of me for six months to a year. Think about it, if I asked you to talk about your wedding or something else that has changed you, would you really need notes?

What would happen if on Monday morning you sat at your computer and instead of staring at blank screen, you're already looking at ten teachings that could take place and decidiing which one was the most ready to be taught, or most needed to be taught?

The best messages are not purchased off a shelf or a website, but are grown in your own backyard.

As a teacher, you need to live with a text - allow it to ferment in you, take up residence in you - then connections begin to be made.

We have people who can sing notes, but where are the soul singers? The pulpit has been the home of technicians and analysts, but where are the prophets and poets - the wide eyed crazy people? Teaching should be a dangerous and daring art form, not a science.

The Bible is about real people in real places in real times. It's taking place in an on-going historical narrative. What we need to remember is that we are in the same historical flow. Teaching is about connecting real people in real places in real times with us, here, today. We live in the same flow of what God is doing in history.

Your job is the relentless pursuit of who God made you to be... to be about anything else is sin.

Are you teaching because you have to say something, or because you have something to say? People, especially outside of "Christianity" know when you are passionate. That kind of passion makes them say, "Maybe this stuff really did happen."