Teaching Considerations

Today we finished up our Teaching Considerations class which focused on the importance of understanding the tribal context in which we will be ministering in one day. Often times, we may be tempted to pour all our efforts into the content and neglect the context yet both are equally important when teaching God's Word! We do not want to do anything that would cause an unnecessary barrier for a tribal group to hear God's message and, considering the context, can help us to avoid creating such stumbling blocks. For instance, if a tribal group is used to men sitting on one side and women on the other, forcing them to mix may cause uneasiness and distractions. Or teaching in the morning when they are accustomed to having meetings in the evening or vice versa. Or beginning the teaching during their harvest time (if they are an agricultural society) which would be their busiest time of the year so their minds will be on their gardens rather than on the message. There are countless other considerations that we must take into account but these are just a few to give you an idea of the various topics we were discussing in class.

We talked about a variety of topics including such contextualization which is changing the form of the message so that it is understandable to the people but not tampering with the truth. Also enculturation or how knowledge is passed on to others. Along with various stratification in societies like caste, clan, age, class, and others. There were other related topics but these were some of the highlights. For the final exam, we watched a segment from a video documentary that highlighted a tribe along the Amazon in South America and had to identify cultural contexts and the corresponding teaching consideration. For example, that particular tribe believed they were descended from monkeys. Thus, monkeys are an important part of their lives, are kept as pets, and are with them throughout their daily activities. Therefore, it would be a teaching consideration to recognize that there will most likely be monkeys present during the Bible teaching which has the potential of causing quite a distraction!

Today we also started the follow-up class to Teaching Considerations called Curriculum Development which focuses on the content. During this class we will even have the opportunity to create a lesson that takes into account both the context and the content for the same tribe we "visited" in Papua New Guinea which we wrote about in "A Visit to Papua New Guinea." That should be a really neat experience.

As a final thought, we want to leave you with this statement from one of our teachers today, "Nothing is worse than teaching a life-giving lesson in a lifeless way." Something to ponder.

Thank you all for your support and prayers!

Caitlin and Cameron

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